Review - the Doll Funeral by Kate Hamer

The Doll Funeral by Kate Hamer
Publisher: Faber and Faber Ltd
Release date: 16 February 2017
Rating: *** and and a half stars

Back cover blurb: The dark and glittering new novel from the Sunday Times Bestselling author Kate Hamer is as gripping as it is gorgeously written - the perfect second book from the author of The Girl in the Red Coat. My name is Ruby. I live with Barbara and Mick. They’re not my real parents, but they tell me what to do, and what to say. I’m supposed to say that the bruises on my arms and the black eye came from falling down the stairs. But there are things I won’t say. I won’t tell them I’m going to hunt for my real parents. I don’t say a word about Shadow, who sits on the stairs, or the Wasp Lady I saw on the way to bed. I did tell Mick that I saw the woman in the buttercup dress, hanging upside down from her seat belt deep in the forest at the back of our house. I told him I saw death crawl out of her. He said he’d give me a medal for lying. I wasn’t lying. I’m a hunter for lost souls and I’m going to be with my real family. And I’m not going to let Mick stop me.
 

The Doll Funeral is a novel that I had been anticipating for quite some time. After Kate Hamer's impressive debut The Girl in the Red Coat I was intrigued to read what this author had to offer next. I have to confess I was expecting a novel in the same vein and was a little disappointed to find it wasn't.

However, it is a very good book. Perhaps just not my cup of tea this time around..

Ruby lives with Barbara and Mick, they are not her real parents, and she is in fact relieved to find out that she is adopted on her thirteenth birthday (as an adopted child, this really stuck out to me - thirteen seems awfully late to tell someone that they were adopted - I digress), as her adoptive Father is abusive to her. Her adoptive Mother, pretty useless.

Ruby finds solace from her home life amongst the trees and beautiful landscapes of the Forest of Dean where she lives. Here she seeks to find her true family, her birth Mother and Father, and get away from the harsh reality of her every day life.

Ruby's journey is a long one. The Doll Funeral could be a coming of age story of sorts, but it's paranormal undertones and complexities sometimes make it hard story to follow. Particularly as we are drip fed Ruby's back story in alternating chapters with the present day.

Beautifully written, The Doll Funeral will most certainly be a perfect book for some readers. But sadly it wasn't perfect for me.

The Doll Funeral is available now via Amazon online and all good book shops.  

Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

 

Review: the Girl in the Red coat by Kate Hamer

The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer

Publisher: Faber and Faber

Release date: 26 February 2015
Rating: ****

Back cover blurb: Eight-year-old Carmel has always been different - sensitive, distracted, with an heartstopping tendency to go missing. Her mother Beth, newly single, worries about her daughter's strangeness, especially as she is trying to rebuild a life for the two of them on her own. When she takes Carmel for an outing to a local festival, her worst fear is realised: Carmel disappears into the crowd. Unable to accept the possibility that her daughter might be gone for good, Beth embarks on a mission to find her. Meanwhile, Carmel begins an extraordinary and terrifying journey of her own. But do the real clues to Carmel's disappearance lie in the otherworldly qualities her mother had only begun to guess.

 

 

 

 

The Girl in the Red coat is an intriguing debut novel and Kate Hamer certainly knows how to keep the reader engaged. That said, I did find that I had to read the novel in large chunks or risk losing the plot slightly.

Carmel- the eight year old girl at the centre of the story, is a wonderful character, who often seems older than her years. Carmel's mother Beth, is a notorious worrier (in Carmel's eyes) and is often telling Carmel off for going 'missing' (hiding in mazes, under tables etc).

 

Beth is left bereft when her daughter goes missing at a literary festival and fears the worst. Carmel has been persuaded to leave with a man who tells her he is her grandfather and that her mother has been in a terrible accident, and left him to look after her.

What follows is a mother's tale of grief, anger and hope, and a little girls tale of strange new surroundings and lies about her family and future.

I loved that the story was told from both mother and daughter's perspective as it really helps us to get inside the characters heads.

Without giving too much away, the scary thing about the Girl in the Red coat, is that it is entirely plausible. The idea that another human being, male or female becomes so fixated with the crusade that they are on, that they are no longer in touch with the real world.

At first, I thought that the novel was going down a much darker path than I had anticipated, thankfully it didn't. 

 

I was more than happy with the ending (although disappointed that the novel had ended so abruptly) as it gives hope to families with missing children, and reiterates that not all who take children from their families do so with the intent of harming them. 

Indeed some believe that they are taking them for absolutely the right reasons and that they are going to a better place where they can give them a better life than the one they are currently living.

 

The Girl in the Red Coat is available to pre-order now from Amazon online and Faber. 
    Thank you to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.