The Lost Girls

'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!**

Kate Hamer grew up in the West Country and Wales. She studied art and worked for a number of years in television. In 2011 she won the Rhys Davies short-story prize and her short stories have appeared in various collections. Her debut novel The Girl in the Red Coat was published in 2015. It was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Prize, the British Book Industry Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year, the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, and the Wales Book of the Year. It was a Sunday Times bestseller and has been translated into sixteen different languages. Kate now lives with her husband in Cardiff., Kate Hamer grew up in Pembrokeshire. She did a Creative Writing MA at Aberystwyth University and the Curtis Brown Creative novel-writing course. She won the Rhys Davies short story award in 2011 and her winning story was read out on Radio 4. She has recently been awarded a Literature Wales bursary. She lives in Cardiff with her husband. The Girl in the Red Coat (March 2015) is her first novel.