The intriguing cast of characters added so much depth and complexity to the plot, it made for a truly gripping read.
It felt like I was immersed in the plot of a TV Historical story.

Absolutely stunning, I ordered reading this and will definitely be adding the author’s previous book to my TBR.

Such an atmospheric setting, which really made the book

The title and premise drew me into this book and it didn’t disappoint me. I loved the intrigue surrounding the plot and I enjoyed putting all the pieces together to try and work out what was going on. It was difficult to follow at time because there was so much going on, but the ending was worth it.

A dark treasure hunt with a gripping story with layers of complexity. Freya creates a claustrophobic atmosphere like no one else. Atmosphere in spades: Scottish Castles, gilded age New York and Papuan jungle. One I’ll recommend to many!

I love being given the opportunity to update our school library which is a unique space for both senior students and staff to access high quality literature. This is definitely a must-buy. It kept me absolutely gripped from cover to cover and is exactly the kind of read that just flies off the shelves. It has exactly the right combination of credible characters and a compelling plot thatI just could not put down. This is a great read that I couldn't stop thinking about and it made for a hugely satisfying read. I'm definitely going to order a copy and think it will immediately become a popular addition to our fiction shelves. 10/10 would absolutely recommend.

Great read, so atmospheric.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my review.

𝑴𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒄𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 …

Freya Berry has done it again! #thebirdcagelibrary is a book that will pull you in and keep you hostage until the very last page.

This is atmospheric, haunting and beautifully written. I am a huge fan of this author and I can safely say, she gets better and better. Berry is a must read author.

The characters are interesting and well developed. The setting is gorgeous and Berry is really able to haunt the reader with the atmosphere of this one.

This is a book I devoured in one sitting. Berry is a brilliant author and pulled me into this one completely. This is clever and full of mystery.. I loved how the descriptions were rich and really made me feel as though I was there.

I loved Emily. Learning about her has been interesting. Berry brings the characters to life as well as the atmosphere.

Everything about this book is fantastic.

There is nothing to dislike about this book. This is another gem from a must read author.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

“Welcome, dear reader. You have found me, and I you. The diary you hold in your hands is a treasure map. It will lead you to what you ought to seek. Like all such maps, the trail is cryptic. The reason for this is simple. The man I love is trying to kill me.”

Gorgeously gothic, dark and forbidding, The Birdcage Library is an absolute masterpiece. Set in 1930s Scotland, Botanist and Adventuress Emily Blackwood is about to begin a new commission cataloguing the collection of creatures for sale. When she arrives at Castle Parras she finds a remote and ruined place inhabited by a peculiar nonagenarian and haunted by the memory of a woman who disappeared fifty years ago. After finding the pages of an old diary hidden in the walls, Emily sets out to solve the mystery in its pages. But alongside its secrets, a darkness lurks in the crevices of this old castle. Can she discover the truth before it entraps her?

Enthralling, eerie and suspenseful, this had everything I want in a Gothic mystery. This was one of our summer Squadpod Book Club picks so I’m late reading it, but it feels perfect for this time of year. Castle Parras is a cold, uninviting place but it lures you in, tempting you to try and be the one to make it give up its secrets. There’s a hint of malevolence and a nameless dread that hovers over the pages, making tendrils of fear creep up your spine as you read. With her exquisite storytelling and evocative imagery, Freya Berry takes you on a literary treasure hunt that wrenches you out of your own world and into the one she’s created as you try to solve the decades-old mystery. I was utterly captivated, not wanting to put the book down even to sleep as I desperately needed answers.

“The summer solstice, with its sliver of dark, seemed a strange time of year for a haunting. But perhaps it was not the creatures of night that were most terrifying - at least with those you knew that day would come. Worse, perhaps, were the monsters that rose while the sun was high.”

Emily and Hester were great protagonists. While they lived very different lives fifty years apart there were many similarities between them. Both women are strong yet vulnerable. They are plagued by inner torment, fear, and regret while also possessing a fierce resolve and determination. They are also both surrounded by mystery. For Hester, this is her disappearance, while for Emily it is her past and the secrets she’s keeping from the reader. While you are never completely sure if either woman is a reliable narrator, they are easy to like and I was cheering them on at every step. We can’t talk about the characters without mentioning Heinrich Vogel, Emily’s employer and Hester’s brother-in-law. The nonagenarian is a strange man who gets increasingly creepy as the story goes on. I didn’t trust him or his nephew, Yves, one bit, and was worried for Emily’s safety as she’s trapped in the castle with them.

