I real heartening read of how different people see the same events in a totally different way.
I loved how the story was about the present but how past events affected behaviour and relationships, without always needing to jump back to the past

This is well written but a slow starter. I prefer fast paced novels, but enjoyed The Birdcage, the second book I’ve read from Eve Chase. Following three sisters who return to their childhood home.

I called every single one of the twists, the final chapters after the mystery was solved were a bit cheesy, and I feel like the author sometimes was trying too hard with the language, if that makes any sense, but it was a good story and I loved the dynamics between the sisters 👍🏼

I do not gel very well with books told from different characters viewpoints. Is it an easy way of padding out the story i wonder? This coupled with not finding the story gripping in any way I did not get very far with this book.

Three estranged sisters are thrown together 20 years after a fateful solar eclipse event that sent them on different pathways.
Each sister must face the past and the present which they have been avoiding for all those years.
A good read by Eve Chase with gothic ghost vibes.

Wow a story like no other. The eclipse all those years ago held so many secrets for the 3 sisters brought together but their amazing if not frequently disloyal father. The story is set in the beautiful St Ives in Cornwall and captures all the magic this place has to offer.
Lauren is full of guilt at the loss of her best friend. Kat and Flora have had a privileged childhood with irs own secrets.
My only issue was I started to get all three sisters back stories mixed up and struggled to work out when the story jumped from the past into the present. I would however definitely recommend this story. Enjoy.

A beautifully written story with a slow build up. Three half sisters return to their childhood home where there father, an artist, still lives. Excellent plot twists and keeps you hooked until the end.

This was my first time reading an Eve Chase book, having heard good reviews on her previous publications.

This gothic thriller was right up my street, I loved the dynamic between the three sisters. I did guess the twist at the end but it was still an exciting book and I would recommend it as it was a great read!

This is was a great read, such an original story, unlike anything I have read before. Excellent charcterisation and sense of place and time. Hope to read more by this autor.

Thank you for letting me read this.

This is my first Eve Chase book, and I am intrigued to read some more from here, even though I felt like this book was a little slow and predictable. None of the twists shocked me, however I did love watching the sisters dynamic and relationship grow and develop through the years despite everything they have been through and what has come out. Their relationship is the thing that bumped it up to 3.5

Eve Chase writes about family dramas brilliantly, so I was thrilled to be chosen to read an ARC of her latest book, 'The birdcage'. the story flits from present day to the hot summer of 1999 and is told from the perspective of three half sisters, who are all very different. It explores the relationship between the three women and their father, a notorious artist. As the book progresses, we are aware that something terrible happened during the summer.
The story is well told, and i found it gripping from start to finish. If you are a fan of this sort of domestic family drama you are in for a treat. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

As a reader, I felt that the authors style was a little grating - I did not like the way descriptions were made. The story jumped constantly between 20 years ago and the present time and was hard to follow in places. Overall I found this a disappointingly average read..

Kat, Flossie and Lauren are estranged half-sisters; their father is an artist whose most famous painting - Girls With Birdcage - binds the sisters together but they have not been together for some time. They all share a dark secret, linked to their family home Rock Point. Rock Point is a remote windswept house, but someone is watching the house who can spill their secrets and split the family apart.

The Birdcage is told from each sisters' perspective in turn, with clues and stories coming out piece by piece. It was well written and a comfortable read.

I love Eve Chase's family sagas so was looking forward to reading The Birdcage which focuses on three half sisters- Lauren, Kate and Flora- and their relationship with their artist father. They return to Rock Point, his house in Cornwall and the narrative moves back and forth between 2019 and the night of the solstice 20 years earlier in 1999. I adore family sagas with a dual timeline and a coastal setting. We are made aware from the beginning that an event in 1999 had a traumatising impact on the sisters. I love the authors writing, sense of place and characterisation. She explores how our history and trauma impacts on us and the relationship of the sisters to each other and their father. It is a slow paced novel that took a while to engage me but I'd recommend for other fans of this genre.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

Being one of five half-siblings (seven, if you count my half-siblings’ half-siblings), a story about the dynamics that occur when you’re related but spend a lot of time apart from your closest family struck especially close to the bone. The Birdcage by Eve Chase is about the daughters of famed artist, Charlie Finch, and their summer together up to the time of the solar eclipse in 1999. It’s told in parallel with the sisters in 2019, coming together to their father’s house again for the first time since that summer. Together, the sisters work through the trauma of what happened twenty years ago, and let go of the family secrets they’ve been guiltily holding on to all that time.

The blurb sells The Birdcage as something of a gothic mystery — a family coming together to a creaky old house to discover long-buried secrets. In actuality, while there are gothic moments, The Birdcage is much more comfortable exploring the lives of women and women as they appear to their families in the 21st century. It’s at its strongest when showing the juxtaposition between the front these women have to put on to appear a success in their father’s eyes, and the threads of their lives that are rapidly unravelling.

Chase’s writing is beautiful, and she has a clear and true understanding of this kind of family dynamic. Her characters are well-realised, and their pain is visceral. She’s very good at showing the scabs that family secrets leave, and the catharsis of picking those scabs off and finally letting the wounds heal, even if it means everything is raw and bloody for a while.

The mysteries themselves are perhaps less cryptic than I might have hoped. I felt like I had a good grip of ‘what had happened’ before the reveals were made. For me, the joy was more in how the characters reacted to revelations than in my own pleasure at having been hoodwinked. Readers looking for mystery before emotion might be disappointed.

Overall, I would recommend The Birdcage to those who love twisting, complicated family dynamics, and books which think about how secrets change lives.

The Birdcage by Eve Chase is out now and can be purchased in your preferred format from its publisher’s store.

With thanks to the publishers and Netgalley.co.uk for providing a free e-advance review copy.

