The Birdcage

The author's use of descriptive language paints beautifully clear pictures. She weaves several different lives into a satisfying story. She moves the story back and forth between two timelines which keeps you involved and wanting to discover more. It was a very satisfying read.

#TheBirdcage #NetGalley
Propulsive. Loved it.
When half-sisters Kat, Flossie and Lauren are unexpectedly summoned to Rock Point, the remote Cornish house where they spent their childhood summers, it is the first time they have been there together since their artist father painted them in the celebrated Girls and Birdcage. Since then they have drifted apart into wildly different lives, each one determined to forget the fateful summer of twenty years ago. But when they arrive at Rock Point it is clear they are not alone. Someone is lurking in the shadows, watching their every move. Someone who remembers what they did, and has been waiting for their return. As the events of that summer rise closer to the surface, will the three sisters escape unscathed for a second time? Or are some secrets too powerful to remain under lock and key?
This was more gripping than The Glass House. I really loved reading this.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK for giving me an advance copy.

The Birdcage by Eve Chase

This author never fails in bringing such fabulous stories to her books.
I those The Glass House could not be improved on , but I was wrong. What I love about her books is they have a building in them that is quite central to the plot in the telling of the family that resides / or had lived there.
We meet Lauren and her half sisters May and Flossie who share their father , an artist. As young girls he painted their picture at Rock Point , a remote Cornish house , it came to be known as Girls and Birdcage.
As adults , and not a close family knit , they are called back to Rock Point , but each has a secret to bear from that summer twenty years ago .
Eve Chase manages to get into the head of every character she creates , and her way of telling the story unfolds in front of you like you are an invisible onlooker seeing it with your own eyes.

Three half sisters, in their twenties, - all born within a year or so of one another - are persuaded by their father to go and visit him, at home, for the frst time since they were young teenagers. He persuades each of them by telling them that the other two think it a good idea. It's just after Christmas 2019 and he has a 'big announcement' to make. They'd had wonderful times there - so what could go wrong?

Loved it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I read a free advance review copy of the book. This review is voluntary, honest and my own opinion.

Sisters Lauren, Kat and Flora are all going back to Rock Point in Cornwall. Their father has something he wishes to announce. Each sister has their reservations as Rock Point is where they spent the summer. One in particular 1999 and the summer of the eclipse holds secrets.

I quite enjoyed this book. I have read a book by Eve Chase before and enjoyed that one too. This story has a lot I enjoy, a big old house, family with secrets and a story to tell.

The story follows the three sisters but mainly Lauren. The story goes back and forth between the now and the summer of 1999. The whole saga is heading towards what happened with little twists along the way. I have to say the major twist was easy enough to work out so I wasn't shocked with the reveal.

I did enjoy this book and it was nice to get lost for a few hours with the three sisters. This book I would recommend if you like Kate Morton and similar authors.

Thank you to the publisher via Netgalley for the book to review.

This was a complex read about three half sisters, all of whom have different mothers and therefore difficult dynamics within their relationships, who are summoned by their father to the coastal house they used to spend summers together at until something happened twenty years ago resulting in secrets being kept since. This was a fairly dark read and it was interesting to see the impact their childhoods had on the sisters and how the time together now gave them time to pause and reflect. The secrets were not in honesty a surprise to me but it was good to see them all uncovered and see how the sisters responded. 7/10

I really enjoyed this book, it was well written with a good stroyline, well developed characters and such rich imagery and vivid descriptions. It was captivating the whole way through and I vouldnt put it down.

I absolutely adored The Birdcage by Eve Chase. The story follows Kat, Flora and Lauren, three very different half-sisters who share a famous artist father. The story alternates between 2019, and 1999, and centres on the family house - Rock Point - a rambling, windswept, memory-haunted house in Cornwall.

Something terrible occurred there in 1999, and as the three women come together after so many years, drawn there by their aged father, long buried secrets threaten to surface again. As girls, the sisters sat for their father's portrait - Girls with Birdcage. But memories of that time are dark, and none of the family wish to remember. But until they do, they can't move on.

Eve Chase wonderfully evokes the Cornish coastline, and sibling love and rivalry, and the way memories can haunt us. As I read, I could almost taste the sea-salt, feel the gorse-scented wind on my face. Beautiful!

Another great read from Eve Chase, while I haven’t read Glass House (something I intend to rectify) I have read her earlier book Black Rabbit Hall and like this book it’s a real page turner evoking the essence of Cornwall.

