This beautiful, captivating debut from Aoife Fitzpatrick is based on the true story of the trial of Trout Shue for the murder of his wife Zona. Cleverly weaving together excerpts from the chronicles written during the trial by aspiring journalist Lucy, Zona’s best friend, secret letters written by Zona herself, and Aoife Fitzpatrick’s beautifully crafted narrative, this book had me reading long into the night and picking it up first thing in the morning. In a time and society dominated by men, can Lucy and Zona’s mother prove Trout’s crime or will the smooth talking, much loved blacksmith walk free. Full of gothic intrigue, emotion and women full of inner strength and determination to see justice done, I thought this was superb historical fiction with some exquisite language and I look forward to reading more by Aoife in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for a review.

West Virginia, 1897. When young Zona Heaster Shue dies only a few months after her wedding, her mother Mary Jane becomes convinced that Zona was murdered - and by none other than her husband, Trout, the handsome blacksmith beloved in their small Southern town., But when trout is put on trial, no one believes he could have done it, apart from Mary Jane and Zona's best friend Lucy, who was always suspicious of Trout. As the trial raises to fever pitch, and the men of Greenbrier County stand aligned against them, Mary Jane and Lucy must decide whether to reveal Zona's secret in the service of justice. But it's Zona herself, from beyond the grave, who still has one last revelation to make.

This story is based on true events. It starts off slowly, but the pace soon picks up. It's beautifully written and the words just flow from the pages. The mystery behind Zona's death is told from different timeframes and from two people's perspectives. The tension mounts as the trial begins, and new with evidence threatening to ruin expectations, it's hard to believe that this is a debut novel. I never saw the big twist in the courtroom coming.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #LittleBrownBookGroupUK #Virago and the author #AoifeFitzpatrick for my ARC of #TheRedBirdSings in exchange for an honest review.

Dublin-based writer Aoife Fitzpatrick’s promising debut novel’s apparently inspired by an actual court case. Set in West Virginia in the 1890s it centres on the sudden death of Zona recently wed to local blacksmith Trout. Zona has a troubled past, forced to give up Elizabeth, her baby, after being abandoned by her lover. So she’s completely smitten by the mature, incredibly attentive Trout. But her best friend Lucy, an unashamedly “new woman” and aspiring journalist - complete with bicycle and armed with a typewriter - is less sure about Zona’s decision and about Trout’s intentions. Then, just three months after the wedding, Zona’s found dead. Fitzpatrick’s story follows Lucy and Zona’s mother Mary Jane as they try to make sense of Zona’s sudden death, as they delve deeper they begin to suspect murder. Although Lucy favours conventional means of investigation while Mary Jane’s obsession with spiritualism involves her in attempts to commune with Zona’s spirit.

Fitzpatrick’s well-researched piece develops into an unusual examination of coercive control and domestic violence at a time when wives were often considered their husbands’ property. Her narrative shifts between characters and points of view with a focus on Lucy and Mary Jane. Their accounts are interspersed with court transcripts, and letters from Zona meant for her lost daughter. Although there were numerous elements that interested me, this wasn’t totally to my taste, I found the different perspectives a little distracting, and I’d have preferred more emphasis on character and on setting. I also found Fitzpatrick’s writing style difficult to engage with. However, an earlier draft of the novel <i>An Arrangement in Grey and Black</i> won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and I imagine this finished version would be a more than decent read for fans of this kind of historical fiction.

A compelling, haunting book. With a deftly woven story and heartbreaking characters i loved this one.

I loved this fast paced novel which used a historical domestic violence case to explore contemporary themes. Beautiful writing.

The Red Bird Sings is about a real life murder comitted in 1897.

When Zona Shue dies only a few months after marrying Trout Shue, her mother and best friend believe that she has been murdered by none other than her husband. Trout Shue is a beloved member of the community and noonne else believes that he is capable of murder.

This book highlights an issue that is still as prevalent in todays society as it was then, women are not believed when crimes are comitted against them. The jurors at the trial are all men and the judge is a man and it seems to be implied at the beginning that they are on the side of Trout rather than Zona.

I found the book to be quite slow paced but enjoyable. I will certainly be looking out for more books by this author.

Thank you to Netgalley and Little Brown Book Group UK for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

I can understand that other reviewers found this slow in the beginning but I enjoyed that, it led me slowly into the narrative and made the story more like real life (as it was based on). I loved the combination of court room drama and dark gothic ghost story.

I found this book to be rather slow and it was a bit all over the place. I did finish it but was struggling towards the end.

