
4*s
This taut claustrophobic mystery is preceded by a hundreds of starlings falling from the sky during a baseball match giving the inhabitants of Mt. Oanoke in Pennsylvania something to talk about until a much bigger story comes along.
The bigger story is just as unwelcome as having the pitch covered with the corpses of birds. Nate Winters popular teacher is accused of something terrible. Nate isn’t just popular with his pupils, the parents love him, and he is one of their own. Alecia his wife doesn’t know what to believe and nor does his best friend Bridget but this is a story that isn’t going to fade away.
This is a slow-burner of a novel and although it isn’t confusing, there is an awful lot to get to grips with, including child neglect, grief, autism, self-harming, bullying and the list goes on while in the foreground the reader experiences through a man accused, wrongly in his assurances to anyone who will listen, and the way this has a ripple effect throughout the whole town.
This is a book that takes you into a modern school somewhere whose setting is familiar to many but the division of students happens on social media as well as in the classroom. The sympathetic teacher who persuades these near adults to write journals doesn’t have the context of those who follow their lives in this hidden world where alliances are made and rumours strengthened to reality.
I love small town settings and the author really does bring Mt Oanoke to life. This former thriving town where so many of the inhabitants were employed by the mill is now a shadow of its former glory and it’s hardly surprising that many of the teenagers are looking for an escape route. This is a place where eyes are everywhere, except of course when they are needed to see the importance of what is going on, a place where the accused stays with a local police officer as he has nowhere else to go and a place where what happens in the school has consequences for the whole community.
The storyline switches backwards and forwards, fortunately not over a huge time-scale but enough for each of our four main protagonists; Nate, Alecia, Bridget and Lucia to give some background to their reality as well as providing some context for the main storyline. This is a great technique for providing the reader with plenty of different opinions and scenarios to mull over, but possibly it caused it to become overly wordy in places although there is no doubting it helps to add layers of tension and an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness for all four characters which of course is echoed by the setting itself.
I was caught up in the plot, I wanted to know what had happened, and not just to those birds, and as the story wove itself backwards and forwards it was clear that very little of the storyline could be divided into black and white and certainly not the characters.
I’d like to say a big thank you to Titan Books who provided me with a copy to read for review purposes.
First Published UK: 26 September 2017
Publisher: Titan Books
No of Pages: 384
Genre: Crime Fiction
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Ohh the previous book was pretty good, this sounds even more mysterious 😀
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This was my first read of a book by this author so I’m certainly motivated to discover more!
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Great blog post, your blog is amazing
http://www.kayleighsblogs.wordpress.com
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Thank you Kay
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great review!
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Thank you 🙂
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The setting for this one is really appealing, Cleo. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and I’m always interested in seeing how it’s portrayed. And the story does sound compelling, too. Glad you found it absorbing.
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Oh how interesting that this is set in the state that you know so well – I hope you weren’t rained on by starlings though – all a bit creepy. It was an intricate read for sure with lots to ponder over.
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Mysterious, I love the small town settings too! It suits the genre so well! Great review!
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Thank you Meggy 🙂
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Great review Cleo. I read this book over the weekend and do agree with you on everything. The birds falling from the sky was a nice creepy touch. At first, the back and forth through different timelines confused me but I do agree with you about the style heightening tension in the book.
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Thank you and good that we agree – I was quite worried about the time switches until I got into the rhythm.
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I loved your review! Since I enjoyed the book so much, I could not stop reading. But the back and forth did give me pause at times. Overall, I was mostly reminded of how social media adds another layer to this kind of story….and I am very glad that it wasn’t available when my kids were teens.
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Absolutely Laurel, I think this was a scary book to read and realise how those at school have this unseen pressure that wasn’t present until so recently.
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Reblogged this on Author Don Massenzio and commented:
Check out the book, The Blackbird Season, by Kate Moretti, as featured on the Cleopatra Loves Books blog.
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Thank you Don 🙂
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You’re welcome.
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Great review! I love novels set in small towns, I’m looking forward to reading this one!
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I do think small towns are one of the most successful settings for crime fiction.
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Thank you for a lovely review.
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Thank you so much Mystica.
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The small-town setting appeals, but I’m not sure this one will make it onto my TBR. I do still want to know about those pesky feathers though… 😉
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I’m really looking forward to reading this one as I loved her last book. BTW, I much prefer this cover of “The blackbird season” to the North American Atria Books cover.
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I prefer our cover too! I need to explore her back catalogue now!
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