4 Page-Turning Novels to Pick Up Now
These new books are packed with suspense and plot twists. Hang on!
By Dawn Raffel
1 of 4
The Girl in the Red Coat
By Kate Hamer
336 pages;
Melville House
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. Beth, a single mother, watches her eight-year-old daughter, Carmel, leave
for school "in those tights that made cherry licorice of her legs."
Carmel is a special child—precocious, dreamy and possibly struggling
with some version of Asperger's. Describing a trip to a maze with her mom, the
girl says, "We're in this big park and mist is rolling around in ghost
shapes. There's a huge grey house with hundreds of windows that are all looking
at us." One day, while willfully hiding from her mother, Carmel is
kidnapped by an itinerate preacher who has been watching her. He believes she
is "the One"—a child with healing powers who will make him
rich. 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
Published 03/02/2016