First of all I was comparing it too much to it's predecessor and felt it was less gripping and therefore less enjoyable, however the last couple of chapters put me in my place, it was a fantastic ending that tied up all the loose ends and broke my heart over and over - a fantastic read, I long for the day when no more girls become lost

I wasn't aware this book was a sequel until after I had finished it. I do commend the book for being able to stand alone as a story without needing to read the first book for it to make sense.

Carmel has returned home after being kidnapped and kept away from her parents for years. She's always felt like she's had a secret sister with the name sake of her second identity, Mercy, given by her captor.

Carmel feels she cannot settle back into life until after she has found out what has happened to this lost girl.

This book had me emotionally caught as the difficulties faced between Carmel and her mum trying to get back their relationship had me thinking of the difficulties in the 'teenage years' most have, except this was taken to the extreme. The book was gripping in its story line and had me lose track of time, however I did feel the pacing to be off. The ending felt very rushed compared to the long and drawn out beginning and middle.

The Lost Girls is a sequel to The Girl in the Red Coat, where an 8-year-old child is kidnapped from a storytelling festival as she is believed to have been given healing abilities from God. The Lost Girls centres on the adjustment to life for both Carmel and Beth, after she has been found and returned to her family. I was so excited to read about the aftermath of this colossal event and to see what had changed for this family.
One thing that is important to note is that The Lost Girls takes place when Carmel is 21, but she was returned home at the age of thirteen. I feel as though the storyline has skipped ahead too far and has missed out on the crucial years between 13 and 21. I would have liked their fresh perspectives from straight after the event, rather than another 8 years down the line and I think these missing years were detrimental to the plot.
Similar to the first book, I really enjoyed the depth of Beth's character as a mother and gaining her outlook. In both books, but more so TLG, we don't see how this impacts Carmel's dad very much at all, as the plot is more focused on the mother-daughter relationship and how the kidnapping affected the dynamics of trust and communication.
I grew to really liking Mercy and was interested by her backstory with her parents and finding community and support in the church. As I mentioned before, this book is very content-heavy with religion and this is not something that I am accustomed to or have much interest in, but I don't think it detracts too much from the thrilling story.
Whilst I did think that some of the loose ends from The Girl in the Red Coat were resolved in this book, I was still left with a lot of unanswered questions, surrounding for instance the kidnapping or even Dorothy and her 2 girls. It didn't have the satisfying conclusion that I was hoping for, especially in regards to the pastor. The Lost Girls was a good attempt at carrying on the plot of The Girl in the Red Coat but I don't personally think it was strong enough to be a successful ending to the story.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5

Thank you to NetGalley, Faber and Faber Ltd and the author Kate Hamer for this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review posted to Goodreads.

I appreciated The Girl with the Red Coat but wasn't a fan of the Lost Girls as I found it very slow and not as intriguing as the first book.
The style of writing is as good as it was but I felt like the characters were missing something and the story often confused me.
I was left with a lot of questions.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Thank you to NetGalley and Faber & Faber for my ecopy to review

Having read the first book in the series, The Girl in the Red Coat. I knew what to expect from Hamer.

The book explores how Beth and Carmel try to put their lives back together and heal their broken relationship following Carmel's kidnapping as a child. It is very strained, and they seem unable to communicate with each other. Carmel becomes fixated on finding other lost girls. Ultimately, she ends up finding some answers and is able to grow closer to her mother and father .

