Why does this request from their father to a family reunion cause Kat, Lauren and Flora such angst.? You'd think a New Year get together would be something to look forward to. But old memories created in his remote Cornish clifftop house hide a secret which, although it may not have been been discussed for decades, is still very much the elephant in the room.
Gradually, through the use of flashback to 20 years previously, the mystery and horror of the birdcage is revealed.
Eve Chase leaves one final twist right to the end but I suspect some readers, just like myself, might get there first which is always slightly disappointing.
I found the structure a bit too episodic and therefore it was a slightly stuttering read but this criticism doesn't mean "The Birdcage" isn't an enjoyable and, at times gripping novel well worth a few hours of one's time.

It's the 7th of January 2019 and we know that a body has been pulled out of the sea at Zennor in Cornwall. We don't know whose body it is. Four days earlier, Flora, Kat and Lauren had gathered at Rock point at the request of their father, Charlie Finch, a famous artist. The girls are actually half-sisters and their dates of birth are embarrassingly close. Finch was known for his fecundity, if not for his fidelity. It's been a long time since the girls have been at Rock Point together: just over twenty years ago, at the time of the total eclipse, something happened. Kat and Flora were obviously involved but Lauren was a victim and it's left her very wary of her sisters.

She's also very wary of birds and she really doesn't want to encounter Bertha, her father's African Grey Parrot who has an uncanny ability to mimic people's voices, usually at the most inopportune moments. Lauren did have one friend in the area: their cleaner's daughter, Gemma. They haven't seen each other since the traumatic time of the eclipse but Lauren writes regularly and it gives her great comfort.

Why has Charlie called them all to Rock Point? The girls have some fame as Finch painted them: the three sisters were pictured with Bertha's cage and it was probably Finch's best and certainly most famous painting. It means that Lauren is recognisable in the area despite not having been there for a long time and she quickly comes to realise that the family is being watched. There are people who would like them to leaave. There's another shock in store for the girls: Charlie announces that he's going to marry Angie, who worked for the family twenty years before: the girls called her 'Monster'.

What, you might wonder, can possibly go wrong? Well, Flora and her son Raff have only reluctantly been allowed to make the visit by Flora's husband, Scott. The relationship is controlling and coercive but it's not clear that Flora realises this. Kat's New-York-based business is in financial difficulty and she's largely trying to ignore what's happening – as she is with the fact that the man she loves is marrying someone else in six weeks. And Lauren? Well, Lauren's mother, Dixie, died just a few months ago and there's a suspicion that Dixie was the love of Finch's life which doesn't endear Lauren to her half-sisters, or to their mothers.

I first encountered Eve Chase when I read The Glass House. I don't usually read historical fiction but I was impressed. It was hard to put down and very satisfying so I was never in any doubt that I was going to read The Birdcage which is thriller rather than historical fiction. It was a hard act to follow but it was largely done successfully. It's difficult, in a story which features four girls/young women who are very similar in ages, to bring them out as individuals but Chase handles this well. It was a good read and I'd like to thank the publishers for allowing Bookbag to have a review copy.

I liked the style of writing, the creepy atmosphere, and the setting. I wanted to loved it more than I did but I found it very slow and the plot was a bit of the thin side.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

The cover alone would certainly tempt me to read this book; it creates intrigue right from the start. Three half sibling sisters are summoned by their father to return to Cornwall as he has an important announcement to make. It’s a place packed with memories and secrets and there’s a really strong sense of atmosphere. I’m not familiar with Cornwall, but the author has created an almost palpable sense of place and that really adds to the story.

The sisters have gone their own way in life and when they return, there’s something not quite right. As the facade is peeled away, secrets and lies are exposed and there’s another agenda underway.

I really enjoyed this story. It’s multifaceted and explores relationships, trust, betrayal and much more. The characters feel like real people, some more likeable than others, but as a whole it’s a compelling family saga which has twists and turns to keep the reader interested.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

Eve Chase’s new novel had all the ingredients of a perfect read for me - quirky bohemian family, unconventional artistic father, large Cornish house and family secrets that have haunted his daughters for years. It’s the psychological impact of these family secrets that really make the novel. The story is told in a dual timeline, in the present Lauren, Kat and Flora are returning to Rock Point, her father’s mansion house on the Cornish Coast. He has invited them after many years away from the house, following a terrible incident that occurred on the day of the eclipse in August 1999. The events of this day are told in our second timeline. Lauren is the youngest by a few years, and on that day she was an adolescent , while her half-sisters Flora and Kat are older teenagers. Each girl has a different mother and their overlapping ages show the sexual profligacy of their father Charlie, a well-known artist. As he sits down with his three adult daughters, Charlie has a big announcement for them. The girls are expecting an illness or plans concerning his artwork, but they have a shock in store.