I love the guessing game you can play when an author drips feeds you the information about a life changing event that happened some time ago. In this case it was 20 years earlier and a dual timeline is used to great effect. While I correctly got the who and what right I wasn’t remotely close to guessing the how. There is quite a cast of characters here with 3 half-sisters, their mothers, father and his fiancée to name a few and also Rock Point the Cornish cliff house that is the setting in both timelines. This is a fascinating tale of friendships and relationships.

Three half sisters Lauren, Flora and Kat are summoned to the family house in Cornwall by their ageing father, Charlie Fletcher, an artist.
They share a secret about what happened there at the time of the eclipse in 1999, which has affected all their lives, and this is now the chance to come to terms with it.
Despite the already complicated relationships, same father, different mothers, more complications appear in the form of a former nanny, and a very aged parrot.
As the story of what happened in the lead-up to the eclipse is uncovered, they all have to re-evaluate what really happened, and discover the truth, and in so doing, find a way to move their lives forward.
A very satisfying read, with a lot of unexpected twists.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Michael Joseph for the opportunity to read this book.

Sisters and secrets ★★★★☆

Eve Chase is the queen of family mysteries and this is no exception. During the eclipse of 1999, something terrible happened at Rock Point. Now twenty years later half sisters Lauren, Flora and Kat are back at their famous artist father's estate and secrets are stirred up all over again.

Overlapping in age and all with different mothers, the dynamic between the sisters and with their father is complex and jealous. Lauren is the only one who can't remember that summer and the events which ended in a death. Everybody else is hiding something and somebody else is watching them, somebody who knows what they did.

The mystery of who died and their relationship to the sisters is something I figured out much more quickly than usual. However the full story does not come together until the very end when all of the guilty secrets are finally brought out into the open and ghosts are laid to rest. The sisters also start to learn how to be more honest with each other and with themselves.

A multilayered family mystery centred on parenthood and sisterhood.

A great story with so many twists and turns in it, keeping you on the edge of the seat. Really hard to put down once you start reading it!

Thank you for my copy of this book to review.

I’ve previously read and loved all of Eve Chase’ books so I was really looking forward to reading this latest one.

I really enjoyed the split timeline and the chapters being told from different characters perspectives. I did guess at the ending quite early on…but it didn’t ruin the story for me at all.

I have already recommended this book to others and will look forward to more from this author in the future.

A story of sibling rivalry set against the wild landscape of Cornwall, 20 years apart. Kat, Lauren & Flora are half-sisters, same dad, 3 very different mums. The story tells of their summers together & one in particular in 1999 when a tragic event took place.
Although a bit heavy-going in places, the book is dark but intriguing and certainly makes you feel that you are experiencing Cornwall along with the characters. It kept me hooked to the very end with a surprising final twist.
A fascinating read.
Thank you to the publishers for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

A compelling story, which had me hooked from the first page. I enjoyed the switch between the two time periods as the story unfolded, and I thought the characters were very believable. The descriptions of Cornwall were very vivid, and the description of the eclipse was exactly as I remembered it. I would thoroughly recommend this book.

All the threads come together to give a great story. Not my usual genre but I really enjoyed it. Very well written. Great story. Really enjoyed it.

Another engaging story from Eve Chase. Three half sisters are called to their father's house in Cornwall for a reunion where their father plans to make a surprise announcement. All three are dreading the reunion and have largely avoided meeting up for years. Underlying their unease is an event that happened in 1999.
The story is told from the points of view of the three sisters in alternating chapters with one of the sisters personal memories of 1999 interspersed.
As the story unfolds, the reader is drip fed tantalising hints of what happened in the past and how it has affected them. The secrets and the lies they have told themselves and each other are slowly laid bare.
The novel is well structured with an absorbing plot. A very enjoyable read.

A quite intense and complex book which was thoroughly enjoyable exploring various relationships and .interwoven secrets Written at two different timelines, 1999, set around the total eclipse on the coast in Cornwall and 2019 where the characters reunite in the house of the earlier time and confront the past. Plenty of twists and turns with one of two predictabilities but there was plenty to guess at along the way. An engaging and diverse set of characters with wonderful descriptions which transported the reader perfectly. Slightly dark and shadowy in places contrasting with the lightness. of summery Cornwall contrasting with the windswept majesty of winter.

