The Scarlet Dress: The brilliant new novel from the bestselling author of The House By The Sea
£0.90
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?
Praise for Louise Douglas
‘Louise Douglas achieves the impossible and gets better with every book.’ Milly Johnson
‘A brilliantly written, gripping, clever, compelling story, that I struggled to put down. The vivid descriptions, the evocative plot and the intrigue that Louise created, which had me constantly asking questions, made it a highly enjoyable, absolute treasure of a read.’ Kim Nash on The Scarlet Dress
‘Another stunning read from the exceptionally talented Louise Douglas! I love the way in which Louise creates such an atmospheric mystery, building the intrigue and suspense brick by brick. Her writing is always beautiful and multi-layered, her characters warm and relatable and the intriguing nature of the mystery makes this unputdownable.’ Nicola Cornick on The Scarlet Dress
‘A tender, heart-breaking, page-turning read’Rachel Hore on The House by the Sea
‘The perfect combination of page-turning thriller and deeply emotional family story. Superb’ Nicola Cornick on The House by the Sea
‘Kept me guessing until the last few pages and the explosive ending took my breath away.’ C.L. Taylor, author of The Accident on Your Beautiful Lies
‘Beautifully written, chillingly atmospheric and utterly compelling, The Secret by the Lake is Louise Douglas at her brilliant best’ Tammy Cohen, author of The Broken
‘A master of her craft, Louise Douglas ratchets up the tension in this haunting and exquisitely written tale of buried secrets and past tragedy.’ Amanda Jennings, author of Sworn Secret
‘A clammy, atmospheric and suspenseful novel, it builds in tension all the way through to the startling final pages.’ Sunday Express, S Magazine
‘A chilling, unputdownable new novel from the bestselling author of The House By The Sea.
‘A brilliantly written, gripping, clever, compelling story, that I struggled to put down.’
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Additional information
| Publisher | Boldwood Books (18 Feb. 2021) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 4094 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 368 pages |
by Barbara Turner
Took me a while to get into especially to like some of the main characters but glad I persevered and it was a very well written book and enjoyable. Has a good ending too and well thought out with a few edge of seat happenings.
by sue
This was quite a slow burn, taking a while to unravel the mystery from twenty years ago. There were a few unresolved questions. I’d have liked to know a bit more about Marnie – was she mute when she had the relationship that produced her daughter? I was also torn about Will, not a particularly likeable character. But it was an atmospheric and satisfying read.
by Jan Ruth
Alice Lang rents a caravan at Severn Sands holiday park during the blistering summer of 1995. She befriends Marnie, the small caretaker’s daughter, and Will Jones who works in the grounds. He’s not the only boy attracted to the troubled, enigmatic Miss Lang, but Will becomes unnaturally possessive when she attracts the attention of wealthy park owner’s son, Guy deVillars. When Alice disappears and her dress is found by the water’s edge, it is assumed she drowned. 25 years later when the seaside town is no longer fashionable, the holiday park is sold to developers and Alice Langs bones are discovered beneath a flower bed. Will, still consumed by the death of Alice, returns to Seven Sands, determined to discover who murdered the love of his life.
This novel is enriched by a strong sense of atmosphere created by the slightly creepy, old-fashioned holiday park, and the coastal stretches of a lonely estuary form the perfect stage for a murder-mystery. Its brilliantly executed by Douglas who always uses time and place to great effect. The story unfolds through two timelines, past and present, and the cast all come under suspicion. My allegiance changed throughout: Will, the obsessed, spurned lover. The deVillars family, privileged and seemingly above reproach, and then there’s the people around Marnie, the strange little girl who’d lost her mother in shadowy circumstances and is now a mute adult preferring the company of animals. Her father, and his unexplained absence on the night Alice went missing…
by Amazon Customer
NOT A BAD READ. JUST NOT ANYTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY. I DIDN’T ENJOY IT ALTHOUGH I READ IT UNTIL THE END. I FOUND THE ENDING RIDICULOUS.
by Jane Type
I thought that I wouldn’t enjoy this when I started reading it but in the end I couldn’t put it down
by Clifton Clan
Simple but surprisingly touching story. Nice pace and the character Marnie in particular resonated. The ending was a little obvious but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
by stefanie mainstone
The book took a while to get going and i found myself having to motivate myself to keep reading. But once I hit half way it really started ramping up.
I found a few typos and odd repetitions in the story hence the loss of the star but overall very enjoyable.
by R. Jones
The story of a missing woman and a 25 year old mystery were what first drew me in – and I did manage to read to the end, unlike with so many Kindle books I’ve tried to read lately – but there was one point that was never addressed or explained, and which coloured my views on the author’s storytelling skills right to the last page.
SPOILERS BELOW
Marnie hasn’t spoken for decades. She prefers dogs to people, in fact goes out of her way to AVOID people, doesn’t seem to have close physical contact with anyone (as the author hints when Marnie is being comforted by the builder guy), yet SHE IS A SINGLE MOTHER?? How and when are we meant to believe this woman has had any sort of relationship, serious enough for her to have had a child? Was it a fling? A drunken night out? An attack? It’s utterly out of sync with the rest of the story and what we know of Marnie’s history. It doesn’t make any sense at all, and the fact that the writer hasn’t attempted to explain it suggests the daughter was merely a lazy plot device to allow other threads to work. It’s jarring, and I found myself thinking ‘but who is Lucy’s father?’ at random points during the story.
Additionally, Will’s obsession and blundering about made me frequently wish someone would smack him. I didn’t care in the end what happened to him. He was thoroughly unlikeable. I still don’t quite understand why Alice was killed, either, or how or why only her dress was found, and I thought Marnie’s sudden finding of her voice a tad unbelievable.
I also thought the scene in the house at the end to be rather daft. I was disappointed that the writer got us to the climactic turning point of the story (uncover the killer, put the protagonist in danger, etc), but instead of showing us what happened as it happened, resorted to the tired old trope of ‘one week later’ and related the resolution in the past tense. Don’t do that! The end felt rushed, with staccato paragraphs explaining what happened next for each character, as if the author just couldn’t be bothered to drag it out any longer.
Despite managing to finish the book, the frustrations above put me off wanting to pick up anything else by this author.