The Scarlet Dress: The brilliant new novel from the bestselling author of The House By The Sea

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A young girl Alice rents a caravan at the holiday park next to estuary, befriends ten-year-old Marnie, who is the daughter of the park's caretaker. Local boy Will is in love with Alice, and jealous of any one who comes close to Alice. Alice disappeared from the caravan one night. Her scarlet dress was found on the riverbank, cops ruled her death as drowning. Alice Lang was wearing her favourite scarlet dress when she disappeared twenty-five years ago, and her memory still casts a long shadow. I was sad and curious for Alice and Marnie, and for Marnie's father, a widower since his wife died when Marnie was just ten years old. I felt the loss of her mother and friend was so much for her to deal with but this was in no way unrealistic. In The Scarlet Dress, we find ourselves at Severn Sands Holiday Park, a caravan park where Marnie's father is the caretaker. Marnie herself is a dog and animal lover and enjoys helping rescued animals have a better life. To begin with, I enjoyed the author’s style of writing. The story starts slowly but gains momentum midway. I got invested in the plot once Will came into town and met Marnie. The author compellingly writes the story with multiple red herrings with numerous suspects.

Will and Marnie have always been haunted by what happened that summer and now that Alice has finally been found must dig deep into the recesses of their memories to finally uncover what really happened to the woman who had changed both of their lives forever. Will Alice Lang’s killer ever be found? Why was she killed and, more to the point, is the killer still at large willing to do whatever it takes to protect their dangerous secret? Thanks to Louise Douglas, Rachel's Random Resources and Boldwood for my ARC in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.Like a long, hot, summer's day, this book goes forever until it suddenly doesn't and you're staring at a gorgeous sunset, sad it's over but fulfilled all the same. Despite a slow start, I found myself enthralled by the slow unwinding of what really happened that fateful day Alice disappeared. It’s very much a character driven story, but Alice herself I thought remained something of an enigma – at first I’d decided she was manipulative, using people for her own ends, playing with their emotions, but she was rather deeper than that, driven by something quite different. Marnie’s a fascinating character – a very innocent child in 1995 involved in a maelstrom of emotion she couldn’t begin to understand, mute in adulthood perhaps as a result of that childhood trauma, finding solace in her love for dogs who’d survived traumas of their own. Family relationships feature heavily, and are beautifully handled – Marnie’s father and the mother whose loss adds rawness to the early story, her relationship with her own daughter. And then there’s Will – difficult to like, perhaps the one who really does use people, driven to uncover the truth but sometimes afraid of what might emerge when he does, haunted by guilt about so many things that he struggles to cope with it or find redemption. The characters emotions are always near the surface and draw you further into the story – this is a book you feel, that you become part of, rather than simply reading. But this book is so much more than that. The timelines don’t alternate in the way you might expect, a straight telling of the then and now, but swirl and eddy and flow – secrets begin to emerge, you think you have everything worked out, only for that certainty to disappear again when you find yourself moving in an entirely different direction. When you add to that the simmering undercurrent of passion and jealousy from the 90s story and the complexities of the characters in the present day – impacted by the legacy of the past, and the truth that even they aren’t entirely sure of – it becomes a story that challenges and excites, and something very different indeed. While the reader might flounder at times when trying to get a grip on the facts, the author always holds the threads of the story extraordinarily firmly – you feel you are in the hands of someone entirely in control, and the writing is exceptional. 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. I wanted to like Will more than I did and I wanted him to be more approachable for Marnie as they both knew Alice. I felt bad for her as an adult and felt I could sympathize personally with how it felt to be pushed out or misunderstood.

I can sympathize with Marnie. Apart from her, I don’t connect or feel for any of the other characters. Will is possessed by jealousy, hard to believe he still holds a candle for Alice after all these years, appalled at the way he treats his girlfriends. He pushes them away when he wants but at the end goes to his girlfriend. I was outraged when she accepted him again.

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Everything changes when Alice goes missing, presumed drowned after her sequined scarlet dress is found washed up on the shore. It will be another 25 years before the truth of her death comes out when modern developers of the old holiday park dig up her bones. Overall, this is a well written slow burner psychological drama which I enjoyed. I like the ending especially for Marnie and Will.