The red bird sings, a debut novel from Aoife Fitzpatrick, what a read, I have shivers!
Firstly, Aoife’s writing is beautiful and I will look forward to reading anything else she writes!
This book flows like poetry, the pace builds up slowly but never dull.
I adored the characters and the feminist fury to fight for justice for Zona.
If you like courtroom drama with a gothic ghost story feel and a good dose of feminist power, then you’ll likely enjoy this!
A five star read for me!

Thank you to little brown book group for the arc!
A review will be also be posted to my goodreads 25/3/23

I wanted to like this book. I love historical novels and coupled with the murder of a young bride soon after her wedding and a courtroom case it sound just right. The story follows the case of Zona Heaster Shue who dies only a few months after her wedding to Trout Shue. Her mother Mary Jane becomes convinced that her daughter was murdered and by none other than her husband, Trout. Zona's best friend, Lucy, comes round to that way of thinking too, but her father Jacob, remains convinced of Trout's innocence and his wife's troubled state of mind.
The author creates a good sense of place and time, and I was quite happy to believe small town America, but the alternate chapters between Mary Jane and Lucy, with the occasional court notes thrown in, made the reading confusing. I also found the story slow to start and repetitive in places. I was urging the text to get on with it, and it wasn't until the last ten percent that I actually wanted to read on and know what happened - although right from the beginning I was fairly sure of the outcome, it was more the how that kept me reading.
The Red Bird Sings is an interesting subject for a novel, based as it is on fact, and the historical details were interesting but I'm afraid it didn't grab my attention as much as it could have.
With thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for an arc copy in return for an honest review.

Wow what a read! It is slow to start but the build up is incredible. It’s based on a real events and a fantastic read.

Based on a true story of an 1890s murder in West Virginia I was looking forward to reading this one

Though the writing is beautiful in places, I really struggled with this one. The author was able to create a good sense of place and time but I was confused in places as to what was going on. Coupled with the cast of characters, some of whom were boring and some just downright unlikable, the story never really got off the ground for me.

I so wanted to love this more but sadly I just couldn’t properly connect with this book. I certainly feel as though I will be in the minority with this and the writing would certainly make me try the author again.

Thanks to Little Brown and Netgalley for the chance to read an early copy

4.5 stars: I'm only knocking off the half point because the start was quite slow and until I was a third in did I get totally invested in this book. After that I was so hooked that I sat (quite literally) on the edge of my seat until I finished it.

The whole book is about the death of Zona Heaster, a woman with a dubious past that involves the adoption of a child born "out of wedlock". She then finds love with Edward (Trout) Shue but this ends in tragedy when Zona's body is found at the bottom of the stairs of her home. After a strange burial suspicion finally lands on Trout and the history of Zona's life is interspersed with the account of the trial by Zona's best friend, Lucy Frye.

As I said it is a slow start but once the trial began I was absolutely riveted. I had to stop myself from going to the end just to find out what happened because I was getting far too emotional. Set as it is at the end of the 19th century there are plenty of references as to the expected (and accepted) behaviour of women that had me (unsurprisingly) seething.

I'd have to give my wholehearted agreement to the judges of the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. This is a worthy winner. I hope to read more by Aoife Fitzpatrick in the future.

This came together in the end, it really did. However, I wasn't enamoured of a lot of the preliminary content of the book.

To begin with: I disliked the disjointedness of the POV alternating between Lucy and Mary Jane; then came the disruption to the narrative caused by the frequent insertions of Lucy Frye's 'The Trial of Trout Shue: A True Story Containing Hitherto Suppressed Facts'; and yet further, letters from Zona to Elisabeth squeezed between chapters.

'The Red Bird Sings' took too long in allowing me to settle into it. With all of this information scattered around me, it was as though I could see the seams where the research into the real-life events had been stitched together. If I hadn't been reviewing this as an eARC for Netgalley, I might have likely put it down before it had resolved into something that, by the end - as the trial gathers momentum - actually became unputdownable. I might have missed the joy of this really excellent debut.

After reading, I still feel aversion to the way in which the story is structured. I found the dates hard to follow, and I didn't ever to come to see the point of labelling the chapters as 'Lucy Frye' or 'Mary Jane Heaster'; surely the employment of a third-person omniscient narrator sufficed to illuminate all the scenes we see in the book, regardless of whose name is attributed to the chapter. And why not just interfile the facts, so-to-speak, from Lucy's 'hitherto suppressed' journalistic interviews within the plot?

These reservations aside, I think Aoife Fitzpatrick does a wonderful job of burnishing her characters till they shine bright. Fitzpatrick can set up a scene with such exactitude that when she introduces her characters into it, the action blazes. Scenes such as Zona's visit to Lucy in her wedding dress; Mary Jane and Lucy's seance; and Lucy's swearing-in with the stenographer, are emblazoned upon my mind and memory.

