Unsettled Ground
Book
What if the life you have always known is taken from you in an instant? What would you do to get it...
Literary Fiction
A History of Women's Lives in Coventry
Book
Cathy Hunt examines the lives of Coventry women throughout one extraordinary century of change. The...
The Other Woman
Book
Newly engaged, Ellie is thrilled to be accepted into the loving Cooper clan—which seems like the...
The Queen Of Bloody Everything
Book
Have you ever wished for a different mother? Dido has.... Dido Sylvia Jones is six years and...
Shelter in Place
Book
It was a typical evening at a mall outside Portland, Maine. Three teenage friends waited for the...
Mommy May Bloops - A Farting Tale in Rhyme (Mariana Books Rhyming #10)
Book
Mommy May is a perfect mom in nearly every way. She loves her kids, like every mother would. She is...
Children Humor Farting
Louise (64 KP) rated The Girl in the Red Coat in Books
Jul 2, 2018
Carmel Wakeford is 8 years old and intelligent for her age, recently Carmel has been “Away with the Fairies” and occasionally wanders off. Beth (Carmel’s mother) is on constant edge when they visit a children’s festival, so much so they Carmel becomes agitated by her mothers clingyness that she decides to remove herself from her mothers grasp just for a while. When Carmel returns to the spot her mother is no where to be seen, a grey haired man appears and introduces himself as Carmel’s grandfather. With never actually meeting her grandfather before and him knowing her parents, she believes him when he tells her that her mother has been in an accident and he is there to look after her. Beth is frantically searching for her daughter realising her worst fear is becoming a reality.
The book is told from two alternating point of views, Beth and Carmel’s. Though this is a crime book, it is not told from the investigation perspective as we are used to, it’s more of the mother/father/family/child’s suffering. Hamer has captured the emotions of the mother really well with feeling guilty and the grieving process and I could feel her despair and knew if I was in the same position I would be feeling exactly the same way. I enjoyed reading from Carmel’s perspective, it’s interesting when the author writes as a child it needs to come across realistically which Hamer managed to pull off.
I found this story to be quite slow even with the alternating POV’s and some parts I was bored but I continued reading as I needed to know what happened to Carmel. The ending all seemed to be a bit rushed and left things unexplained. The writing was really good and packed full of emotion.
This is a great debut novel from Kate Hamer and would be interested in reading her future work.
Overall I rated this 3.5 out of stars
ClareR (5726 KP) rated Light Years in Books
Nov 13, 2018
Students are split in to teams, where they man their own practice craft, and there is someone from pretty much each of the planets in their system: Cormack is from Deva, and has taken his dead brothers place, unbeknownst to the academy; Vesper is the daughter of a Tridian Commander and teacher at the academy. She is finding it difficult to live up to her mothers expectations; Arran is from Chetire, and is very intelligent, something that caused him untold trouble at home; and Orelia, who says she's from Loos, but hides a greater secret.
This is a great start to a new series, lots of diversity, excitement, and a fast read. It sets up the next book really well, with a very interesting ending - what a cliffhanger!!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for my copy of this book to read and honestly review.
Life: The Leading Edge of Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, Anthropology, and Environmental Science
Book
The newest addition to John Brockman's Edge.org series explores life itself, bringing together the...
For Crying Out Loud
Podcast
TV executive Lynette Carolla, wife of comedian Adam, along with comedy writer and best-selling...