Book Synopsis:
Alice Lang was wearing her favourite scarlet dress when she disappeared twenty-five years ago, and her memory still casts a long shadow.
‘The past was like water. Once the tide turned, you couldn’t hold it back.’
In the long, hot summer of 1995, twenty-two-year-old Alice Lang rents a caravan on a holiday park on the outskirts of the lively holiday resort of Severn Sands. She befriends Marnie, a shy, damaged little girl whose father is the park’s caretaker and whose mother died a few months earlier. Will, whose mother runs the bar, falls in love with Alice, and is unbearably jealous of anyone else she sees. Tensions rise until one evening Alice disappears from her caravan. She’s never seen again, and only her scarlet dress is found washed up on the shore.
A quarter of a century later, the town is run down and nobody comes there anymore. Mr and Mrs deVillars, former owners of the holiday park, have passed the failing business onto their son Guy, who promptly sells the land for development. Builders clearing the land to create an expanse of executive homes uncover human bones. It has to be Alice.
Will and Marnie’s lives were entirely shaped by what happened that summer, and now Alice has been found, they must struggle to pin down their memories, to escape the secrets of the past, the lies they told and the unbearable guilt they’re both carrying.
They need to find out what happened to Alice. Who killed her? And why?
The Scarlet Dress is available in ebook and paperback now. You can purchase your copy using the link below or through your local indie bookstore.
My Review:
The Scarlet dress is a gripping, atmospheric thriller which seems very realistic.
Firstly I love the author’s ability to make a sinister situation out of something so ordinary. A caravan park is somewhere a lot of families have visited for their holidays but in this book the author’s descriptions make it a place that the reader will come to fear. She does this very subtly so that the reader isn’t overly aware of it to start with but gradually becomes more obvious as time goes on. The stark contrast between the caravan park in the 60’s and now was very poignant to read about and somehow helped to add to the creepy atmosphere of the place as in it’s run down state it seemed more likely that there would be evil lurking in the corners. I found myself shivering in anticipation as I read wondering which way the story would go.
Alice and Marnie were fantastic main characters who it was easy to feel sympathetic towards. The author gives the reader time to get to know the characters well so that they start to feel very real. I liked that she includes a lot of personal things about the characters, like that Marnie is very fond of animals, so that they start to seem like old friends. I didn’t like Will as much as I wanted to sadly. He seemed a very sympathetic character at first but there was just something about him that grated on me. As my mother would say he is more to be pitied then scolded but I just couldn’t warm to him.
This book does start off a bit slow as the reader gets to know the characters and the setting but soon picks up pace to become very gripping. I kept changing my mind about what had happened and who was responsible for Alice’s disappearance. As soon as I had come up with a theory, something would happen so send the story in a completely different direction which meant that I was unable to guess until the end. I’ll definitely be reading more from this author in the future.
Huge thanks to Rachel from Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Boldwood for my copy of this book via Netgalley.
About The Author:
Louise Douglas is the bestselling and brilliantly reviewed author of 6 novels including The Love of my Life and Missing You – a RNA award winner. The Secrets Between Us was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick. She lives in the West Country. Louise’s first book for Boldwood, The House by the Sea was published in March 2020.
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