A little bird and a lot of secrets. A wonderful take, that will keep you turning every page. A thoroughly exciting read.

I loved this book, I read some reviews prior to reading it and a lot were referring to the fact that you don't actually get to know what's going on until half way through the book. but for me, this just enhanced the book. I liked the nostalgic feel to the book, going between 1976 and 1988. It is well worth a read.

New author for me but pleasantly surprised. Thank you for the approval and look forward to a book relationship with other reads in the future,

I enjoyed this book. The relationship between the siblings was really well written and the story of a dysfunctional family unfolded over years. Great book.

This was a book I grabbed off of Netgalley and well didn't get to til now. I was very excited for this book and it got lost in my pile. I loved the cover and the summary just called out to me. I am glad I was finally able to dig into this read and I really loved it. It was a great story, great mystery, and just all around good.


This is a story about a young woman and they way she comes to terms with some mistakes of her past. Robyn grew up without her father. She never met him and didn't know who he was. She lived with her mother and her brother, and her mothers boyfriend that was like a father. Life was good until the day her mother tried to help a woman out of a bad life. It all changed when a man approaches Robyn at the pool stating he knows her mother. Everything changed that summer. And now that Robyn is an adult she goes back to the house to face the truth about that summer.


I really really enjoyed this book. It's told in dual time lines... from Robyn's childhood and from the present with Robyn now about 21 years old. I do love this narrative. but... that isn't why I loved this book so much. This book was raw and bold and painful. It was dark and gritty and I just felt it down to my core.

There is a ton of mystery flowing through this book. I am sure that helped add to my love of the book. There is the mystery of Robyn's past that has multiple mysteries hiding in the memories. Each comes out slowly and is answered by the end of the book. There are many things that are going on at once in her past and the way they are all tied together to make just one hell of a summer was so well done. Everything that happened that summer led to one bang of an end.

The mysteries are what kept me reading but what really got me was the character development. Robyn is a young woman with a hurting girl stuck inside of her. She is held down by so much guilt and shame and loss that she has a hard time facing life. She is determined to face her past so she can finally move on.... but there are other reasons to be back to her childhood home.. Not only does she need to face the past but she also needs to find the proof to what really happened that summer. So she goes on a quest with the help of her brother and his childhood friend.

The ending was quite a bang for me and I loved how it all came together. Some things I had figured out and some things were quite a shock to me. It was good and if you like dark and gritty and painful and if you like a good mystery...this is a great read.


Loved it and I can't wait to read more from this author!

A little bird told me is worth a read, I felt like the story didn't flow very well given how often it flicked between years and although I liked the characters the beginning didn't hook me in like some do. I struggled to keep going back to it to finish reading.

A young woman and her brother return to their abandoned home and an unsolved family mystery in this slow burn of a debut novel.

Told from the perspective of Robyn, the Little Bird of the title, and switching between the 1976 heatwave and the siblings' return twelve years later in 1988, A Little Bird Told Me takes its own sweet time in unravelling the mystery at the heart of this story.

This is in part due to the fact that Robyn is our narrator and, while she may return as a twenty-one year old, she was only nine when the events of 1976 took place. Robyn has repressed memories as well as a skewed vision of what happened due to her age and the fact that others protected her from what was going on at the time. In retrospect, this was probably misguided on their part even if it was done for all the best reasons, but it all feeds into how unreliable she is as a narrator and how slow she is to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

That said, I would have liked to have had a few more breadcrumbs scattered throughout the book to help me keep faith that there would be some better resolution than the path of vengeance Robyn seems set upon when the book opens.

The pace of the narrative is languid at times but this sits well with the lethargy felt throughout that summer of 1976. It also serves to illustrate how small-town life doesn't always make it easy for you to move on from past events but instead stagnates around them. Robyn finds it difficult to start over here, in contrast to her older brother, Kit, who is admittedly more interested in putting the past behind him and getting on with his life.

Where I enjoyed A Little Bird Told Me the most was in its descriptive passages as I traced grown-up Robyn's walks around town, the part Eva and Neil played in the siblings' story, together with the relationship between her and Kit in the 1988 sections. And in 1976 it was in the details of a small town in a heatwave, that childhood summer spent around the Lido, Robyn's friendship with Debbie, and the part those ubiquitous bullies, the WendyCarols, played in Little Bird's story. This debut's well worth a read.