I love finding a new author that I like with a back list of books that I can look forward to reading. The Birdcage by Eve Chase exceeded my expectations. A dual timeline, tick. Set in wonderful Cornwall, tick. A mixed up family with hidden secrets, tick. Three sisters with different mothers and an artist father at the centre of the family who cannot resist the pleasures in his life in every sense. The book kept me enthralled by slowing feeding the clues over time and I was rapidly turning the pages of the closing chapters to reveal the finale. Excellent book.

The Birdcage is another absorbing family saga, cracking and fizzing with tension and deeply hidden family secrets. Based around Charlie Finch, the charismatic womanising artist and his 3 daughters, the story tales place in the summer of 1999 at the Finch family home in Cornwall. The daughters each leave their mother's every August to spend time with their father , grandparents and each other at Rock Point, only something happens that August, the day of the solar eclipse, something that changed their lives forever. As the sisters struggle with their own life problems, everything comes to a head 20 years later as they meet up for a reunion. Secrets are confessed and nothing will be the same again. A very emotional read about sibling love.

I was first introduced to Eve Chase’s novel after seeing The Glass House was part of the Richard and Judy Book Club. The Bird Cage has a similar theme to Black Rabbit Hall and The Glass House, which I was pleased about as I enjoyed them both. I love family mysteries and big old houses full of secrets.

This was another Eve Chase book that I really enjoyed. She always manages to create really atmospheric page-turners and I love her style of writing. Rock Point, as with houses in her previous novels, was so vividly described, as was the harsh and rugged beauty of the Cornish coastline.

The family was clearly a dysfunctional one, as all the daughters were desperate for the love and attention of the patriarch Charlie. While he certainly wouldn’t be winning any dad of the year awards, it was easy to see why he was so loved by his daughters (if not their mothers!) Some of the later revelations didn’t come as a complete surprise to me as I predicted them quite early on. However, it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the book. I still loved the story and how the loose ends were all tied up at the end.

It was an unsettling read at times but also perfectly displayed the complexities of sibling rivalries and familial love. Another great book from Eve Chase that I would definitely recommend.

4+

On January 3rd, 2019 Lauren returns to Rock Point in Cornwall the home of her artist father Charlie Finch after an absence of 20 years,
August of 1999 and the summer of the eclipse being the last time she was there with her half sisters Flora and Kat. All Lauren‘s insecurities come to the fore and secrets the siblings have suppressed stem back to that summer. This is a dysfunctional, disparate family group trying to be functional. Can they succeed and can past ghosts be laid to rest? The story told in duel timelines and by the siblings.

This is another book by Eve Chase that I’ve greatly enjoyed. That storytelling is lovely, there are some vivid descriptions that make you feel like you are there. The house, Rock Point is at the centre of the story, it’s the key and you see it in all its faded glory. I love Bertha, the talking African grey parrot, owner of one of the birdcages of the title (Berthington Palace) who interjects herself magnificently into the storyline. The characterisation is excellent from Dad Charlie (just a bit of a player, the daughters have three different mothers!)to the sisters and Ange who works for the family in ‘99 and reappears in 2019. The dynamics are complex and chop and change which makes for interesting reading. There is a very good air of mystery that pervades and tantalises you and you get Cornwall thrown into the bargain! The pace is good throughout, there’s plenty of tension, moments of suspense, it becomes a bit dark at time as truths emerge which releases characters from its bonds. It builds well and has an ending I enjoy too with Charlie’s art being centre stage. An engrossing and compelling read.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Penguin Michael Joseph for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

Kat, Flossie and Lauren are half-sisters who share a famous artist father - and a terrible secret. Each has found a 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 fathers most celebrated painting, Girls with Birdcage, reunites them. Rock Point is a beautiful, windswept palace, thick with secrets, electrically charged with the one subject the family daren't discuss. And there's someone is watching the house. Someone who remembers what the girls did.

This is a mujltilayered story with elements of surprise. The sisters are attending their fathers house in Cornwall where he is going to make a surprise announcement. The sisters are dreading the reunion, they have avoided each other for years. The story is told from the three sisters perspectives

in alternating chapters. The secret they share happened during the 1999 eclipse. The story flips back and forth from the present day and the summer of 1999. There's lots of little twists and one big one that made the rest of the story easy to work out.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #PenguinMichaelJosephUK and the author #EveChase for my ARC of #TheBirdcage in exchange for an honest review.