Fabulous Fiction Firsts #584

Sun, 02/28/2016 - 6:46pm by muffy

A much anticipated debut - The Girl in the Red Coat * * * by Kate Hamer was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and was a Dagger Award finalist. (Watch Kate speak on YouTube about the nomination with other finalists such as Kate Atkinson; Michael Robotham; and Robert Galbraith).

On a fog-shrouded day in Norfolk, 8 year-old Carmel Wakeford, who has a tendency to wander, is separated from her mother Beth at a storytelling festival. When a man tells her that he is her estranged grandfather, and her mother has been taken to a near-by hospital, she takes his hand in relief.

Through the years, in alternating chapters, the story unfolds as Beth struggles to hold on to hope and Carmel fights to remember her true identity while being held captive by a ragtag bunch of self-described miracle workers.

"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."

Read-alikes: The 2007 Costa First Novel Award-winner What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn; The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman; and The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

* * * = 3 starred reviews