Great historical novel, up to Helen Dunmore's usual high standard. .

Deep and enthralling read. Very much enjoyed the detail, imagery and the story. Very sad to hear of Helen's passing. Thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

I liked Lizzie as a character, but I just couldn't get behind anyone else, and no one really pulled me in. If the other characters had been as well written as she was, the book might have interested me more.

I found this book a bit hard going and not so engaging as her previous novel. It describes a different world to that inhabited by Jane Austen's characters although they are not far apart in time. It was interesting to find out some of the background to the great Clifton crescents as I lived and worked in the Bristol area for many years. The impact of the French Revolution was more than I realised as one usually only thinks of the emigres fleeing their homeland. Diner was an intriguing character and I kept wondering what he was going to do next. The main protagonists though are the women who are an interesting mix of strong, humble, naive and proud. Thought provoking.

The late 1700s in Bristol, England was a time of great change. Events in France were disturbing and would affect England as well. Lizzie Fawkes is a spirited, young woman who is married to John Diner Tredevant. She has to tone down her style of living and her behaviour as he is conventional and does not like anything out of the ordinary.

Lizzie's mother has been unconventional, a writer of ideas and an idealist. These trends are not popular with Lizzie's husband and Lizzie finds herself trying to tread a middle path keeping the peace at home, and finding solace and love with her mother as well.

There are parallel conflicts throughout the story. Tredevant himself is hiding secrets of a horrendous kind and it is bound to come out at some time. He is also greatly in debt having over extended himself. It adds to the tension in his household. He is at odds with Lizzie's behaviour and this creates another side story as it were. Lizzie's mother's life was itself complicated and her having conceived and had a child in her forties added to the tension in the story. The survival of the baby and nurturing him created another tense situation for Lizzie.

I found the different strands of the story a bit too much to assimilate though the setting of the story and the events in France were very well itemized. The characters of Lizzie and her mother were developed but the story did not take off very well from that point
Goodreads and Amazon review up on 6/6/2017. Review on my blog mid September 2017.

Unfortunately while this author has developed characters so well, the storyline that these characters are involved in moves so slow and bores one to tears.

Written about a crew of revolutionaries living in Bristol, England during the time of the French revolution, it details the life of Lizzie Fawkes, the daughter of a radical mother and stepfather. Lizzie married to a house builder Diner, who is so desirous of having a wife he can control, lead a life that seems dark and brooding. Lizzie worships her mother and at her death assumes responsibility for her mother's newborn son. All the characters tread a mysterious line and one finds that they seem to mistrust one another and possibly fear is evident. Each of the characters seem to be in a constant state of losing over one's shoulder as if they expect the guillotine to fall upon their necks even though they do not live in France.

I have not read any of Ms Dunmore's previous novels, but probably this one was not a good choice as a start to her works.

Thank you to NetGallery and Penquin Book for an advanced copy of this novel.

3 stars. Lizzie Fawkes is the daughter of Julia Fawkes a radical feminist writer (in a second marriage to a radical pamphleteer), Lizzie herself has (against her families wishes due to the conventionality of the marriage and of her partner) married John Diner Tredevant, a heavily leveraged property developer whose latest project is a terraced development in Clifton, Bristol above the Avon Gorge.

The book takes place in the early years of the French revolution – as the revolution gets increasingly bloody, forcing the radicals around Julia to examine their own thoughts on the revolution, and the economic uncertainty caused by the prospect of war increasingly hampers Diner’s attempts to sell his properties and expose the precariousness of his credit financed business model.

The plot development in the book is limited and much of it is revealed up front. In the first chapter we see a male character burying the body of a female in the woods near the river: all through the book we suspect who the two characters are. The first paragraph of the book tells us that the declaration of war in 1893 lead to a complete collapse in the Bristol house market and the bankruptcy of developers. Nevertheless Dunmore by her use of atmosphere (weather is a key factor in the story), description of landscape (the heights around the gorge and the mysterious woods on the other side are almost another character in the book) and thoughts (the book is told almost entirely from Lizzie's first person viewpoint as she tries to understand Diner and gradually realises the truth about him, his business and her marriage) is not quite enough to maintain dramatic tension in the narrative. Many thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book.

Baroque is the word that comes to mind after finishing "Birdcage Walk". Drama, tension and poetic influence is how I would describe the book. I cannot say that I loved this new novel by Helen Dunmore. I felt the plot was missing some key climatic elements. I did not care for the heroine Lizzy, I was hoping for her to rise above her situation and so many times she let me down. Diner was very unlikable and controlling but yet Lizzy would throw herself into his arms again and again. Lizzy doubted herself so many times I struggle to call her the heroine. Lizzy's half-brother seemed to be the best thing that happened to her in the entire novel, and yet when it came to a decision between her brother and her husband, she chooses her husband.