The complexity of this family’s relationships is at the core of this novel and I really enjoyed going back in time to work out why and how each woman’s personality was formed. On the surface Flora is the most conventional sister, with a husband and young son Raff, but is everything at home as happy as it seems on the surface? Kat is the most career minded sister having developed a well-being app. She is constantly checking her phone and looking for a reliable signal so she can work, but is she just busy or is the world of well-being more stressful than it should be? Lauren has had the most recent difficulties in life, nursing her mother Dixie who was terminally ill. After moving into a local hospice Dixie died, and although Flora invited her for Christmas Lauren didn’t come. These women are anxious to be together again. Flora and Kat used to tease Lauren, even bully her a little bit. The reasons for this become clearer, but Lauren has always thought it was about Dixie. Dixie was different to me 6 hCharles’s usual choice in women, she was unadorned apart from piercings, kept her hair shorter and was artistic in her own right. Indeed Charlie is touchingly affected by her death and seems to regard this separation as something he most regrets in life. Each sister’s personality fits perfectly with their back story: Flora’s hesitancy and submissive nature; Kat’s avoidance and distraction, creating workaholic tendencies; Lauren’s phobias, which are usually under control, but thanks to Bertha the parrot and the wealth of seabirds surrounding their home it can be a problem. The parrot has other tricks as well, mimicking the house’s occupants with phrases that only one person knows are true or false.

I thought the pace was clever, becoming more urgent in the past and present day at once propelling the reader towards the eclipse event and the effect of it’s revelations in the present. What was particularly clever was the way some people are only revealed in all their complexity, in the present. Angie, who worked as their au pair, was disliked by Lauren when she was a child. Lauren sensed her duplicitous nature and knew she wasn’t really there for them, describing her as hungry to get to Charlie like an art groupie. However, as an adult Lauren can see that this was more complicated and how she didn’t understand adult relationships. There’s a shift in years and awareness, where Lauren and her sisters can now see that Charlie wasn’t just a man beleaguered by women throwing themselves at him. He is an active participant in these complicated affairs and in bringing these girls into the world. He’s even passive at their visits, always pleased to see them but never negotiating with exes, or organising the logistics. Their gran does all the work, leaving Charlie free to paint in his studio, a place where only his models and Lauren are welcome. He’s never taken responsibility for his actions and as events unfold it’s possible that those actions have created a perfect storm of sibling jealousy and conflict.

That eclipse summer, Charlie has asked his three daughters to sit for a painting with the large ornamental birdcage. It’s the painting that will become his most well known and most valuable, in fact the girls are sorry it’s gone to art collector because as far as they know it’s his most personal. There’s a wealth of imagery in this painting, starting with the three sister’s pose, sitting together but not touching, like three separate islands. There’s the solemnity behind it too, the girls are not talking or cracking a joke and all three are staring out towards the viewer. Or is it towards the painter? In feminist readings of visual arts the bird within a cage represents the imprisonment of women, but also the gilded frame through which we view femininity. We can’t know the painter’s intention, but by painting it next to his daughters is he acknowledging their freedom? Or could he be pointing out a sexual double standard? He has been free to create these overlapping lives without censure, whereas their mothers and the girls have borne the gossip, shaming, poverty and hardship that comes with being a single parent. They’ve had to hear the whispers and insults about their morals, while he has been free to carry on with only the reputation of being bohemian to his name. Or could the birdcage contain his secret? The consequences of this secret we see on eclipse day, although it isn’t fully revealed until the present when it puts Lauren and her nephew Raff in danger. Only then will Charlie have to deal with how his behaviour has affected others, like ripples on a pond. This was an engaging tale of complex family ties and the psychological effect of a parent’s action. It has all the bohemian glamour of a country house occupied by an artist and a gorgeous atmospheric setting in beautiful Cornwall. I was gripped to the final page, having felt an affinity with Lauren and Flora I wanted to know how their stories turned out and the epilogue brings a satisfying ending to this family saga.

