The Birdcage Library: A historical thriller that will grip you like a vice: Freya Berry: 9781472276353: Amazon.com: Books

4.5 starsTHE BIRDCAGE LIBRARY, by Freya Berry, is a novel that combines a Gothic atmosphere, mystery, thriller, treasure hunt, and Historical Fiction all in one. Told in two timelines, Emily is hired to categorize the taxidermy collection of a wealthy, dying man, in a remote castle. Once she begins, she quickly realizes the real motive for her being there--not unlike a treasure hunt, she is to help search for clues to the whereabouts of a missing diamond. When she comes in contact with part of a diary that belonged to Hester, the woman accused of hiding the diamond some 50 years prior, we begin to get the story from each woman's point of view and place in history."The best most of us can hope for is to find comfort in our cages."The allegory of birds and cages is all throughout this novel. In a physical sense, the birds that were kept in stylish cages (Hester's time), and metaphorically, a woman's place in society/home/the world. I found both Hester and Emily to have much in common, and genuinely enjoyed each woman's chapters. They were both emotionally potent and riveting in a thrilling/survival sense."... No cage will hold a creature that insists on dying . . ."So many of these comments can be taken both at face value, and in a more profound, mental state. The more we learn of Hester's past, the closer Emily gets to her secrets (and the more we learn about Emily, herself). There were a few twists I found very easy to guess at early on, but this didn't detract from the novel itself. I felt a strong compulsion to keep reading each time I picked it up. The atmosphere was perfect, in my opinion, for both timelines, and I have to say that I enjoyed each equally. There was only one part (the personality of one of the characters), that I felt gave "unnecessary drama" to the tale, in a way that it didn't need.". . . The strongest cages are the ones we make for ourselves . . ."Recommended.

It's mid 1930s, Emmy, a botanist and plant explorer, has to return to England with her blind father. Restless, traumatised by the loss of her mother and twin sister, she needs funds and has to take a contract to catalogue a collection of stuffed animals, no other word for it, in a remote Scottish half ruined castle with some weird inhabitants. The story starts as a fairly straightforward narrative by her. We then jump to Hester's story in the late 1800s - married to Charles, in love with his brother Henry and working in their family business of collecting live wildlife for patrons' amusement and enjoyment. Anything is on the cards but mostly birds by the thousand for their feathers, ostrich plumes being a the height of fashion. An unpleasant trade of the time. Hester hates the constraints of her life and is apparently murdered by her husband. Nonetheless she leaves clues behind for a treasure hunt. Her relatives own the aforementioned half ruined castle and Emmy takes up the treasure hunt some 30 or so years later. The atmosphere is good throughout from the castle itself to the glitz and glitter of upper class eastern USA - more is better and don't bother about the methods of collection. Hester and Emmy are both strong characters but neither really caught my attention, Emma in particular felt unreal. The story jumps between the two women and it could easily take a few sentences to realise we'd moved from one to the other. The treasure hunt was partly interesting but partly unrealistic too, at least to me. Overall an ok read and the ending was a nice twist. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy