After reading Paper Butterflies by Lisa Heathfield last year I knew that I needed to read her latest book out. Lisa is UKYA author and I don’t think she gets enough credit for her work. This is another book that delivers a believable story with such rawness and emotion.

Our story follows Rita and Lo, two sisters that are travelers and the trapeze act in their circus that moves around England on a regular basis. Life is how it has always been for the girls, set up their tent, do a few shows and move on to the next village – they haven’t known any other life and don’t really question it. They travel with another family and it’s presumed the girls will marry the boys of the other family and carry on the legacy of the circus. One evening when they explore the local area they start talking to some of the locals and sparks start to ignite between Lo and ‘a flattie'(a term for non traveler folk). With Lo slowly falling in love she starts to question her life,her role and existence in the circus – with wanting her freedom she finds cracks starting to appear and her life crumbling around her.

‘Flight of a Starling’ didn’t fail to deliver, I knew from past works that this was going to be an emotional, gritty and raw read. Heathfield has a great writing style that manages to evoke emotions – even from me who has a heart of stone. The story is told in dual perspective, swapping from Rita to Lo with just the right sized chapters. The first half of this book is rather slow what with it building a picture of what it was like to be in a travelling community and their traditions and beliefs. I loved learning about the performances that the girls were involved in such as the trapeze and their big costumes.

I must admit that I wasn’t too keen on the romance side of the book, It was lacking emotion and connection between the characters, I wanted the warm fuzziness that you get from reading about a couple that first meet, the excitement of it…which didn’t happen and it’s sad as it has such a big part of the story.

The second half of the book takes a change in pace, it was amazing and what really made the story for me. My heart was in my mouth and I could feel the blood pulsing around my body with anxiety. I was scared for the characters,I was hoping for a silver lining but Heathfield never shies away from her writing and sucker punches you in the gut.

I recommend if you want something gritty yet believable.

I rated this book 4 out of 5 stars

Having read Paper Butterflies I was expecting another good read with this one and I wasn't disappointed. This is another heartbreaking, disturbing book which should go down well with its YA target audience.
Told from two POV, Lo and Rita are sisters who have been brought up in a circus life. Having never questioned this, Lo's world is thrown into turmoil when she discovers a betrayal in her own family and falls in love with a local boy, much to the disapproval of her family. Secrets and deceit have devastating consequences on all concerned.

If I'm honest I loved Paper Butterflies so much that it would have been hard to match it. Lisa Heathfield writes beautifully and tackles difficult subjects with skill and empathy. Whilst I haven't rated this quite as highly I would still strongly recommend it.
My thanks to Netgalley for this copy.

She's done it again. Another brilliant book by Lisa Heathfield.
A YA family saga and romance following the lives of a travelling circus and in particular Rita and Lo two inseparable sisters who have been brought up flying high as trapeze artists.
As Lo started to question if there was more to life outside of the circus family then the story really starts to develop. She falls for an 'outsider' and you really get a sense of the turbulence she goes through trying to follow her circus culture, whilst wanting to break free, become independent and follow her heart. This book gives an excellent insight into the travelling circus community and how difficult it can be for teenagers maturing into early adulthood. Hard to have their own voice and just be themselves.
It is a very emotional yet beautiful read. It tackles coming of age issues of drug and alcohol abuse, teenage depression and suicide, which are important subjects to highlight.
This made me cry and that's due to the excellent writing, so be warned, not all good books have a happy ending.

Thank you very much for allowing me to read this title; I am trying to read as widely as possible ahead of the Carnegie/Greenaway nominations and awards for 2018 and your help is much appreciated.
As a Carnegie/Greenaway judge, I'm not allowed to comment about my opinions on specific titles so I can't offer an individual review on any title as I stated on my profile.

I don't think I'm the right age for this book, just wasn't my cup of tea I'm afraid.

This is not immediately appealing. We spend a lot of time getting to know Rita and Lo, and learning about their life. However, once the main story kicks in...
This was almost a book of two parts for me.
Elements that worked? The relationships between Lo and her family. I was less convinced by the setting.

Rita and Lo are inseparable – sisters and best friends. Always on the move, and always flying through the air, holding on to each other for support for their trapeze act. Fearless and weightless, they find the magic in everything. Behind the act they put on, they know that the true magic in their family, not the circus. However, in one insignificant town, Lo meets a boy and decides she wants to be on the ground and stood still. Rita can’t understand, and suddenly their close-knit circus community is under threat when secrets are revealed.

I’ve only read one of Lisa Heathfields other books, Paper Butterflies, and I really enjoyed it. It was a chilling and harrowing book. So when I saw Flight of a Starling available on NetGalley, I jumped at the chance to read, and also, that cover is just beautiful.

