A Funeral for an Owl - Jane Davis
Narrated by Alix Dunmore

I received an advance review copy for free thanks to NetGalley and Saga Egmont Audio and I am leaving this review voluntarily

A schoolyard stabbing sends wingbeats echoing from the past. One shocking event. Two teachers risk their careers to help a boy who has nothing. Three worlds intersect and collide.

The best way to avoid trouble, thinks Ayisha Emmanuelle, is to avoid confrontation. As an inner-city schoolteacher, she does a whole lot of avoidance.

14-year-old Shamayal Thomas trusts no one. Not the family, not the gang. And at school, trusting people is forbidden.

The way that this book is written it was impossible not to be sucked into the story - your emotions are played with and things don't turn out how you expect them too. The story jumps between 2010 and 1992, but this is done in a way that is very easy to follow.

A beautifully written story that will hold your attention until the very end. A pleasure to read and I would highly recommend this book to fans of literary fiction.

Rating 4/5

What a powerful story, told from three very different perspectives, this is an audiobook I listened to through the night. It kept me absolutely engrossed.

A teacher, Jim, is stabbed in the school playground just as the kids are streaming out on the last day of term. A young Asian colleague, Ayishea, is first on the scene and she arrives to see the victim bleeding profusely from a chest wound, his head cradled by a black pupil, Shamayal. These three are inextricably linked by the event and by the past.

Ayishea is struggling to make her own life, away from strong parental influence and familial expectations. Her character is acutely observed and from the start, I felt great sympathy for her. She’s faced with a moral safeguarding dilemma and this plays out as the story unfolds. How will she deal with this challenge? It’s easy to understand her conflicts.

Jim is a history teacher with a troubled background. He made good and became a teacher but through flashback, we learn of the challenges he faced and how he dealt with them. His good deed fior a pupil one wet, cold night has repercussions.

Shamayal has a dysfunctional family; a drunken father, missing mother and he’s learned to trust no one. He too has a voice that resonates as we listen to his take on life. He’s very well portrayed and key to the plot.

This is the first book I’ve come across by Jane Davis, but I find she’s written others which I’ll be looking out. Her writing is lyrical and she has a real ear for dialogue, capturing every nuance of street patois used by Shamayal, and also keeps the listener totally engaged. It’s a story with a heart where following an act of appalling violence, we see the intrinsic good in people. I loved the whole story, it has a ring of truth and remains carefully plotted so it’s difficult to know how it will pan out. Pity this seems to have fallen under the radar a bit, it deserves a wider audience.

I listened to the audio version and the narration throughout was outstanding.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley