Twenty years after their last visit, half-sisters Lauren, Kat and Flora are summoned to Rock Point: the beautiful and windswept Cornish cliff house where they sat for their father's most famous painting, Girls and Birdcage. The last time they were all together, in 1999 for the Eclipse, something terrible happened. Now they're back, no one mentions it - which Lauren finds unsettling and confusing, because there's a bit of a gap in her memory...
The Birdcage is a dual timeline story, switching between 1999 and 2019, and told from each daughter's viewpoint. 'Dysfunctional' hardly covers the Finch family. Famous artist Charlie Finch, now in his 60s, has slept with practically every woman he's ever painted. He has three daughters by three different women. Beautiful Flora; cool, clever Kat; and shy Lauren. While Flora and Kat were born six months apart and have had regular contact, Lauren is a new addition to the family and her sisters resent her.
In 2019, Flora, once the most confident of the sisters, is unhappily married with a young son. Kat eschews relationships for work but her business is in trouble; Lauren has withdrawn further into herself but is determined to find out what happened on the day of the Eclipse. Will spending time at Rock Point finally bring them together as a proper family? Hmm...
The Birdcage will appeal to anyone who loves stories about big old houses, family secrets, old mysteries and larger-than-life characters. (I loved Charlie, even though he was a terrible parent. Kat's imitation: "Don't ever smoke girls. Disgusting habit. Right, where are my Camels?") There's a domineering grandmother, a prospective step-mother everyone loves to hate, mysterious men looming out of the mist, lovable Labradors and a parrot called Bertha, who loves to repeat overheard phrases. Beautifully written, with a heart-warming ending that brought a tear to my eye, The Birdcage is utterly fabulous and one of my favourite reads this year.
Thank you to Eve Chase and Michael Joseph for my copy of this book, which I requested via NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.
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