I wonder if some of my misgivings might be settled in the final copy: maybe the fonts for the varying sections will be clearer, or perhaps the placing of the interruptives might resolve itself with reshuffling.

Overall, 'The Red Bird Sings' is surprising and unpredictable, original in voice, very well written with attention to detail, and, by the end, wholly engrossing. I look forward to reading Aoife Fitzpatrick's next work.

My thanks go to the author and to Little, Brown Book Group UK.

I have been trying to read more historical fiction as it's not a genre I delve too deep into however this was really enjoyable and I definitely need to read more.

The fictional retelling of the death of a young woman is told with emotion and depth.

A murdered woman, her ghost, and a much marrying, much murdering man.

Unfortunately this didn’t really work for me

Based on the true story of the death of a young woman at the hands of her husband, in Greenbriar County, West Virginia, in 1897, Fitzpatrick’s Book, published by Virago inevitably had me thinking of another writer, taking another real life story of a crime, and a clear feminist assessment – Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace.

And once the idea of Atwood had entered my mind, it was almost inevitable that I would be unable to really surrender to this book.

There is a lot of overwriting in this, sometimes a lack of clarity, often overdone description where perhaps none is needed. And sometimes, writing which is quite beautiful, but then overeggs itself. Sometimes (too often) I also had to re-read a section to try and work out what was going on, who was being talked about:

“Time softened. Grew hard again. Grew more solid and resisting still. The hens stirred outside, and Mary Jane wondered if Jacob, too, was falling and falling, hitting the ground, and falling again.

Her husband couldn’t look at her. Nor she at him. When she exhaled, there was a gap in the pain, making it sharper still when she breathed in. And the sun was a hum below the horizon

Clouds stretched in luminous fingers of pink and peach, beautiful between the hills. The sky sailed from indigo to white, washing out the last of the stars. And merciless daylight pushed and packed the truth into every terminus of her body, spilling into her corners”

This felt a little too contrived, and lacking in narrative drive, with the descriptive ‘bits’ seeming exactly that, rather than something seamless and part of a whole. Too many repetitions, and I think a far better book exists if the author (or editor) had been rather more ruthless with the red pen.

2.5/3 rating

This well-done novel is based on the true story of Zona Shue, a young woman murdered in 1897 West Virginia shortly after her marriage to Trout, the local blacksmith. He is a prized member of the community and no one wants to believe he is guilty but he goes on trial for her murder. Zona's friend Lucy always harbored doubts about and dislike of Trout. So when Zona's mother Mary Jane has a vision leading her a firm belief that Trout killed Zona, Lucy stands with her in seeking justice for Zona. Their quest for justice an speaking up for a voiceless woman in a time when women were second class citizens was admirable.

The Red Bird Sings is a fictionalised account of the murder of a young woman inspired by true events during the latter half of the 19th century. In a time when women were not afforded a public voice, this retelling of the disturbing events surrounding the murder and their ultimate disclosure, is testament to the strength of character of the women seeking justice and their refusal to be silenced. I absolutely loved reading this book! As a debut novel, it is superb!

This is a story about women's voices, and the different ways they are silenced.

Fitzpatrick is a patient storyteller, unravelling the mystery of Zona Shue's death between different narrators and time frames. While the two narrators are both unlikeable in their own ways, the reader still unquestioningly believes their suspicions, and it is hard not to admire their courage in the face of a society that continually tries to silence and shame them. The prose is taut and though I didn't find the gothic elements particularly atmospheric, there is plenty of dramatic tension to keep you turning the pages.

The Red Bird Sings is a fresh and compelling historical debut.

Unfortunately The Red Bird Sings has been a bit of a chore to read!

After a promising opening, with a very emotional letter from Zone to her little girl, it descended in a rather confusion(at times!) introduction to a very unlikable cast of characters, constantly at each other throats, not much love lost between members of the same family kind of scenario and then suddenly a murder in the family.... Needless to say that Zona's death causes the family to implode, supernatural elements are being introduced, and everyone scrambles to prove he did it! And then you have the feminist undertones: Lucy's attempts at being a real journalist without being take serious, all that talk about corsets etc etc ...

In my view this novel wanted to be too many things at once without doing any of them well. I did enjoy some bits like Zona's letters to her child, Lucy's articles about the trial and there where moments and I found myself thinks how gorgeous the writing was. But great writing doesn't always make for a great book ...

Despite not enjoy this novel, I do think Fitzpatrick is a promising writer, so I am curios to see where she will go next!