The Lost Girls
As seen:
By Kate Hamer
avg rating
7 reviews
‘Beautifully written, intense.’ LISA BALLANTYNE
‘A thrilling, emotive and heartfelt mystery.’ CHRIS WHITAKER
FROM THE AUTHOR OF BESTSELLING DEBUT THE GIRL IN THE RED COAT
Lost, she narrowly escaped disaster.
Beth is desperate to return to normality. After a years-long ordeal, her daughter is finally home and safe. But Carmel has questions she can’t ignore about the cult that kidnapped her, and about the preacher who gave her another girl’s name.
Found, she must survive a miracle.
Digging into her past, Carmel uncovers secrets which suggest that she wasn’t the only lost girl – and which puts her in danger all over again. While her mother struggles to salvage the safety they’ve only just found, Carmel tries to come to terms with who she has become. One question, a mystery at the heart of her disappearance as a child, haunts her:
What happened to the other lost girls?
‘As affirming as it is devastating.’ CAILEAN STEED
‘Reads like a shiver down the spine.’ ANNA BAILEY
‘As ever, Kate’s prose is beautiful and immersive.’ REBECCA WHITNEY
Praise for Kate Hamer:
‘Deliciously dark.’ CLARE MACKINTOSH
‘Keeps the reader turning pages at a frantic clip.’ CELESTE NG
‘Her writing is as vivid, nasty and beautiful as a bruise.’ METRO
Read the start of Carmel and Beth’s story in The Girl in the Red Coat – available now!
TweetReviews
I enjoyed this story but was disappointed by the ending.
THE LOST GIRLS was a real hit for me. This book is a beautiful portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship - something we all need in our lives. There’s an extremely deep pull of love running through the story - which excites each turn of every page. Kate Hamer writes beautifully, I’m longing to read more of her work.
Told by the three female characters in the story: Mercy Roberts, the original lost girl, and Carmel, along with her mother Beth. It takes you on a journey through the complex relationships of family and the bond between a mother and daughter.
Mercy comes across as a strong character who from a young age has had to look after herself.
Carmel is now a young woman finding it hard to move on from her past trauma and feels that she needs to find out more about Mercy Roberts to understand her past and move on with her life. She still feels like her mother let her down.
Beth feels she is walking on eggshells around her daughter, trying not to upset her but neither is really communicating with each other. They both have their demons.
The one thing Carmel wants to do is contact the only person who can answer her questions about Mercy Roberts with a hope this can help heal and answers her questions.
The book is thought provoking and moving on from the past I felt for both Mercy and Carmel and loved the inner strength they both possess. I could not put it down.
Carole: Library Officer, St Helens Library Service
Long after the awful thing is over, can a family ever really pick up the pieces?
In this sequel to The Girl in the Red Coat, Kate Hamer takes us several years on from the traumatic events of that story and examines the lasting aftermath on a mother and daughter of a long, enforced separation. Far from happy-ever-after, Beth is finding the relationship with her now adult daughter strained and uncomfortable. And Carmel, searching for a girl kidnapped before her, desperately needs to find answers to unresolved questions about her own experience – what really happened, and whose fault was it?
The Lost Girls doesn’t quite replicate the tension of The Girl in the Red Coat, but convincingly imagines the struggle to rebuild a “normal” life and relationships after a uniquely strange experience.
Not my usual choice of novel but I was intrigued. Beth and her daughter Carmel are both searching for what they have lost. Carmel is searching for other lost girls, kidnapped by the same cult that kidnapped her. Beth is searching for the relationship that she craves with her daughter as they are existing in a precarious normality now that she is home. Carmel becomes obsessed with her search for others like her and for the Preacher who stole her from her home. I needed to know what happened and for the mystery to be solved, I had to concentrate on the plot moving backwards and forwards in time but overall an interesting read.
After reading The girl in the red coat I was interested to see where the author would take the characters in the story for her sequel and I wasn’t disappointed . Beautifully written with such rich descriptions. The author has this amazing ability of being able to portray pictures in your head as well as strong feelings for the characters.
This is the brilliant follow up to 'Girl in the red coat'
A multi-layered novel that deals with the aftermath of the kidnapping. Carmel is now 21 and begins to realise that there were other girls that probably went though a similar ordeal. Her mother Beth is still coming to terms with her daughter's return and is struggling to have a normal relationship with Carmel. The writing is tense and intense and the story is unsettling in places. Its a clever book that packs in so much: I was eager to return to Beth's and Carmel's story and was not disappointed as the book really pulls you in. Beautifully written and crafted ( Hamer is a talented writer ) the novel explores very dark issues in a profound manner , it deals with how a traumatic event can change your life and in many ways closure never fully happens . The character of Carmel is really interesting she has experienced such awful things but she is determined to find answers.
A book that not only is absorbing but is thoughtful and never leaves you even after finishing it.