It took me a while to get into this book but when I did I just couldn't put it down. When a man turns up out of the blue and tells Robyn that he is her dad she wants to get to know him more. Her mum has other ideas and Robyn can't see the harm in seeing him so keeps quiet about it. Her dad Ray turns out to be someone who likes to beat women up and even killed his first wife and is now back for her and Kit her brother.
One night it escalates and they find out there mum was their Aunt who had run off with them to keep them safe from Ray. Ray is sent to prison and is after something that Robyn has and she knows when he is released he will come after her. Does she need to run or should she stay and face him only time will tell.

Excellent debut novel by Marianne Holmes.
I found the story engaging right from the start.
Well written with a few twists and turns along the way.
I would recommend this book

As Robyn lives through the heat of the 1976 summer, she thinks it's a normal, fun summer of a teenager. But her mother keeps bringing home strange women, a man follows her around and no one will tell Robyn the truth about anything. Twelve years later, Robyn returns to her childhood town, to an empty house, a town that hasn't moved on, and a mystery that hasn't been solved. 

This book was suspenseful and a quick read. It kept my attention, and I enjoyed learning about Robyn and her life. I'll be honest it wasn't my most favorite book, but still an enjoyable none the less.

I don't read many thrillers but this was more family drama with suspense which I did enjoy. A dual timeline/story can take a few chapters to get to grips with but once you have both stories in your mind then its easy to follow the change overs.
A good holiday read

Captivating. Can't wait to see more from this author. Many thanks for giving me a sneak peek at the first book in what I'm sure will be a long career!

An interesting look at the different prospecives of a situation. The effects an event have on a family, and the members within varies and this book does a good job of exploring that

Due to the loss of my kindle I, sadly, was not able to read this book.
I sincerely apologize for this inconvenience.

I enjoyed this well written story very much and wouldn't hesitate to recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Fascinating to see the storyline from a child’s perspective - makes you realise what a confusing place the world can be, and how literally events can be interpreted when you’re small. I found this quite chilling to read, there was so much deceit exhibited by the adults in this story. A great debut, I’m looking forward to her next book!

Overall, this book has potential but it took too long to unwind the story. The first half moved too slowly as it alternated back and forwards between present and past.
Christopher and Robyn (pun intended?) return home after some years (not clear how many). Robyn has a specific reason for returning to a town they had clearly fled from and their arrival is not welcome.
It takes a long time before the reader gets any hint of what is going on, which I found frustrating and almost put the book down. The second half of the book picked up in pace and began to drop more meaningful hints. The hints themselves were fairly obscure and I find a good book hints just enough for the reader to make educated guesses. This book did not provide that. It was too busy trying to be unpredictable. I am also not sure I even liked the main character and didn't understand many of her motives. That said, the second half of the book was gripping and I was interested enough to see where it led.

It seems that everyone in Britain, who was around at the time and at all old enough to remember, has some recollection of that long, hot summer of 1976. The water shortages, the standpipes in the street. (I was eight; I mainly remember it as the summer my granddad died. Though I do remember the standpipes in the street.) Robyn in this book is around the same age in 1976 - I think she’s nine - and sees the events and mystifying behaviour of the adults around her - centring around her mother Jemima - through child’s eyes . Things ultimately come to a dramatic head and twelve years later, Robyn and her brother Kit return to the small town in search of some answers.

For much of the book, what was going on was equally mystifying to me as a reader; it was a bit like a jigsaw where the pieces were jumbled up and I couldn’t work out how they all fit together. This made it an intriguing but sometimes confusing read for me. Finishing and finally seeing the whole picture, I wanted to go back and read it again to see how those pieces fit together.

A Little Bird Told Me is beautifully written by Marianne Holmes, with the sometimes toxic small-town atmosphere clearly portrayed. Robyn was a very engaging character; indeed all the characters (good and bad) emerged clearly, albeit filtered through Robyn’s narrative.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the opportunity to read it in return for an honest review!

This book was original and unpredictable, unfortunately I found the characters annoying and I wasn't all that impressed.
I liked the element of the small town. I found that to be quite claustrophobic and I liked seeing the characters both younger and later on.
I found this a slow read and I wasn't very satisfied at the end.

I enjoyed the post and the twists and turns in this book.

I felt the writing style was lacking and had a hard time staying interested in reading it. The story alternates between Robyn when she is a young girl and Robyn 10 years older. The writer did not change the tone of the character when Robyn is older. The older version was as immature as the younger one which made it difficult to follow and became very annoying.

I received this galley from NetGalley.