Flight of a Starling was an enchanting and powerful book. It is raw, honest, and full of emotion. I loved the setting of the circus, and I loved the passion Rita and Lo had for the circus and for the art they produced. The atmosphere was very magical and enchanting, definitely a highlight of the book.

Flight of a Starling is a very character driven story. Both Rita and Lo, having lived in the circus their whole lives and being surrounded by the same people were innocent and naive, but each had some really great development. I liked how Lo started to question what she wanted, and how she discovered there was a world that existed outside of the circus, and she was trying to find her place in that world. The ‘forbidden romance’ was a nice element, it was interesting to see the struggle Lo had and the conflict it caused within her community and, more importantly, with her sister. I really liked Rita as well and her passion and support for her community. I loved her love she felt and the conflict she had with her sister. It was a really well developed and complex relationship.

The ending was emotional and heart-wrenching. I’d like to take this opportunity to warn readers (so, spoilers), but I’d like to add trigger warnings for drug abuse, overdose, accidental suicide, and depression.

Overall, Flight of a Starling was a compelling and emotional read that I do highly recommend.

I generally love Lisa Heathfield's book and Paper Butterflies completely blew me away.
This novel definitely did not disappoint.
Right from the beginning I was drawn in to the world of Lo and Rita and am continually impressed at Heathfield's ability to deal with teenage issues in such a profound way.
Definitely will recommend.

I recently read Lisa Heathfield's other books, Seed and Paper Butterflies, and absolutely loved them. I had high expectations for this one but I went into it without having much of an idea what it was about.

I loved the circus setting - it was so interesting to read! The set up almost felt similar to Seed - the setting in Seed is within a small cult family, and the circus atmosphere where no one leaves the circus and only very particular people join felt very similar. There were similar themes too, with the main character wondering about life on the outside and wanting to escape the claustrophobic world she's stuck in.

It look a little while for me to really get into the story. I flew through Seed and Paper Butterflies in a couple of days, but it took a good couple of weeks to read this one. (Maybe it was down to me being a bit more distracted though, rather than the book itself.) I instantly liked the characters (and disliked others) and I really liked the dynamic between sisters Lo and Rita. It was interesting too that the story switched between their perspectives - I didn't see why this was happening to begin with but as I got closer to the end, I started to see why.

I can't even believe what happened at the end. I was in so much shock! I almost never cry at anything, especially books, but I was so shocked and upset by the ending that my throat hurt. I'm still in disbelief - everything happened so quickly which matched the reality of what was really happening, and I couldn't stop reading.

Lisa Heathfield, you've done it again. She's definitely now an author on my auto-buy list!

Oh this is a lovely book, so beautifully written and engaging. I enjoyed the world she created and was invested from the first chapter in what happened to these well written characters. The unusual setting was fascinating and the relationship between the sisters was wonderful.

There were so many things that I loved about this book! I'm a huge fan of stories set in the circus and this captured the performers' lives in a way that seemed very real. The writing was gorgeous and the plot really gripped me (and broke my heart too). I'd strongly recommend this book to fans of Lisa Heathfield's writing and intense, dramatic YA.

A wonderfully emotional novel that has you feeling everything you thought you couldn't.

What an unbelievably powerful storyteller. What a heart wrenching story. Heathfield makes you stroll through sadness until you realise too late that you're waist deep in pain and then somehow you have to trudge through a crap load of emotions that stick to you long after the book is finished. She did it with a her first book Paper Butterflies and she has done it yet again.

I don't want to give too much away but this is a story of a young female circus traveller who falls in a 'forbidden' love with a non traveler. It's a muted slow build drama and I say muted only because this type of forbidden love is not the crazy taboo we've started to have shoved down our throats as writers try to outdo each other with wacky plots.
It's simple but realistic in that it's about two people from two different stations in society falling in love. It also deals with the burdens and restrictions placed from family loyalties and the secrets that can grow from such ironically close knit relationships.
It's beautiful, haunting and realistically compelling as it weaves the reader through the struggles we can internalise from trying to find our place in the world.

Amazing, can't wait to read more from this author.

Sisters Rita and Lo travel around performing in the family run circus, never staying in one place too long or interacting with 'flatties'-non circus people. When Lo meets Dean, she is tempted to reconsider her way of life. Beautifully written and easy to read, this has a serious message at its heart. Throughout the narrative, descriptions of the circus acts contrast with the realities of everyday life- work, the decisions made by those we love and choosing how to live your life. The ending was brutal; it was hard to read but it left a mark, an important one that will stay with me.

