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Title: THE BIRDCAGE
Author: Eve Chase
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Read: March 2022
Expected publication: 19 July 2022
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Book Description:
Kat, Flossie and Lauren are
half-sisters who share a famous artist father - and a terrible secret.
Each has found their way of burying it. Over the years they've grown apart, and
into wildly different lives. But an invitation to Rock Point, the Cornish cliff
house where they once sat for their father's most celebrated painting, Girls
with Birdcage, reunites them.
Rock Point is a beautiful, windswept place, thick with secrets, electrically
charged with the one subject the family daren't discuss. And there is someone
in the shadows watching the house, their every move. Someone who remembers the
girls in the painting. What they did.
The sisters must unlock the truth to set themselves free - and find each other
again.
My musings:
Eve Chase knows how to write sister relationships,
as she proves once again in her latest book, which was a delicious read full of
family secrets and intrigue. THE BIRDCAGE. She is also very skilled in creating
an atmospheric setting, so it wasn’t really a surprise that I instantly felt
transported to Rock Point, the old artist’s mansion on top of a Cornish cliff.
It is here that half sisters Kat, Flora and Lauren meet, summoned by their
father, the eccentric artist Charlie Finch. Each one of the sisters embarks on
the journey with some trepidation, owing to the dark secret they have been
harbouring for 20 years, each of them honouring the unspoken Finch code of
silence that has weighed heavily on them. Has the time come to finally confront
the past?
As with Chase’s previous books, each
character is colourfully drawn and instantly came to life in my mind,
especially the eccentric Charlie. There was even a talking African grey parrot,
Bertha, who will spill a secret or two in this ill-fated family reunion. I
loved the way each sister has a very distinct personality, which added to the
complexity of their relationships.
Told in two separate timelines, the
story focuses not only on the family reunion and the sisters’ waiting for
Charlie’s big announcement, but also on the events of twenty years ago, the
year of the famous eclipse, when a terrible tragedy tore the sisters apart. The
central mystery was intriguing and further aided by the little morsels Bertha
would reveal at the most inopportune moments. It’s the first time I have ever
seen a parrot used to give clues to the reader to solve the puzzle, and I loved
it! The old house featured like a character in its own right, making this a
most colourful and interesting cast that easily swept me along on their quest
for the truth.
I first fell in love with this
author when I read THE GLASS HOUSE, and her latest book continued this trend. I
now look forward to reading her entire backlist. If you love a good sister
mystery and family secrets, then you can’t go wrong with this one!
Thank you to G.P.
Putnam's Sons for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the
opportunity to provide an honest review.
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