I found this to be one of those quietly powerful books! It grabs you with the characters and the setting, and gets under your skin as you follow their story showing their strengths and vunerabilities and beautifully captures what it is to be human.

Liv runs a remote Colony and has done for years. Living off the grid, so to speak, she set up in a remote area not only to help herself, but to help others who find their way to her, all with different reasons for needing space and a change of scenery. And Liv understands the complexity of humans, dealing with issues throughout her life while living with her daughter.

Conor shows up out of nowhere and you're left guessing as to what his reasons are. the more time he spends with Liv and her family, the more insights he gets, and I love the fact that you get to spend time with each character and get to understand them more. there's often an uneasy feeling about the goings on as you try and figure out if they're hiding things from each other and it really strips each character back to basics as there's no distractions on the colony. What are they running from? What is next for them looking forward? All those questions that plague us all, no matter what age we are!

Liv is facing up to her own issues with aging and living so remotely, and the author has done a beautiful job of treating each character sympathetically, even if some do make you mad at times!! A really absorbing read and one I'd highly recommend!!

Birdeye is a commune in the Catskills. Owned by 67 yr old breast cancer survivor Liv Ferrars and for forty years has welcomed hundreds of lost-souls, like-minded non-conformists, strangers and sometimes disruptives.
Liv has two adult twin daughters, Rose and Mary. Rose has complicated medical needs and requires constant attention, whilst Mary left Birdeye to become a lawyer in London.
Siblings, Sonny and Mishti have been with Liv since the beginning and have become as central to the commune as Liv.
But when Sonny and Mishti decide to leave after 40 years, the stability of Birdeye is threatened. Secrets from the past fracture the peace of the commune and up-end the lives of all who are still invested in the ideal.
This disintegration coincides with the arrival of Connor, an unreadable stranger who asks too many strange questions and is held in suspicion by Sonny and Mishti. Liv, however, remains open to welcoming him. Is this most recent visitor the final mail in the coffin?
The book is gentle and thoughtfully written. It perfectly charts the fracturing of an ideal when all parties are no longer of the same mind about an initial vision.

You'll most likely be drawn to the cover of this novel, which is a work of art in itself, but this is, first and foremost, a beautifully written novel with, often, a hypnotic narrative style. The characters are well-drawn, and the setting is beautifully rendered. What a treat to read another Judith Heneghan novel. Highly recommended.

3.5 stars

Started slow, getting to know the characters, the relationships, the location, but then really pulled me in.

Needing to know more, the motivation behind some behaviour.

Mary was the star for me, but each of the characters were interesting.

An enjoyable read.