Expected
publication: 9 January 2018
My
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look. (Emily Dickinson)
Book Description:
June is undoubtedly in transition. Reeling from her divorce,
trying to stay sober, and faced with a completely stalled career, she’s
recently returned to the beautiful Oregon coast where she grew up. She must
decide what to do with her late and much-loved grandparents’ charming
cedar-shingled home, a place haunted by memories of her childhood.
June hires Jameson to renovate the old house to sell. He too is unmoored as he struggles to redefine his marriage in the aftermath of tragic loss. Over the course of the summer, their conversations about the house quickly turn to the personal—of secrets hidden in walls and of stories from the past half-told. June and Jamison repel and attract, sensing kinship and shying away from hurt. But what can the future hold as long as the past’s grip remains so firm?
Brimming with empathy, The Days When Birds Come Back, like the house itself, is a graceful testament to endurance, rebuilding, and the possibilities of coming home.
June hires Jameson to renovate the old house to sell. He too is unmoored as he struggles to redefine his marriage in the aftermath of tragic loss. Over the course of the summer, their conversations about the house quickly turn to the personal—of secrets hidden in walls and of stories from the past half-told. June and Jamison repel and attract, sensing kinship and shying away from hurt. But what can the future hold as long as the past’s grip remains so firm?
Brimming with empathy, The Days When Birds Come Back, like the house itself, is a graceful testament to endurance, rebuilding, and the possibilities of coming home.
My musings:
The Days When Birds Come Back is a line from a melancholic poem
by Emily Dickinson, written in seclusion and dealing with people’s emotions and
the changing seasons. It is a fitting title for this bittersweet tale of two
people scarred by loss, whose chance meeting prompts them to reflect on the
past and initiate the first steps towards healing. Both Jameson and June are
beautifully drawn, each carrying a deep sorrow in their hearts that has shaped
their lives and made them isolate themselves in their little bubbles of grief, guilt and regret.
Thrown together in the picturesque setting of June’s childhood home, a little
cottage in rural Oregon, they forge a fragile connection that allows them to
slowly confide in each other and find solace in each other as they try to come
to terms with the past.
Reed’s writing is beautiful and wistful, creating
true-to-life characters and an atmospheric setting that is almost a character
in itself, as it plays such an important part in the story. I loved being taken
on a journey of discovery of the events that have made June and Jameson the people they have
become, and to witness their slow emergence from the quagmire of grief as the
seasons change. This is a slow, character driven and reflective story. Anyone
who is not a stranger to loss and grief will find elements of June and
Jameson’s story resonating with their own lives. An exquisite and beautifully
crafted novel that touched me deeply.
Thank
you to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the free electronic copy of this novel and
for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
