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The Birdcage

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The Birdcage

By: Eve Chase
Narrated by: Aurora Dawson-Hunte, Taj Atwall
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

The new novel from the author of Sunday Times best seller and Richard and Judy Pick The Glass House

Some secrets need to be set free....

Lauren, Kat and Flora are half-sisters who share a famous artist father—and a terrible secret.

Over the years, they've grown into wildly different lives. But an invitation to Rock Point, the Cornish cliff house where they once sat for their father's most celebrated painting, Girls and Birdcage, reunites them.

Rock Point is a beautiful windswept place, thick with secrets, electrically charged with the events of the summer—20 years before—that the family daren't discuss. And there is someone in the shadows watching their every move. Someone who remembers the girls in the painting—and what they did.

An emotional mystery full of dark secrets and twists, transporting the listener to the rugged remote landscape of north Cornwall.

©2022 Eve Chase (P)2022 Penguin Audio Family Life Genre Fiction Gothic Historical Horror Mystery Scary Fiction Exciting Summer

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Critic reviews

"Eve Chase does it again! A bittersweet, beautifully written, slow-burn family drama with a killer kick in the closing chapters. I loved every word of it." (Lisa Jewell, best-selling author of The Night She Disappeared)

"Gorgeously written, atmospheric and twisty...I devoured it!" (Claire Douglas, best-selling author of The Couple at No. 9)

"Immersive, tense and ultimately redemptive, while I was reading, it held me completely in its grip." (Sarah Vaughan, best-selling author of Anatomy of a Scandal)
All stars
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After reading the glass house which I absolutly Loved! I found this book a little repetitive and predictable, but it was enjoyable. I love the way Eve Chase writes, the glass house is tge only book I have ever read twice, and I think I will read it many more times.

Worth a listen

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Great story, based in a great location. I loved the characters and it had a great ending!

Great story

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Very very slow, overly descriptive. Only getting to the point in the last hour or two… not for me.

Something and nothing!

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A delightful read with intrigue and drama. Wonderfully vivid descriptions transport you back & forth through time in this story centred around three sisters. Would highly recommend.

Beautifully written & performed

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I liked this story very much though it did drag on in the last few chapters. The narrators were both good but I actually didn’t realise there were two of them until well into the story. Their voices were quite similar to me. A good listen and I look forward to more from Eve Chase. I’ve liked all her books do far

I enjoyed this

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Hate when you pre-order a book by an author whose work you have loved in the past and it falls flat despite many attemps to love it.
I have a mixed history with Eve Chase - I adored "The vanishing of Audrey Wilde", could not even get into "The Glass House" despite numerous attemps and much hopefull patience and although I did like parts of "Black rabbit Hall" the animal cruelty just left such a horrible taste in my mouth it ruined the whole thing for me.
Should I have preordered "The Birdcage" after such a mixed bag of feelings for Eve Chase's books?
In this case definitely not.
In part it was the narration which spoiled it for me as two of the sisters - Cat and Laurel sounded very similar to me and I found the accent very grating.
I did however enjoy the Flora narration and looking at the credits it seems like Cat and Laurel were indeed voiced by the same narrator which would be fine if all three were in the same accent but 2 narrators for three characters just seems designed to confuse and muddy the waters of a complicated structure.
I loved the premise, the famous bohemian portrait painter, his three daughters from three different women and all the emotions such a set up could not help but fail to produce.
I loved the idea of the then/now structure and the mystery of what happened at the eclipse in Cornwall.
So far so good as a story outline but oh dear it did not deliver.
Flora, now a fat obsessed mum under pressure with a toddler, then a rare beauty who had no idea of her allure.
Cat, now a health app mogul, then a wild swimmer.
Laurel, always feeling like an outcast then and now as a late comer to the family circle. Now struggling with anxiety and phobias.
That is all I know about the sisters after reading and rereading chapters as kept losing concentration and even so this is somewhat hazy so might not be 100% accurate.
Another exciting element which fails to launch is the flame haired nanny/art assistant who now has gone a bit to seed.
She was my favourite character but I cannot even remember her name at this stage which speaks volumes - I want to say Maggie???
And there you have it - fabulous outline for a book but in execution I just could not seem to care.
Thanks in part to the narration I really did not care for Cat or Laurel and Flora was just depressing with a lot ofovuation/baby planning angst and struggling with a feisty toddler and a dull husband.
YAWN!
I did love Bertha the parrot but the poor bird could not carry the whole story.
I never found out about the anonymous notes or what happened at the eclipse though I do have my suspicions that somebody died.
Lost the will to listen as the monotony was just overwhelming.
Perhaps if it had just been Charlie the painter, his bird loving mum, the titian nanny, all the many women from his past and Bertha the parrot it might have made for a better book as those sisters were as dull as ditch water and seemed just very one dimensional.
This is a return for me.

Tale of three sisters - could not seem to care ...

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This is the first book I’ve listened to by this author, and it doesn’t inspire me to listen to another. The jumping back and forward in time, from the viewpoint of different characters, seems to the compulsory way to structure a novel now. I don’t think I would have finished it if I was reading it, but as an audiobook it was tolerable, like listening to a not very good play on radio 4. The narration however was puzzling and distracting - why choose an actor with a Yorkshire accent to play Kat and Charlie, posh Londoners, and Lauren who has grown up in Oxford. It made no sense.

Predictable

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I'm not sure if it was the writing, the narration, or both; but I found this book so full of clichés and stereotypes. For me, the narration was over the top and the characters just became characatures. Sorry.

Cliché after cliché

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I’m not sure if it’s due to the fact her books are always set in beautiful places but I do love imagining the houses and surroundings in all of Eves books.
This story wasn’t as captivating as the other books I’ve listened to or read but still a very good listen. Not a lot happened in the end, it’s mostly a story about a family and how they connect with each other but there is one or two underlying stories from the past which come out and how they each dealt with it. Not gripping but I enjoyed it

Love Eves writing

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Loved this beautifully written book. A brilliant story, and characters that by the end of the book, you feel you really know. Would definitely recommend.

Incredible story

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