A beautifully written book about a troubled family history. Its very descriptive and I was invested in the characters throughout. The beautiful Cornish backdrop to the story made me want to visit While I enjoyed reading it, I did find it a little slow at times and not so much a mystery but more a family drama.

The Birdcage is a tense, page-turning novel about complex family relationships and the secrets people keep. The narrative revolves around three half-sisters, Lauren, Kat, and Flossie who have all drifted apart over the years and live disparate lives disconnected from one another. Their father, an artist, invites them all to his home in Rock Point, Cornwall where they are reunited and long held secrets begin to be unravelled. The narrative switches between present day and 1999, the year of the solar eclipse and a time when something happened that the sisters must now confront.

At times Kat and Flossie are wholly unlikeable, though Lauren comes across as genuine and earnest, but I did find that I liked all of them in the end and found their different relationships interesting. I enjoyed the pacing and found myself unable to put the book down at times with twists and reveals keeping me engaged, even if some were a bit predictable. There is often an eerie gothic atmosphere with the setting providing a gloomy backdrop to the events. I lived in Cornwall for 10 years and love reading novels set there! It can be gloomy and gothic, particularly over the moors and Chase conveys this beautifully. Her descriptions of the surroundings are evocative and lyrical and set the scene perfectly.

This is the first book I have read by Eve Chase but I definitely want to read more! Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Michael Joseph for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The wild Cornish coast, a manor house, a narcisstic father, his new wife, a parrot, an eclipse and a clutch of sisters with secrets. Yes it is just as good as the sum of its parts. I was gripped from beginning to end of this novel and still sometimes think about the sister's most traumatic childhood experiences. It's a beautifully story that I heartily recommend.

Eve Chase’s storytelling is just on another level and I have this thought each time I read one of her books. Her descriptions are so vivid and immersive, it’s always a pleasure to get lost in her worlds.

The Birdcage is a story heavily centered around three adult sisters - Flora, Kat and Lauren - as, at their father’s request, they reunite at the place they used to call home every August when they were growing up, Rock Point. With a dark secret that has kept the sisters from fully connecting for the last 20 years and a dual timeline alternating between the present and the summer they don’t speak of, I was very much absorbed and wanted to unravel the mystery. A very enjoyable read!

Thank you to Penguin Michael Joseph UK & Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this overall but struggled a bit with it as it seemed quite slow moving at times. Good characters and a good storyline though. Recommended.

A wonderful deep and claustrophobic examination of extended families, sibling rivalry and lost opportunities. Eve Chase creates a magnificent atmosphere and a detailed heartbreaking story of sisters through the years, and an unspoken event buried in the past that threatens and offers redemption in equal measure. A completely satisfying novel, I was sad when I got to the end.

This book is a read that draws you in like a friend telling you an interesting family history. I wanted to read it all in one sitting.. I loved the descriptions of Cornwall and the description of the family’s dynamics.

Covers are a great way of noticing books and this cover is gorgeous. The cover shows a lovely white house in a cage and as I have now read this book, it is very relevant. The Birdcage is a novel that skips back and forth in time. It has mysterious undertones that are not always obvious.

Three sisters, well half-sisters as they share the same father, but have different mothers. The sisters have been summoned back to the house which has caused painful memories. They have been summoned by their father and it is the first time they have been back for 20 years. The last time was in 1999 for the solar eclipse.

Each sister is nervous as they make their way back to Rock House, each one has something that is easting away at them and each one just wants to get through this reunion and go back to their lives. While they may have tried to put events of 20 years ago behind them, things are certainly going to resurface.

This is a wonderful book that really draws on the wilder side of Cornwall, a country steeped in mystery and one that lends itself to stories like this one so well. The author brings the windswept moors and the crashing seas into the story. In some ways, the unpredictability of the weather also matches the feelings of those in the house.

Each of the sisters has memories from 1999, but some are more deeply hidden than others. The author gives the sisters very distinct characters and personalities, but the one thing they have in common is that they have all drifted. They are not the same people they were and so this becomes a very tentative, stepping on the egg-shells reunion.

I really enjoyed how the author gradually brought in the mystery via each of the main characters, there is a sense of something quite serious happening. When this is finally revealed I sort of didn't see it coming as such, but it also wasn't a huge shock as I had realised the author had been very subtly leaving breadcrumbs.