Again, it was a very slow moving story, almost tortuous in places and not much is gained by this

This book is the sequel to the brilliant "The Girl in the Red Coat ", which I read and reviewed for Pigeonhole HQ.
"The Lost Girls"continues the story, from the first novel ,of a girl who was abducted at the age of 8 by a travelling preacher and taken to the US . He was a member of a spiritualist church , and believed that the child had a healing gift.
This sequel deals with the effect the abduction had on the girl (Carmel) , now an adult, and her search for another child who was abducted earlier by the preacher. It deals with the effect the kidnapping had on her parents , particularly her mother with whom she had a strong bond previously.
"The Lost Girls " is as beautifully written as the first book . It was so gripping I could not put it down . The writing is sublime , the author's use of description is breathtaking. It reminded me of the writing in "Where the Crawdads Sing "by Delia Owens.
The book could be read as a stand-alone novel, but it would make more sense to the reader to see it as a sequel and read both .
The two books are the best I have read in a long time.
The pace and the action is never boring, the characters are well rounded , the locations fascinating , the writing is so beautiful.
This is a real page turner , a must read . It would make a great film .

This is the sequel to The Girl In The Red Coat, which I have recently read.
Carmel was kidnapped aged eight and finally returned to her mother five years later.
Carmel is now twenty-one. We don't know about the intervening years. She is a troubled soul, and although she had therapy, it obviously hasn't helped.
Carmel's relationship with her mother,Beth, is very fragile.
The chapters alternate between Carmel, Beth, and Mercy.
I really enjoyed this book. I know others have struggled.
Mercy's story is really sad. I'm glad we got to find out what happened to her.
I thought the ending was just right, and Carmel got closure.
The writing was deep. The author really gets into the head of the characters, and I could feel their emotions.
Thanks to Netgalley and to Mollie Stewart of Faber and Faber for my proof copy book

I didn’t realise that this was a continuation to The girl in the red coat which I haven’t read. It definitely works as a stand alone but I think would be much less confusing if I had read the first one. Lots of questions need answering which I hope may be helped by this but I think some things are still unclear. Lots of people on the margins of society and in the end it is love that shines through. Quite a difficult journey through

What an unusual and enjoyable book. This is the tale of two girls aged 8, kidnapped by a preacher who is more interested in their gift of healing to make money. He trails them around the world on his preaching tour until he is caught and jailed.
This is also the story of their fight back to normality after 5 years locked up with the preacher.
Well worth a read.

The Lost Girls by Kate Hamer is a sequel to her previous book The Girl In The Red Coat.
Carmel is now 21 and living in London with her mother.
Their relationship is strained and both are finding it difficult to relate to each other.
Carmel is still trying to come to terms with her abduction and is fixated on finding out what happened to a girl called Mercy who was taken before her by the same man.
The story is told in alternate chapters by Carmel 2013 and Mercy in 1999.
A story of courage and resilience.
Thank you to NetGalley and Faber & Faber for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really struggled with the plot and writing style of this book and sadly it ended on my DNF shelf. That said, given the raving reviews of Kate Gamer’s other book, I will give the author another crack.

Fast on the tails of me reading and enjoying The girl in the red coat I expected this sequel to fill in the gaps were left unanswered at the end of the first book - It did, and it didn't. It took a very long time to get going and the background of Mercy (the original girl taken) kept me interested as did the broken dynamic of Beth and Carmel. However there were aspects of both of their personalities shown that I didn't like. There was a slight macabre turning in the book that didn't really offer anything to the story and the ending was a problem for me. Instead of the orchestral finale it was building up to, it was a solidarity whistle. I ended up feeling a little deflated by it because I was expecting more. It also strangely left questions. Where was Dorothy? Quite a big side character in the original book that is completely missing from the second. The timeframes didn't appear to add up. Overall the book dimmed in comparison to the first. I read it quite easily but didn't enjoy the read as much as I thought I would.

Oh my gosh!! What a beautiful book. I was rooting for Carmel and Beth the whole way through.
Kate Hamer really knows how to bring characters to life, she did it in The Girl In The Red Coat and she’s surely surpassed herself this time,
I loved learning more about Mercy and her fate. I love Carmel as an adult. She was great as an eight year old too.
With huge thanks to the publisher and Kate Hamer for once again taking us into the hearts and minds of Carmel, Beth and Mercy.