This is the story of Rita and Lo, sisters who have been born and raised in a circus family. They never stay in one place for two long, and they are not permitted to spend time with "flatties" - (the circus version of muggles, or non-circus folk). This is fine - until Lo meets a boy, Dean, who isn't part of the circus. Lo finds herself torn - she wants to stay with the circus but also wants to stay with Dean; she also discovers something that makes her question everything she has been told.

We get chapters from both Lo and Rita, and lots of circus-based scenes. I've never been a fan of the circus or carnivals (I blame an incident with a clown and Stephen King equally) but with the rise in popularity of the circus as a YA setting, I've become intrigued by the magic and performance side. I would have liked a tiny bit more of that - I felt that there were too many characters at the start to keep track of.

There really isn't any other way to say it other than - it did escalate quickly (is that a trapeze pun? Ba-doom-TISH), and it did leave me feeling a bit bewildered. Approach with caution - but I'm definitely going to bump the author's other books up my TBR a few notches, I liked her writing style and her way of storytelling.

Beautifully written & atmospheric with interesting characters but the split narration doesn't feel distinct & not enough happens until towards the end.

Heathfield's third novel tells of two sisters who are used to sharing everything - until Lo falls for a flattie. Living in a travelling circus, the girls can't get attached or do more than flirt with the locals. But in one little town, a local lad has caught Lo's eye and makes her realise that there is more to life than the circus.

I adored this story, I thought it was beautifully simplistic in its passion for a normal life. I reminded me of Seed in the theme of exploring a different world, a different normal, but more subtle as of course the circus needs their audience. This need for a different normal was driven by Lo, the younger sister, as she starts to daydream about having a garden and a steady home, possibly with Dean. But her family means so much to her that she couldn't abandon them.

The narrative still had Heathfield's signature beautiful writing, especially as she describes the trapeze and that sense of freedom when they preform. In fact the descriptions of the magic of the circus were incredible. But it wouldn't be a Heathfield novel without a twist and this time it was a doozy! The ending really made me cry, not just because it was sad (it was) but because it was so powerful. The whole story was, and it was amazing.

This is a beautiful novel, that has more than a passing nod to Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. It is narrated by two sisters, Lo and Rita, who are trapeze artists with a circus. Their family and their world revolves around the circus, and the main rule is that they do not mix with the towns folk – or ‘flatties’, as they are known. The ‘flatties’ are just as dismissive of the circus folk, whom they refer to derogatorily as ‘pikey scum’. Unfortunately, Lo falls for the flattie, Dean, and he for her – “a pair of star-cross’d lovers”. Neither can leave their world to be with their love, as doing so would rip apart their families – and not just because of their prejudices. The circus would not be able to perform their main attraction without Lo, and Dean completing his college education is the only hope for himself and his mother to escape their lives of penniless drudgery. So, the scene is set for a tragedy, but along the way there is also a celebration of life and beauty.
Lo sneaks out to meet Dean, when he introduces her to his favourite places and things. One morning Dean shows her the magical murmuration of starlings, which remind him of Lo when she performs her own aerial ballet in the circus: “‘The way they move like it’s impossible,’ Dean says. ‘The way you fly, in your circus’”. For Lo it is a revelation, to finally understand “this is what the audience sees. Now it’s my breath held as I watch them leap and twist symmetrical in the air. Our eyes watch them, so they won’t fall … Thousands of feathers fold and beat against the bodies above us, knowing exactly what to do. Our circus birds, bending in the white” – hence the book’s title. For them both, it is a perfect moment: “There are no shattered families, just me and Dean, in a field of grass, with a sky filled with starlings”. All too soon, reality crashes in.
For it is not only Lo, whose secret threatens her family. Spider, whom all the circus folk (except Lo and Spider) expect Lo to marry, hides his true nature. Lo’s mother has an even more destructive secret, that could potentially destroy everything. It has already destroyed Lo’s love for her mother. Only the elderly Grands is able to reach Lo, but it may be too little, too late.
The book is superbly written. Not only is the theme Shakespearean, but the imagery aspires to similar heights. This is particularly true in the description of the flight of the starlings, but also in the expressions of Lo’s feelings: “I stare at the faded flower pattern in the curtain and wind myself tight into the material, so no one can see my thoughts”; “I’m alone, watching the cracks get bigger and they reach my head and pulse heavy and thick in there”; and “When I blink, my eyelashes brush the pillow. It’s the sound of angel’s footsteps. If they’re in here, hidden in this room, they can save me” – to quote just a few.
I loved this book. I am not normally a fan of romances, but this one transcends my usual antipathy, and I would wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone – young adult or old.