I thought that I would like this book by the description as I enjoy mysteries. However I really disliked the sisters and found their characters and behaviour so unlikeable and disturbing that, although it was a good plot, I can't say that I enjoyed the effort to get to the end.

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.

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.

This book left me feeling quite uncomfortable with how the characters had acted and how the sisters had behaved to each other. I did keep reading as I wanted to know how it ended up but not sure I enjoyed it exactly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

I found it a decent read and enjoyed seeing how it all unfolded and to find out what had actually happened ti the sisters back in the day. Unfortunately, for me, this isn't my preferred style of writing. I like a bit more progress and for text to carry the narrative forward where as this book devotes a lot of time to descriptive text which I could have done without. That's a personal preference though and I know a lot of people love that level of description so they can almost taste the sea air and literally feel the breeze from the descriptive narrative. And the descriptions did have some very clever wording aswell so it wasn't just your basic description, this is HD description of absolutely everything. Other than that, I liked the way the sisters were presented and the cuts back to their youth. It never got confusing about which time we were talking about or which sister and all the characters had their own distinct voices. This isn't reinventing the wheel or anything but it's still a decent enough read

Three half sisters return to their family home in Cornwall at the request of the artist father - a big announcement is going to be made (guessed that one right away). They had left 20 years ago after a full eclipse of the sun and subsequently lead very different lives - a Bohemian, a high powered business woman and a business woman turned mother in the extreme with what is clearly a controlling husband. They re-visit "the event" that happened around the eclipse, they revert to their childhood personae and the story is told in flashback between 1999 and 2019. None of the sisters is especially "nice" and I'm afraid that the story didn't really hold me at all. The writing and descriptions of place were the saving grace. Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I have just been on a marvellous holiday down in Cornwall - it was short but extremely sweet - the shortness because I could not put this book down! The author must surely be an artist herself; her descriptions are so vivid, so full of colour and depth! I was there at Rock Point, the house set atop rugged landscape where Charlie Finch, the artist lives - a wonderfully Bohemian technicolour character if ever there was one! Charlie has three daughters by three different women, Kat, Flora and the younger sister Lauren. Rock Point sets the scene for the reunion of these sisters who reflect upon an event,, somewhat shrouded in mystery, that happened when they were all young teenagers. The Birdcage is alive with characters, scenery, love, intrigue and even a squawking parrot! Read it - you really have to!

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.

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.

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.