The chapters alternate between the viewpoints of each daughter in 2019 as well as through flashbacks from 1999. Dysfunctional takes on a new meaning in this family as everyone caters to the famous artist father Charlie Finch and his lifestyle. The book is so compelling and atmospheric that when they finished, they quickly missed these characters and setting. The sister's are attending their father's house in Cornwall where he is going to make a surprise announcement. When half-sisters Kat, Flora, and Lauren are unexpectedly summoned to Rock Point, their wild and remote Cornish summer home, it’s not a welcome invitation.

The Birdcage - Penguin Books UK

But an invitation to Rock Point, the Cornish Cliff House where they once sat for their father's most celebrated painting, Girls with Birdcage, reunites them. The author skilfully ramps up the tension through fleeting references and tantalising snippets of detail about events on an August day in 1999. It does get a bit confusing keeping everything straight with 5 characters in two different timelines.Rock Point is not just a place of rugged beauty overlooking the Cornish coastline, it’s a place full of secrets and scandal.

The Birdcage by Eve Chase: 9780525542414 | PenguinRandomHouse

There are some other books I have read this year that are written it this convoluted way that are not at all entertaining, but simply irritating. The treacherous Cornish coast is the setting for a cleverly narrated unravelling of the past and the myriad ways in which it has shaped the present. The book centers around three estranged half sisters Lauren, Flora, and Kat that are the daughters of Charlie Finch. The book sets you on edge from the start, but takes too long to get to the mystery of what happened in 1999. It feels strange to describe a thriller about reconciling past sins as being heartwarming, but The Birdcagesomehow manages to be suspenseful while at the same time remaining sensitive toward and generous to its troubled, flawed characters.Upon seeing the house, her heart settles for it as her ideal wedding venue despite her fiancé’s skepticism.