“The best most of us can hope for is to find comfort in our cages.”

One of the themes running through this book is cages as Berry explores the ways in which they are a metaphor in our lives. She discusses how we can be caged by society, relationships, or even ourselves, vividly capturing how it feels to be trapped in an invisible prison, being desperate to escape but having no idea how to free yourself. She also weaves in literal cages in the form of the castle walls, birdcages and the boxes that hold the various creatures, both alive and dead, adding to the claustrophobic feeling radiating from the pages.

Darkly atmospheric, chilling and immersive, this clever and twisty puzzle gets all the stars. One of my favourite books so far this year, The Birdcage Library is a mesmerising gothic mystery that will haunt you long after reading.

An enjoyable read, found it to be a bit long and I guessed correctly some of the surprises but a good second novel from Berry and will continue reading her work.

I wanted to love this! The mystery was right up my street but for me, the pace was too slow for me to fully immerse myself in this story. The characters were not as engaging as I expected them to be.

This is a slow burn gotthic-esque novel, which I have only just found out, isn't for me.

Set across the 1880s and 1930s this dual timeline novel is a good read for Autumn. All the gothic feels and a slow burn mystery!

This is a great mystery read.

Emily has been requested to work at an old castle, documenting a collection of stuffed creatures. All sounds okay, but she soon realises everything isn't quite what it seems. When she discovers an old diary, she soon finds herself on a quest, and perhaps in danger...

A good page-turner, this has well written characters, and a good pull to the story to keep you wondering what's coming next.

Set in dual timelines from the 1880s and 1930s, this is a wonderful tale of intrigue, deception and betrayal.
Our protagonist is called in to try and track down treasure hidden is a very gothic, Scottish castle. There are multiple plot lines about family and what we are prepared to do for it.
I did feel the exploitation of the natural world may have been overdone a bit. It felt to me a bit like being preached to, but that is very subjective. Otherwise I found this very satisfying and unique in my experience. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publisher for the opportunity to read this. All opinions are my own.

I know why the caged bird sings ★★★★★

Left penniless by the Wall Street crash, explorer and botanist Emily Blackwood takes a commission at a Scottish castle cataloguing reclusive Henreich Vogel’s taxidermy collection.

However, Henry’s true motive is a fifty-year-old mystery which involves his missing brother Charles, deceased sister-in-law Hester, a bird of paradise, and a lost treasure.

When Emily finds Hester Vogel’s diary, she begins to suspect she was murdered. As the story unfolds – two brothers, a menagerie, a woman afraid for her life – Emily finds herself drawn into a treasure hunt which might put her own life at risk.

A beguiling and intelligent tour de force with compelling female characters and a haunting mystery.

The birdcage library

The highest form of love is indistinguishable from liberty

In 1932 Emily Blackwood, an adventurer and plant collector, is employed by Heinrich Vogel to solve a puzzle.A treasure is hidden in his remote Scottish castle and he has employed her to find it. Her excavations take us back several years to New York and a young woman called Hester caught between two brothers and the family business of supplying rare animals to homes and show business. As Emily follows the clues to discover these torn out clumps of pages from their hiding places around the castle, she starts to piece together her extraordinary story. However, she also starts to question her host, the isolated place she’s staying and whether or not she is safe within it’s walls. As Emily solves the clues and we race towards her final conclusions I found myself anxious and thoroughly addicted to Freya Berry’s intriguing and puzzling mystery.

I also found myself rather spellbound by the a book because it features one of my rather macabre favourite things - I have to admit that vintage taxidermy has a strange fascination for me and the quirkier it is the better. Victorian tableaux with their anthropomorphised animals really do make my heart flutter. Rationally, I know it’s horrible and undignified for these beautiful creatures but I can’t resist. This book is set at a time when killing these beautiful living creatures and posing them for the collections of rich men is huge business. The Scottish castle has it’s collection, but we are also taken back a few years to Heinrich Vogel’s youth when he and his brother were the source of all these wondrous creatures. In one example, sourcing a vast collection of hummingbirds for an exotically themed gathering for the great and good of New York Society.

Emily rather reminded me of another incredible heroine, botanist Alma Whittaker in Elizabeth Gilbert’s wonderful novel The Signature of all Things. I loved that she wasn’t like other women in society, diverted by dances and adorning themselves for the marriage market. She is an academic and sets foot in places across the world that many men haven’t yet reached, never mind the supposed fairer sex. That said, he biggest adventure is trying to be acknowledged for her expertise within an academic system that’s firmly a patriarchy. It is a lack of funds that put Emily in Vogel’s orbit, when he hears of her employment cataloguing the Rothschild’s butterfly collection. He feels that only the intelligent and ingenious Miss Blackwood will do as he wishes to catalogue his own incredible collection of taxidermy creatures. It doesn’t take long for Emily to discover a more intriguing task though. Heinrich Vogel’s sister-in-law Hester famously threw herself to her death from the Brooklyn Bridge. From an old book entitled The Birdcage Library, Emily deciphers clues that lead her to the remains of Hester’s diary and her words pull Emily into a past filled with clues, explaining all that happened to the Vogel brothers and Hester’s relationship with them.

Freya Berry uses her historical knowledge perfectly. it enhances and grounds the story within it’s time, using real people and places to anchor Hester’s story until it feels like part of history rather than fiction. The world she describes is so rich, alive with sound and colour, creating an all round sensory experience for the reader. I felt like I knew this world inside out. As many of you know, the birdcage is a potent symbol for me, one that I have tattooed on my body as a reminder to never let anyone put me inside one again. Here Freya Berry uses it as a metaphor for the way society and wealth keep women from living the fullest lives they could. A cage is a cage, even if it’s a gilded one. The women in New York society may have money enough to adorn themselves with the feathers of birds of paradise, but they would never have the freedom that Emily has had to travel abroad and see these birds living in their native habitat - something infinitely more valuable than wearing them as a hat. Despite having a central role in the Vogel’s business operations, Hester is soon relegated to the parlour when her brother-in-low returns to New York. The business is going in a different direction, as her husband pursues the kind of fame and fortune earned by Barnum. Her creativity, business acumen and financial know how are sidelined and she finds herself bored and dissatisfied. Her distraction to this rejection is catastrophic.

As Emily gets closer and closer to the final parts of Hester’s diary, she realises that the repercussions of what happened in New York are still playing out, but now she is in the middle. I was actually starting to be scared for her safety. This novel is the perfect combination of historical novel and mystery, with just the right edge of gothic darkness. Freya Berry has created two interesting and intelligent heroines in Hester and Emily, and I was enthralled by their stories till the final page. I hope you will be too.

In 1932 Emily except employment in a crumbling castle in Scotland, but finds that not only the job, but the employer is certainly not what she was expecting. Told in dual timelines this novel is both a gothic delight, and a mystery/treasure hunt rolled into one . The characters are definitely not what they seem and you are never sure who you can trust. Although a slow burn with all its twists and turns and oppressive creeping dread this book certainly keeps you intrigued and it’s one of my favourite of the year so far. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARRC of this novel in return for an honest review.

The Birdcage Library is an absolute triumph. It hooks you from the first sentence, drawing you in to this intricately layered world. with a mysterious and twisted plot that just begs you to keep reading.

A gripping story about Emily Blackwood, a young adventuress and plant hunter.
A gentleman requests she catalogue his vast collection of taxidermied creatures before sale. Emily finds a ruined castle, its owner haunted by the memory of a woman who disappeared five decades before. And when she discovers the ripped pages of an old diary, crammed into the walls, she realises a dark secret lies here, waiting to entrap her too...
A wonderfully moving tale, I couldn’t put the book down.

I loved the dramatic start to this gothic tale, with an incredible opening sentences. I love a dual timeline as we follow Emmy, who has been employed to catalogue a collection of stuffed animals, and Hester, whose diaries Emmy finds and reads. I enjoyed the treasure hunt of the present, interspersed with Hesters story. I found myself fully invested in both characters stories.

One of my favourite books so far this year. I have seen it described as 'a spellbinding novel of hidden clues and dark obsession' and I thought this was an entirely apt description. The book is set both in the 1930s, when Emily, an explorer takes on what she understands to be a cataloguing job in a remote Scottish castle, and in the United States in the previous century. What happened in the 19th century has longlasting repercussions that continue to echo in the later century. The clues that Emily follows are clever - although sometimes I had to suspend disbelief. There is a vague sense of menace and unease which added to the slightly gothic feel of this book. I found myself rushing home to read it each evening.