Birds of a Feather by Tricia Stringer
When three women are thrown together by unusual circumstances, ruffled feelings are just the beginning. A wise, sharply observed celebration of the life-changing power of female friendships.
Eve has been a partner in a Wallaby Bay fishing fleet as long as she can remember. Now they want her to sell – but what would her life be without work? She lives alone, her role on the town committee has been spiked by malicious gossip and she is incapacitated after surgery. For the first time in her life she feels weak, vulnerable – old.
When her troubled god-daughter Julia arrives at Wallaby Bay, she seems to offer Eve a reprieve from her own concerns. But there is no such thing as plain sailing. Eve has another house guest, the abrasive Lucy, who is helping her recuperate and does not look kindly on Julia’s desire for Eve’s attention.
But Lucy, too, has demons to battle and as each woman struggles to overcome their loss of place in the world, they start to realise that there may be more that holds them together, than keeps them apart.
But will these birds of feather truly be able to reinvent what family means? Or will the secrets and hurts of the past shatter their precarious hold on their new lives … and each other?
Published 29 September 2021| Publisher: Harlequin Australia | RRP: AUD$32.99
Buy it at: Dymocks | Booktopia | A&R | Abbey’s | QBD
My Blurb (3.5 / 5 stars)
Birds of a Feather is October’s BOTM from The Book Stack. I’m not sure if I would have pick this one up at all if left to my own devices and as it is, I read this in beginning of November! October was one crazy month for me. While cover & description weren’t particularly intriguing to me, I do like the symmetry & colours of the cover and I have previously read a romance book by this author so I jumped in with a certain expectation. There isn’t much romance in this book but what there is, is certainly rather sweet. However, as I step back and mused on the 3 generation of women who aren’t related by blood coming together and being supportive towards each other, I just really love this idea.
Eve, the eldest of the three, is an independent woman and depending on others to help (despite having hurt herself quite badly) is not something that she can accept easily. Add to this is her nemesis who had spread a lie and turned her beloved community against her. She just feels tired. Her help comes in the form of Lucy, a nurse, mother of two, and youngest of the three women. She appears to be very good at her job in caring for Eve and yet, so uptight when it comes to her family and children. In blew, Julia, Eve’s goddaughter, who is in a rather uncertain circumstance and isn’t sure where to turn. As their lives collided, they also colluded and held each other up.
I avoid domestic thriller but I do read a lot of crime novels. This book is neither and yet, I kept expecting something truly terribly crime-y when these women opened up on secrets and hurts they’ve experienced. Even as their hurt is not on the scale of a crime novel, their pains were real and their courage and resilience admirable. Birds of a Feather is an inspiring novel of womanhood, motherhood, sisterhood, and family.
My thanks to The Book Stack for this paperback copy of book in exchange of my honest thoughts
About the author
Tricia Stringer is a bestselling and award-winning author. Among others, her books include commercial fiction titles Table For Eight, The Model Wife and The Family Inheritance, the rural romances A Chance of Stormy Weather and Come Rain or Shine and historical sagas Heart of the Country, Dust on the Horizon and Jewel in the North, set in the 19th Century Flinders Ranges. Tricia lives in the beautiful Copper Coast region of South Australia, often exploring Australia’s diverse communities and landscapes, and shares this passion for the country and its people through her authentic stories and their vivid characters.
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Tien's Blurb 