The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani
…gripping…What kicks The Girl in the Red Coat out of the loop of familiarity is Ms. Hamer's keen understanding of her two central characters: Carmel and her devastated mother, Beth, who narrate alternating chapters…Both emerge as individuals depicted with sympathy but also with unsparing emotional precision…By cutting back and forth between Carmel and Beth's perspective, Ms. Hamer not only builds suspense but delineates the complicated bonds of love, dependency and resentment that bind mother and daughter. Their separation underscores their need for each other, while muffling memories of their sometimes tense, even testy relationship.
Publishers Weekly - Audio
★ 05/30/2016
Beth is a divorced mom in England who lives in fear that her eight-year-old daughter, Carmel, who has a tendency to wander, will go missing. Her nightmare comes true when a wily, fanatical preacher kidnaps Carmel and takes her to America. The chapters alternate between Beth’s heartbreaking search for her daughter and attempts to continue life without her, and Carmel’s strange adventure and struggle to adapt, survive, and maintain her identity far from home. Voice actress Beamish’s narration is superb, particularly in Carmel’s chapters: at first, she narrates in a child’s voice, but gradually she begins to sound like a teenager, and then, eventually, she starts to speak in an American accent. Beamish also perfectly conveys Carmel’s personality and thought process: she is a naive child, yet also observant and intelligent, trying to piece things together and learn the truth, and determined to hold on to her true name, identity, and memories no matter what. In Beth’s chapters, Beamish vividly conveys the heartbreaking sorrow, fear, hope, and guilt of a mother who has lost her child. The excellent voice narration makes this riveting novel even more powerful on audio. A Melville House hardcover. (Feb.)
Publishers Weekly
★ 01/11/2016
British single mother Beth knows her eight-year-old daughter, Carmel, has a tendency to wander—at a local corn maze, on school trips—but one foggy day, the girl vanishes at a local festival and cannot be found. A man who claims to be Carmel's grandfather convinces her that Beth has been in a terrible accident, so Carmel leaves the fairgrounds with him and winds up at a secluded home with the man and his female companion, Dorothy. As Beth frantically searches and slowly isolates herself from the outside world, Carmel is told after careful manipulation that her mother has died, and soon finds herself in America with her new "grandparents," who work as spiritualist healers. Carmel fights to remember her past, but as time passes and she crisscrosses the country, her old life begins to fade. It takes everything in her to remember her name, her address, and her parents. Hamer's spectacular debut skillfully chronicles the nightmare of child abduction. Telling the story in two remarkable voices, with Beth's chapters unfurling in past tense and Carmel's in present tense, the author weaves a page-turning narrative. The trajectories of the novel's two leads—through despair, hope, and redemption—are believable and nuanced, resulting in a morally complex, haunting read. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
An ELLE Lettres Readers' Prize Winner
“Kate Hamer’s gripping debut novel immediately recalls the explosion of similarly titled books and movies, from Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels, to The Girl on the Train to Gone Girl … What kicks The Girl in the Red Coat out of the loop of familiarity is Ms. Hamer’s keen understanding of her two central characters: Carmel and her devastated mother, Beth, who narrate alternating chapters … Both emerge as individuals depicted with sympathy but also with unsparing emotional precision.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“This stunning debut...has the propulsion of a thriller.” —People
“Every sentence in Kate Hamer's debut is so perceptive that you're torn between wanting to linger on the thought and itching to learn what happens next...The taut plot alternates between Carmel's emotional struggle to survive and Beth's refusal to believe that her daughter is gone forever. Meanwhile, their complex yet unbreakable bond is rendered with honesty and love.”—Oprah.com
“Keeps the reader turning pages at a frantic clip . . . What’s most powerful here is not whodunit, or even why, but how this mother and daughter bear their separation, and the stories they tell themselves to help endure it.” —Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You
“Hamer’s book is a moving, voice-driven narrative. As much an examination of loss and anxiety as it is a gripping page-turner, it’ll appeal to anyone captivated by child narrators or analyses of the pains and joys of motherhood.” —Huffington Post
“Riveting. Worth the hype.”—Book Riot
“Compulsively readable . . . Beautifully written and unpredictable . . . I had to stop myself racing to the end to find out what happened . . . Kate Hamer catches at the threads of what parents fear most—the abduction of a child—and weaves a disturbing and original story. There is menace in this book, lurking in the shadows on every page, but also innocence, love, and hope.” —Rosamund Lupton, author of Sisters
“Gripping and sensitive—beautifully written, The Girl in the Red Coat is a compulsive, aching story full of loss and redemption.” —Lisa Ballantyne, author of The Guilty One
“[A] spectacular debut … Telling the story in two remarkable voices, with Beth’s chapters unfurling in past tense and Carmel’s in present tense, the author weaves a page-turning narrative. The trajectories of the novel’s two leads—through despair, hope, and redemption—are believable and nuanced, resulting in a morally complex, haunting read.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Reading this novel is a test of how fast you can turn pages.” —Library Journal, starred review