This has a haunting atmospheric feel to it, with the secrets and unsaid things that have lurked in the past. It is one that I think is ideal for those who like family mysteries and secrets as well as contemporary time-slip novels. It is one I would definitely recommend.

I'm a fan of Eve Chase's cosy family dramas and The Birdcage didn't disappoint! One January, half-sisters, Lauren, Kat and Flora are asked by their father to meet at the remote family house on the Cornish coast. Usually they only visit in summer - winter makes the landscape much more inhospitable - and they know there must be a good reason for tis unseasonal summons...

Once there, their father, famous painter Charlie Finch, reveals something unsettling to the sisters. Also, running parallel with the present day (well, 2019) story is the back-story of what happened in 1999, when the sisters were on holiday in Cornwall, the year of the eclipse. We're given POV chapters from each sister to get all perspectives. and the tension and drama around this is steadily built up, so you keep turning those pages to discover what happened.

I enjoyed the story of siblings rivalry and secrets, plus the beautifully wild Cornish coast was a wonderful backdrop, really added to the atmosphere.

There's a mystery from the off as three sisters Lauren, Kat and Flora are summonsed back to Rock Point in Cornwall. their father has asked them back but they are worried. Something happened one summer and they fear that a dark secret will emerge. One summer, during an eclipse, an event took place which they don't want to face up to. However, someone knows...

The way the author describes the house and the seaside cliffs is something else. I enjoy this authors work and this book was her best yet.
The build up to the big reveal is enticing and made for entertaining and atmospheric reading.

recommended

I did not feel that this met the book description. Although the descriptions of scenery and characters were well written but the story lacked the depth of really being a mystery as it was more an involved family life story.

The Birdcage is the story of three half sisters, Lauren, Kat and Flora, who get a call from their father, Charlie Finch, saying that he wants them all to met at his home Rock Point, on the coast of Cornwall shortly after Christmas 2018. Charlie Finch is a famous artist with a studio in the house where the three girls sat for one of his most famous paintings, Girls and Birdcage, in the August 1999 as they looked forward to the total eclipse of the sun that month.

From the start it is clear that there is some deep dark secret in the family as the plot jumps between 1999 and 2019 and we learn more about extended family. While I liked the story I found it too long with too much description. I wasn’t so much as enjoying the book as wanting it to move and get to the more interesting bit which was maybe the last quarter. I did like the plot and the ending but the route there bored me at times and I found I was easily distracted by other things to do and never fully immersed in this book.

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have read several books by this author which led me to request this book on Netgalley. I am very grateful for the chance to read and review the book.

For me this book's storyline is so thin as to be easily seen through. Something (I won't say what) obviously happened on the day of the eclipse 20 years prior to the date of the recent events in the book. For me that is it - the sisters are so similar as to be almost indiscernable from one another. There are some current troubles apparently all leading back to the original events but I never felt that I could care about them or how they related to the past. The reveal was OK so i knew that anyway. A real disappointment for me as I struggled through hoping for better as the narrative moved on.

I would feel too mean to give it a 1 star review so erring on the better side and rating as 2 star

Rating: 2.3/5

This was one of those occasions where I could genuinely admire the author's writing, but without really enjoying the book as a whole.

Reading the early chapters, I felt as though this was going to develop into a hugely appealing piece of work. The characterisation was impressive and the use of descriptive language was delightfully evocative. I was also quite taken by the writer's inventive creation of compound adjectives, which were reminiscent of the German approach to constructing highly appropriate new words.

Unfortunately, after this first-rate setting up of the story, the tempo became more than a little subdued for lengthy periods. The quality of the writing remained of a high standard throughout, but I found myself regularly yearning for the excessively slow-burning pace to be given some impetus. I understand the overall atmosphere that the author was aiming to create, but everything just felt too flat for too long and it became frustrating.

I have little doubt that many readers will be drawn to this predominantly well-written family drama, with its atmospheric Cornish backdrop, but, for me, it didn't really live up to its potential, nor make the most of the author's undoubted abilities.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review.

Eve Chase has become one of my go-to authors and this was the best yet. An intriguing tale of 3 half sisters and an eccentric artist father that kept me involved throughout. There has been a terrible incident that has changed the girls lives but we don’t find out what until very near the end and the tension is kept perfectly with beautiful descriptions and characters development. A lovely read .