What I do feel Helen Dunmore excelled at was her descriptions and settings in the novel. She vividly captures what life was like in Bristol at that time in history. Her writing is poetic and sensual as she attempts to depict what emotional trials people might have faced during the French Revolution. However, Dunmore's repeated insertion of political discussion into the dialogue felt forced and did not really add anything to the development of the characters or the narrative.

I would recommend this book to my friends but I am not sure I would reread it.

I do want to give my appreciation to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for a free ARC copy of "Birdcage Walk". Thanks again.

For me, this book was just ok, There was enough substance to keep my interest and reading. I could definitely picture the characters and time period once the main story began. The introduction didn't quite flow with the rest of the book. I understood what the author was trying to do by starting with present day, but felt it needed some finesse. It also didn't clearly go back to where it started, which is what I had expected, so felt something missing.

I really enjoyed this book. It is beautifully written and obviously well researched. It held my attention the whole way through. This book is set in the time of the French Revolution and paints a horrific picture of what was happening in France. It also talks about what is happening in England. Diners decline and Lizzies fear for her safety and what secrets he hides kept me reading. I would definitely recommend this book.

I had a hard time getting into this book. It came across as very dry. Since I dd not finish the book, I do not intend to publish a review.

There is a haunting, elegaic air to this novel, with a brooding tension in the relationship between Lizzie and her husband, a tension which one senses could erupt into violence and danger at any moment. This echoes the political tensions of the day, as the news from France, of terror and executions, is passed by letter from observers in Paris.

Lizzie is a strange mix of action, in her protection of her infant brother, and passivity, in her acceptance of her husband and his actions.

All in all this adds up to a disturbing novel that needs to be read carefully.

Set in 1792, Lizzie Fawkes has grown up among her mother's radical friends who support the French Revolution. But Lizzie is now married to a housing developer, John Diner Tredevant, who disagrees with the Revolution and believes that Lizzie's carefree spirit should be quelled. Diner see's Lizzie as his property and her independence as a threat, and his passion for her grows until Lizzie finds herself alone with a stranger who is not the man she married at all.

I was drawn to this book because of the time period in which it was set. However I found myself disappointed by this book. The story was well written and Helen Dunmore captured the tension of this era, however the story is set in Bristol where the characters are far removed from the political events taking place in France. The plot was sluggish and lacked any development throughout. The beginning of the story felt completely disconnected from the novel and I kept waiting to go back to that story but it was never mentioned again. So while the writing was elegant the plot was lacking too much for me to enjoy this story.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Set in the closing years of the 18th century as France is in the grips of revolution, Birdcage Walk tells the story of an Englishwomen who is observing the events across the channel at third hand through her family's subversive connections.  Lizzie Tredevant is the daughter of radical thinker and writer Julia Fawkes, but Lizzie herself is no revolutionary and is married to a traditional and taciturn builder, John 'Diner' Tredevant, whose business building fashionable houses in the Clifton area of Bristol is in jeopardy, partly due to the uncertain political climate. Diner is a complex and brooding man who despises Lizzie's mother and her husband for their free-thinking ways and tries to control Lizzie's access to their beliefs and lifestyle.  In turn, Lizzie becomes obsessed with unravelling the mystery of what really happened to Diner's first wife, Lucie.

Lizzie is a likeable and spirited heroine and in Diner Dunmore has created and intriguing but hard-to-love foil for her enthusiasm and passion.  The book opens with an unnamed narrator, a "solitary and no doubt rather grim middle-aged man" who stumbles across Julia's grave whilst walking his dog in the cemetery adjacent to Birdcage Walk and  becomes intrigued with the story of this forgotten writer.  This opening passage intrigued me and I have to admit to being a little disappointed that we don't meet this character again.

I've always admired Helen Dunmore's elegant and understated writing style and while this book didn't engage me quite as much as some of her others (The Siege and Mourning Ruby being my favourites), I did enjoy it a lot.

To be clear from the beginning, this was not an easy read. Mainly because of the menacing cold atmosphere and the largely unsympathetic characters. I can see where Dunmore wanted to go with this and to some extent she succeeded: she wanted to show that people, especially women, had very little control over their circumstances in those times. Even if they could have been independent, like Lizzie or her mother, they often still made choices that drove them into unwanted situations. I wanted to give this 3 and a half stars, because the writing is good as is the historic setting, but I struggled too much with it to give it 4 stars. To be read on a sunny day, t counterbalance the grayness and cold of the novel.

Birdcage Walk illustrates just how good an historical novel can be. Set in 1792 when the French Revolution is causing a frenzy of worry among France's neighbours, the story reminded me of present day issues such as the economic downturn in Ireland after 2007 when many developers went bust leaving new properties as building sites and when people lost their hard earned deposits.

Lizzie Fawkes has grown up influenced by her mother's radical writings but when she falls in love and marries John Diner Tredevant, a property developer in Bristol, she becomes as fixated as he is by his proposal to develop a crescent of new houses above the Avon Gorge, in one of which they will live, in relative prosperity. Lizzie's husband is besotted with her but finds her tendency for independent thought threatening. He tries to subdue her by all possible means and Lizzie has to find a way of surviving as Tredevant's property empire comes crashing down around them..

As usual Helen Dunmore has written a riveting story. My personal favourite remains Exposure but I highly recommend Birdcage Walk too. Many thanks to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book haunts me. It's like still hearing the last notes of a beautiful piece of music long after it has ended.

All of Dunmore's books are very evocative of certain times and places. She has indeed written about many different periods in history and settings , from the Rome of Counting the Stars to besieged Leningrad. To me this shows a scope and skill that few writers can achieve.
This book starts in modern day Bristol in a graveyard before switching back to the time of the French Revolution and a Lizzie Fawkes.

Lizzie has a close relationship with her "feminist/socialist" writer mother- a sort of Mary Wollstonecraft. The portrayal of this close relationship is one of the strengths of this book.. Lizzie remembers the physical closeness of her Mother as she grieves.

Plot wise there is the "thriller"/Rebecca style plot of how Lucie (Tredevant's first wife died) and what is happening in France -with a few nods towards the reliability of the Press. The accounts of what is happening in France feel somewhat distant as they are relayed by friends' letters. However I think that realistically that would have been the experience of most British people- just hearing news from afar.

John Diner Tredevant is obviously a controlling, abusive husband who wants to rob Lizzie of any freedom of action and thought. His sexual abuse is only mentioned in passing but he wants to "thought control" her too. Will the poet,who represents another world, reminds me a bit of Will Ladislaw in Middlemarch.

There are maybe modern parallels to be drawn of uncertain times for Europe and the property development "boom and bust". However the beating heart of the novel is the depiction of the human relationships -Lizzie and Julia and also Lizzie and her half-brother, John.

There is an elegaic air to this novel about impermanence and how brief human lives are. This maybe comes from Helen Dunmore's own consciousness of her mortality linked to her illness that she refers to in the Afterword. There are echoes throughout the novel of this from the Prelude , to the graveyard where Lucie is reputedly buried through to the execution of the French King, Corday's execution etc.

Dunmore's prose is always poised and elegant. This book is one that will "haunt" me, particularly as I read it at a time when my Mum is terminally ill. Dunmore's Afterword sums it up in a beautiful phrase "the endless silence which surrounds our brief lives"

I assume this book has been written to document how events in France in the 1790's affected life in England. It also throws light on how the written work of female writers of the time has not been preserved. Dunmore has used a fictional setting to illustrate this.
The writing is excellent and it is that alone that drew me through the story. The plot is almost non-existent. I found it quite disappointing.

For the first time ever I find myself disappointed by a Helen Dunmore novel. This one just didn’t do it for me and I even found myself skipping bits. It has all the ingredients of a really good book but somehow doesn’t live up to the premise. Set in Bristol, with the French Revolution casting a shadow in the background, it’s narrated by Lizzie, a newly married young woman, torn between her love and attraction to her rather menacing husband, and her idealistic pamphleteer mother. The husband, Diner – why such a strange name? – is a speculative builder at a period when there’s been a great building boom in Bristol but the row of houses he’s building above Clifton Gorge has been hit by the downturn in the market due to European uncertainty. The tension builds as bankruptcy looms. It’s an interesting period in Bristol's history and much of the novel I found interesting from an historical point of view. Dunmore, as we might expect, doesn’t shy away from describing daily life and the period details are evocative and atmospheric. But it’s the characterisation that didn’t work for me. Diner I found very difficult to get to know, and although Lizzie’s is a vibrant character, I never felt any great connection with her. The plot, such as it is, is rather drawn out and the ending unsatisfactory. So all in all, not up to Dunmore’s usual high standard.

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Dunmore's The Siege is one of my favourite historical novels so I had high hopes for this psychological thriller set in Bristol at the time of the French Revolution. Lizzie, the daughter of a radical brought up to believe in the fight for equality equality, has married Diner, a widower, with a completely different upbringing. While Lizzie has always been secure in her mother's love, even when times are hard, Diner pushes himself to make his fortune through house building as he strives to rise above his harsh upbringing. as events in France lead to uncertainty so Diner's hopes of making his fortune from the beautiful crescent of houses he's. building with borrowed money disappear. The stress of it all leads to him becoming more unbalanced as Lizzie slowly uncovers the mystery of his first wife's death leading to a terrifying showdown as Diner's world collapses around him.<br />Beautifully written as always but I think I would have enjoyed it more if Diner's first wife's death hadn't been revealed before the story began. I felt it lost some of the buildup of tension in the process.