The Doll Funeral

I’d always been a scavenger of small things. The glittering dust mote I reached up and tried to grab. The layers of shadow in the corner like piled clothes on a chair. Sliding my hands under rugs for what might be living there. Grubbing in the dirt for treasure. But that night I became a proper hunter. Of true family. Of the threads that ghosts leave behind. Of lost souls My name is Ruby. I live with Barbara and Mick. They're not my real parents, but they tell me what to do, and what to say. I'm supposed to say that the bruises on my arms and the black eye came from falling down the stairs. But there are things I won't say. I won't tell them I'm going to hunt for my real parents. I don't say a word about Shadow, who sits on the stairs, or the Wasp Lady I saw on the way to bed. I did tell Mick that I saw the woman in the buttercup dress, hanging upside down from her seat belt deep in the forest at the back of our house. I told him I saw death crawl out of her. He said he'd give me a medal for lying. I wasn't lying. I'm a hunter for lost souls and I'm going to be with my real family. And I'm not going to let Mick stop me. A riveting and enveloping novel, part-thriller, part gripping family drama, that sweeps you up in a hard embrace from the opening line, The Doll Funeral more than lives up to the precedent of Kate Hamer’s bestselling debut, The Girl in the Red Coat. Already receiving high praise from booksellers, Hamer is undoubtedly a talent to watch.