“Hamer’s lush use of language easily conjures fairy-tale imagery, especially of dark forests and Little Red Riding Hood. Although a kidnapped child is the central plot point, this is not a mystery but a novel of deep inquiry and intense emotions. Hamer’s dark tale of the lost and found is nearly impossible to put down and will spark much discussion.” —Booklist, starred review
“Poignantly details the loss and loneliness of a mother and daughter separated...Fast-paced ... Hamer beautifully renders pain, exactly capturing the evisceration of loss...Exquisite prose surrounding a mother and daughter torn apart.” —Kirkus Reviews
Library Journal - Audio
★ 05/01/2016
Hamer and narrator Antonia Beamish offer edge-of-your-seat listening in this debut. Set in England and the United States and told by mother/daughter narrators in alternating chapters, the work is fraught with suspense and a pervasive sense of dread. Eight-year-old Carmel is kidnapped from her small English town; Beth, her recently divorced, very insecure mother, is bereft. Carmel finds herself in the company of a shady preacher and his entourage as they travel across the States. Hamer reveals a complex plot as the victims are molded into survivors by fear, despair, growth, courage, and acceptance. Outstanding characterization by Beamish contributes to listeners' empathy and concern for Beth and Carmel. VERDICT Listeners will find themselves thinking of this novel for a while. ["Hamer…is a natural storyteller who writes with such a sense of drama, compulsion, and sympathy that most readers will devour this work in one or two sittings": LJ 2/1/16 starred review of the Melville House hc.]—Sandra C. Clariday, Cleveland, TN
Library Journal
★ 02/01/2016
Abducted from a festival near her home in Norfolk, England, eight-year-old Carmel Wakeford is forced to embark on a journey that will take her to the United States and an unimaginable new life. The story unfolds in chapters that alternate between Carmel and her divorced young mother, Beth, with whom readers instantly sympathize. Clad in a red coat, Carmel has disappeared in a fog. Yet Beth never doubts that Carmel is alive, remaining hopeful even as she undergoes big changes in her own life while learning to cope with her tragic situation. VERDICT Reading this novel is a test of how fast you can turn pages. Hamer, a Rhys Davies Short Story Prize winner, is a natural storyteller who writes with such a sense of drama, compulsion, and sympathy that most readers will devour this work in one or two sittings. A finalist for both the Dagger Award and the Costa Book Award for First Novel, this debut is ideal for book clubs and has best seller potential. [LibraryReads February Pick.]—Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH
APRIL 2016 - AudioFile
A little girl goes missing, and her mother is frantic. Narrator Antonia Beamish masterfully portrays the rising drama between Carmel and her mother. The listener is hanging on to every word from the moment Carmel is taken away by her grandfather, from whom her mother is estranged. Beamish maximizes the innocence of Carmel's perspective as a precocious child, and tension increases as the search for her continues. As the story alternates between the points of view of mother and daughter, Beamish moves smoothly between the two perspectives. She demonstrates her dexterity as she balances the characterizations of a confused child and a panicked mother. This story holds the listener in its thrall from start to finish. Beamish's performance is an example of the theatrical possibilities of audio titles. M.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2015-12-10
Hamer's debut novel poignantly details the loss and loneliness of a mother and daughter separated. Beth is recently divorced and raising her daughter, Carmel, on her own in a small town in Norfolk, England. Struggling with the pain of her husband's leaving her for another woman, Beth is determined to "fill the gap he'd left" for Carmel—unaware that her daughter too would become a void. On Carmel's eighth birthday, the mother-daughter duo heads out to a storytelling festival together but leaves forever changed. The novel, fast-paced and with a mosaic quality to the scenes, diverges both in form and narrative. Beth and Carmel are each narrators, detailing their points of view of the events leading up to Carmel's abduction from the festival and their journeys thereafter. Hamer deftly develops child and woman. The two are woven together subtly: they both describe their loneliness as affecting their throats. They each call out to the other through the distance. Beth meticulously counts the days that Carmel's been missing while Carmel is lost to time altogether. However, the other characters feel more like haphazard plot constructions. For instance, one man goes from being like "a scorpion that might sting you if you get too close" to someone almost entirely feeble and deflated without a clear trajectory from one state to the other. A few characters are mentioned only to give vague hints to a unifying theme that remains underdeveloped even in the end, one girl named "Mercy" remains a mystery throughout, and three characters disappear almost entirely. When Beth throws a woman out of her home, shouting, "Get out of here….Take your God with you and don't ever come back," Hamer beautifully renders pain, exactly capturing the evisceration of loss, but she just falls short with the overall cohesion of the story. Exquisite prose surrounding a mother and daughter torn apart, but the book could have used more attention to less detail.