The Birdcage by Eve Chase
I read and enjoyed The Glass House by Eve Chase and this novel again has events of the past impacting on the present. It is set in 2019 and 1999 and we gradually discover what took place on that fateful day of the eclipse in 1999 which affected the lives of Flora, Lauran and Kat for the next 20 years.
The story begins in January 2019 as Lauren returns together to Rock Point for the first time in 20 years. Lauren and her half-sisters Flora and Kat have been asked their by their famous artist father who has an announcement to make. Through each sisters’ story we gradually piece together what actually happened on that fateful day. The house in all its faded glory has an important role in the story. The house, on the cliff edge, is being cleared following the death of the girls’ grandparents.
The talking African Grey parrot Bertha has also returned for this weekend and is the resident of the birdcage of the title Berthington Palace as it is called. The girls and the birdcage were featured in one of their father’s most famous paintings. Lauren now has a morbid fear of birds and we gradually come to understand what it was which happened that day which changed her into and insecure woman needing careful handling and psychological support.

The novel is well paced and there is plenty of tension and moments of suspense. As the truth of that day is revealed we become more and more involved with the story. There were elements of the story which I predicted but this did not spoil my enjoyment of it and I will recommend it to my various book groups.
Many thanks to the author, the publishers and to Net Galley for the opportunity to read it in return for an honest review.

My thanks to Penguin U.K. Michael Joseph for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Birdcage’ by Eve Chase in exchange for an honest review.

This atmospheric novel is told through two timelines. It moves between the perspectives of Lauren, Kat and Flora, three half-sisters who share a famous artist father and a terrible secret.

In 2019 the sisters are invited by their father, Charlie Finch, to join him at Rock Point, the Cornish cliff house where twenty years before they had sat for their father's most celebrated painting, Girls and Birdcage. They never discuss the events of that summer and yet there is someone in the shadows watching their every move. Someone who remembers the girls in the painting - and what they did.

Eve Chase skilfully utilises the landscape of North Cornwall as well as the architecture and history of Rock Point as an atmospheric backdrop for her family drama. I felt that the narrative was quite restrained allowing the secrets to be revealed gradually in an organic manner though the suspense increased as the story progressed.

‘The Birdcage’ also explored the complex relationships between the sisters as well as how they relate individually to Charlie.

Overall, I found ‘The Birdcage’ a satisfying character-led mystery.

Complex mystery ,full of secrets and lies. Told from multiple viewpoints the story slowly unravels. Set in the beautiful Cornish countryside,three sisters try to work it all out.

Yuppie... my turn for the BLOG TOUR of THE BIRDCAGE by EVE CHASE

Eve Chase’s The Birdcage is a story that sweeps you off your feet, the writing by the author so magical that it transports you to the lazy summers of a house called Rock Point in Cornwall. It is not just the dual timeline story that grabs the reader's attention but sewing together a quilt thru the eyes of the three half-sisters in the present times makes for some gripping reading.

Right away, we are made aware of something terrible that has affected the lives of everyone connected to Rock Point, so much that for, 20 years none of them have managed to step back into the place again. Lauren, Flora, and Kat, the three half-sisters are struggling in their respective lives but are unable to form any sort of sisterly bond or family connection between them. We get to read the perspective of their return thru each of their POVs but the past, specifically the August of 1999 when an eclipse had occurred is narrated thru the eyes of Lauren, the youngest of the trio.

Dysfunctional takes on a new meaning in this family as everyone caters to the famous artist father Charlie Finch and his lifestyle. Eve Chase unveils the complex web at a steady pace as each interaction between the members of the family brings to light the dynamics inside it and the undercurrent of something unsaid lying dormant. The African Grey talking parrot, Bertha is the highlight of the novel and I was in awe with how the parrot and its cage Berthington Palace became a focal point in the story, Lauren’s anxiety connected to the talking parrot and birds in general causes unease in the reader every time Bertha repeats certain things in perfect mimicry with the voice of the speaker.

Eve Chase explores the complicated relationships wonderfully and the face each of the sisters presents to the world and returning to Rock Point is as much a relief as coming to terms with their individuality, reconnecting them to their roots. The characterization of all of them is perfect, flawed, and more grey than white, the careless father, the grandparents trying their best with the children to form a cohesive unit, and Angie, the au pair who becomes a part of their past and present, Gemma and her mother Viv, Pete and Jonah, a whole host of characters that was sketched so beautifully. The sense of place is an advantage as Rock Point on the cliffs, the abandoned huts, the moors, and rocky outcroppings are vividly captured. The mystery element of the story is not hard to guess for seasoned readers and I did surmise the twists right from the beginning though by no means did it spoil the reading experience.

A remarkable journey to Cornwall and to the lives of a family that has to relearn to trust and forgive each other, The Birdcage is a thoroughly engrossing read.

Many thanks to Net Galley, Penguin Michael Joseph, and the author for a chance to read and review this book. All opinions are expressed voluntarily.

This review is published on my blog https://rainnbooks.com/, Goodreads, Amazon India, Book Bub, Medium.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

Ahhh you all know that my heart loves a good dual timeline with multiple POV book, and this one is no exception. Three half-sisters head to their father’s house in Cornwall as he’s planning on making a surprise announcement, unfortunately all of them are dreading it as they have successfully avoided each other for years due to an incident one summer. Unfortunately for them, someone is watching the house, someone that remembers exactly what happened. We get to hear from all girls perspectives as the secret of what happened in the summer of 1999 is finally revealed.

If you want to read a psycho-thriller full of caged secrets and complex familial relationships then look no further. This book is for you. Thanks to the plot and the wonderful writing, you’ll be gripped from page 1 right up until the final word.

Thank you to Michael Joseph for having me on the blog tour for this one, it’s a superb read!