2017-06-06
The story of a resilient young girl who has the eerie ability to see and speak with the dead.Set in the Forest of Dean and in London, this novel moves back and forth between two girls, 13-year-old Ruby, in 1983, and Anna, Ruby's young mother, in 1970. A third point of view peppers the novel, that of a boy simply called Shadow who follows alongside Ruby and has been by her side for as long as she can remember. Shadow, it becomes clear, is one among many specters only Ruby can see who begin to appear more and more over the course of the book. When the story begins, Ruby is living with her adopted parents, Mick, who is horribly abusive, and Barbara, who is helpless; back in 1970, Anna is pregnant and determined to put her child up for adoption, knowing that her lover, Lewis, will be crushingly disappointed to have to raise a child and stay in the Forest of Dean. Ruby's and Anna's stories develop side by side: Ruby eventually strikes back against Mick, hitting him with a wooden board as revenge for a particularly horrible beating, and runs away, finding refuge with her friend Tom and his sister and brother who are living alone in the hills—their parents having abandoned them to "find themselves" in India. When Ruby is born, Anna cannot bear to give her up, and she and Lewis move with the baby to London, where he falls in with a criminal crowd, and Anna begins to feel detached, ultimately succumbing to postpartum psychosis and abandoning Ruby. Throughout the novel, Ruby is desperate to find her biological parents, thinking they will care for her as she's never been cared for. She discovers the truth in an unexpected place and more violence ensues. Hamer (The Girl in the Red Coat, 2015) has created a mystical world in which characters are haunted by specters of their present as well as their past, by the living and the lost. Her diction is lovely and tangible; describing the heightening frequency of Ruby's experiences with specters, she writes, "the skin of this world was thinning hour by hour so you could look through it like the papery bit of an onion." A powerful paranormal novel.
An Amazon Best Book of the Month
“Hamer has created a mystical world in which characters are haunted by specters of their present as well as their past, by the living and the lost. Her diction is lovely and tangible . . A powerful paranormal novel.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS
“Hamer handles language beautifully, fashioning effortlessly evocative sentences.”
—BOOKLIST, starred review
“[Hamer’s] fascination with the thresholds between childhood and adulthood, sanity and insanity, chosen and blood families, and her subtle understanding of the clean, often disturbing logic of childhood morality, evoke both Jeanette Winterson and Ian McEwan . . . This is an elegiac and uplifting novel about the indissoluble bonds between mothers and daughters and a reminder of how the imagination can set you free.” —Melanie McGrath, THE GUARDIAN
“I felt instantly protective of Ruby; the teenager with a secret so chilling I had to check the front door was locked. Hamer’s brilliant storytelling made me read on for fear Ruby’s fate depended on it.” —Anna Silverman GRAZIA
“Hamer’s ability to conjure an atmosphere is certainly powerful. Particularly resonant is her portrait of the beauty and menace of the Forest of Dean.” —Rebecca Nicholson, THE SUNDAY TIMES
“What holds the novel together is the tremendous momentum of the story itself, which gathers pace with every page, hooking you into its strangeness and keeping you hooked to the very last word.” —Rebecca Abrams, FINANCIAL TIMES
"A moving and mesmeric story... beautifully written, The Doll Funeral brims with a delightful, riveting strangeness." SHELF AWARENESS, starred review
Praise for The Girl in the Red Coat
“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.” —Kim Hubbard, 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.” —Dawn Raffel, 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, The Guardian
“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
“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
“Reading this novel is a test of how fast you can turn pages.” —Library Journal, starred review