This was everything you need for a thriller and crime story. It is not as black and white as you first think and like most typical thrillers, is full of twists.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words some text written has been typed in red and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

I fear I was not the right reader for this novel. Although I was a great admirer of the first book, I found this sequel quite hard work. Too many characters to begin with, too many names, and extraneous details. Moreover, in the previous book I found the character of Beth emotionally unconvincing and this was only exacerbated here.

Having said this, I am sure I will be a voice in the wilderness here and this will be another much loved book for many readers the world over who will find it a well-written and compelling novel.

With thanks to the publisher and net galley for allowing me an advance copy to read.

This book constitutes the long-awaited follow-up to ‘The Girl in the Red Coat’, a novel in which a young girl, Carmel, is kidnapped and inducted into a cult. Manipulated into believing she has special healing powers, it has taken Carmel many years to make sense of her unusual childhood and of the world in general, and this process is still ongoing at the time ‘The Lost Girls’ starts. This book focuses much more on the mother-daughter relationship between Carmel and her mother, with lots of well-observed subtleties. It appears it has left some other reviewers underwhelmed but in my opinion, it is just a different type of book, showing the devastating and far-reaching effects that psychological and emotional coercion can have on an individual. For this reason, I would recommend it as wholeheartedly as its predecessor.

I went into this book blind but I loved her first book The Girl In The Red Coat and I was hoping for more of the same. A little girl is kidnapped by a healing preacher and taken to another continent. You are told that you have healing powers and this is your life now. The little finds out that there were other girls before you so what happened to them and where are they now???
This is a tale of readjustment how a mother and daughter who have bee estranged for so many years have to learn their roles all over again and to find out what happened to the lost girls. This was a good read but I felt underwhelmed. I am sure other readers will enjoy it more just not for me.

‘The Lost Girls’ is Kate Hamer’s sequel to ‘The Girl in the Red Coat’, a compelling, thought-provoking novel. There is certainly a tale to tell about what happens after those who are lost are returned home. Carmel, once abducted and now a young woman living with her mother in London, is one such lost girl. She uses cinema as an extended metaphor to describe her predicament:
‘...being unlost is not the same as being found… there’s a final scene where all is resolved. They are all healed, the story goes! Then the characters turn into sunlight, vanish into their futures and there is a breathless pause as the screen turns dark.
‘That’s where I live now, in the darkness of the cinema, the blank screen, that moment.
‘There is no ending.’
Throughout the novel, Hamer explores the ways in which Carmel tries to move forward and how she has been influenced by her years of captivity. Running concurrently is the story of Mercy, a girl from the Appalachian Mountains girl who disappeared after becoming caught up with a religious cult. A small child, looking after her drug addicted parents, we can appreciate just how much the promise of love, security and salvation would appeal to her. But no one knows what happened to her and nobody much cares.
I wish I had enjoyed this as much as Hamer’s previous novel. She gives us two complex characters but, to my mind, the nuanced psychological exploration that I expected was missing. Better to read Emma Donoghue’s ‘Room’ if that’s what you’re hoping for.
My thanks to NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

What happens if you were kidnapped by a healing preacher?, what if you were taken to a different continent?, what if you were told that you had healing powers?, what if you know that there was another girl before you?, what if she has 'just disappeared'?, What if you are rescued?, What if you find it hard to readjust with unanswered questions?....
An interesting tale, I felt like some depth was missing though.

I thought this was a well-written and probably realistic account of the aftermath of a child being abducted by a cult and then struggling to regain a normal life even years after her return to her mother. Carmel can't just pick up where she left off, she is haunted by the experience and by her need to know what happened, particularly to Mercy, another lost girl whose name she was given. However, I didn't really enjoy this story, not only because of the subject matter but because Carmel was so prickly and at times unlikeable. I realize this is probably true-to-life, how can she be all sunshine and roses after her experience, but it was hard to properly sympathize and root for her.