It’s my pleasure today to share my review of The Birdcage by Eve Chase which was my U3A book group choice this month. It makes a change for me actually to have read the book in time for today’s meeting!

The Birdcage was published in paperback by Penguin on 13th October 2022 and is available for purchase through the publisher links here. 

The Birdcage

When half-sisters Lauren, Flora, and Kat are unexpectedly summoned to the Cornish house where they spent their childhood summers, it’s the first time they’ve dared return.

Because the wild cliffs and windswept beaches hide a twenty-year-old secret.

The truth about what they did.

Someone who remembers them lurks in the shadows, watching their every move.

And there are other secrets, even darker than their own, waiting to be unearthed . . .

My Review of The Birdcage

Half-sisters Lauren, Kat and Flora are back with their artist father in Cornwall. 

I thoroughly enjoyed The Birdcage, because, although it is a slow burn narrative, the tension spirals upwards like a bird on thermals until the reader is sucked into the story and needs to know quite what has happened on that 1999 day of the solar eclipse. 

I admit that my heart sank when I realised the plot had two timeframes and three points of view, but I needn’t have worried because Rock Point house is an unwavering constant that binds everything together. In fact, far from being sprawling and unfathomable, I found the story claustrophobic and frequently sinister, even when some of the action is quite prosaic. And I think that’s the point about The Birdcage. There are highly dramatic moments, but often Eve Chase explores with great skill the way life flips as a result of an ordinary or careless word or action. There’s huge realism here. It’s a human trait to do something thoughtless that reverberates through the community, through relationships and through our lives and the author explores this perfectly. The Birdcage title fits flawlessly into the story with literal, metaphorical and emotional resonance and a sense of being trapped, but you’ll need to read the story to discover quite why for yourself! 

I found the dynamics between the siblings actually quite disturbing as Kat and Flora behave with spitefulness bordering malevolence towards Lauren. It was Lauren who appealed the most because her otherness leaves her exposed and vulnerable. I felt I knew Kat least and that Eve Chase had deliberately created her that way because other characters know less about her city life too. I thoroughly appreciated the way we never truly know what happens in other people’s lives and minds is explored. There’s a real sense of how childhood relationships impact adult behaviours and how we are moulded by early experience so that we cannot escape who we truly are. Indeed, I feared for Raff, as I felt there was a danger that he might grow into the kind of person his talented, yet selfish, grandfather Charlie seems to be.

The plot is carefully crafted, with the parrot Bertha reminding me of Lear’s Fool, acting both as a kind of Greek chorus and an unexpected voice of reason and truth. I loved the way truth is finally uncovered and, whilst I found Charlie irritating and self-centered at best, and completely flawed and irredeemable at worst, he too is the kind of traditional anti-hero whose behaviour shapes so much of the narrative. I thought this was such clever writing. And speaking of the writing, there are some beautiful descriptions so that the sense of place is vivid and strong. 

I think that those readers looking for high octane action will find the pacing of The Birdcage too measured for their taste, However, those looking for an insightful exploration of family dynamics, with a layered sense of threat and themes of obfuscation, art, trust and honesty, will find The Birdcage fascinating and engaging. I most certainly did.

About Eve Chase

Eve Chase is an internationally bestselling British novelist who writes rich, layered and suspenseful novels. Including Richard & Judy pick, no.1 kindle bestseller The Midnight Hour, The Birdcage, The Glass House (The Daughters of Foxcote Manor, US) Sunday Times top ten and Richard and Judy Book Club pick, The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde (The Wildling Sisters, US) longlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award, and Black Rabbit Hall, winner of Paris’ Saint-Maur en Poche prize for Best Foreign Fiction.

For further information, follow Eve on Instagram, Twitter/X @evepollychase, Bluesky and Facebook.