I didn't want "Vita and the Birds" by Polly Crosby to end!

Such an imaginative storyline.
I was totally drawn into and disturbed by the harsh life Vita must endure at the hands of her controlling brother. And fascinated by the cross over of generations that interact with her.
A dual timeline story, of Vita in her early years and present day Eve meeting Vita in her later years. A mysterious glass Cathedral of Marshes, gorey deaths, vanishing children, an evil brother and strong female characters made for everything I enjoy in a book.

The dark story will stay with me. It was a bit of puzzle of happenings across the generations of Eve's grandmother and mother, all set in a beach location that has been a special place in all their lives.
I was genuinely shocked at some times, confused at others and moved by the love story at the heart of the book. As for the Birds.....wow....what quirky inclusion. I wish I had Polly's imagination.

Thanks to NetGalley, Polly Crosby and Harlequin Australia

Set in 1938 Lady Vita Goldsborough meets artist Dodie Blakeney and a friendship forms that could release Vita from the bonds of her controlling brother. Decades later in 1997 Eve Blakeney, granddaughter of Dodie, finds letters and secrets from the past.

This is a dual-timeline story that tells the story from the view of each of these three women. It is a story full of secrets, mystery, intrigue and a bit of quirkiness as the story progresses. It is well written but at times a bit strung out and slow, with a bit too much detail making it longer than what I think it needs to be.

I liked it but I must say I didn't love it! 3 1/2 stars from me.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin Australia for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

My first NetGalley book! Honestly I'm not sure what possessed me to start but I did and of course the thrill of being approved for all my requests was already a bonus. So thank you @netgalley and @harpercollins for gifting me an electronic copy to review.

This had all the elements that I have come to love from Kate Morton's books - dual time line, gothic English setting of a crumbling glass cathedral, mysterious deaths, evil brother and strong female characters. Except of course it isn't Kate Morton. Yet Polly Crosby gives Morton a really good run for her money. Right up to the twisty end.

Crosby's prose is strong and tight, just how I like it. There were a few gaps in the plot and characterisation, but no biggies.

Vita and the Birds is a beautifully delivered story with exquisite lyrical language and dream-inspired images. It breathes sadness as effortlessly as drawing salt air into your lungs. Entering this narrative portal is like opening the doors of an old building that has been closed up for years and forgotten. Now fresh winds, warming sunlight and liquid moonlight flow through each room and seep into the pages drawing out haunting secrets from the darkness into the light. To dispel sinister things lurking in the shadows so that tortured souls can be freed from cruel bondage. This is a riveting tale with more twists and turns that you can imagine for it takes you on a journey that demands your constant attention. It offers many clues you must gather to solve the complex puzzle. It is a novel about identity, mystery, love and sacrifice. Topics of abuse, forbidden relationships and lost children are present in the plot and fiercely pull on your tender heartstrings.

I was mesmerised by the Cathedral of Marshes descriptions. What a fascinating place! The comparisons, too, to vision and artwork. 'The fragmented sections in the painting reminded her of the way that everything was bent and warped when you look into a pool of deep water…it was that same sense of distortion as looking through the cathedral’s glass walls, the landscape a dreamworld beyond.’ When Vita looked at the artist’s painting, she saw that ‘It had been severed and sliced into geometric pieces. The sand, sea and sky a mosaic of fragments, a mathematical illusion.’ This reflects much of the story and its many parts of buried truth. Also what is real and what appears to be.

But I also was saddened by the events that happened within those unusual cathedral walls. There were some happy moments under the glass and green but the difficult circumstances that surrounded Vita, Dodie and Angela had me concerned and on the edge of my seat. The mystery artwork, the creative personalities, the lifelong bonds of two different families kept the plot rolling along and the interest sky high.

This haunting mystery set in two timelines of 1938 and 1997 was very easy to follow. The flow between the two eras was done with precision and no repetition. In the older timeline of 1938, we learn that Lady Vita Goldsborough has had a horrible existence living with her controlling older brother, Aubrey. There are whisperings of his inappropriate behaviour. Vita has been conditioned to obey him. But in her heart there is secret rebellion. Her love of birds sustains her through some very dark passages in her life. When she meets Dodie, an artist, who comes to the Cathedral of the Marshes to paint her, her loneliness diminishes. This woman artist shows her kindness, exposes her to new cultural ideas and boosts her courage. But this boldness and new thinking will be challenged by Vita's fearsome brother. He is determined to put her away in a psychiatric facility.

Fifty-nine years later, Eve loses her mother in a tragedy. Filled with grief, she heads to the coast where she spent her childhood summers with her grandmother, Dodie. Eve hopes to sort out her emotions and find comfort in familiar past surroundings. She finds a stack of letters sent to her grandmother and also a bird cage is left on her steps. What does all this mean? She meets an elderly woman who offers a substantial amount of money to paint her (Eve is an artist like his grandmother). Through accepting this commission, it takes her on a journey to the past, where she learns of secrets that will shake and alter her future. It will also release a long suppressed memory that her mind has tried to forget: an occurrence that happened in the Cathedral of the Marshes.

This novel swept me away to a stunning location with words that were often poetic and powerful. I enjoyed solving the puzzle (and it is definitely a mystery with lots of unexpected turns) and even though my writer brain worked out the answers ahead of their revelations from the clues, it was not an easy maze! I was moved, shaken, inspired and glad I read this amazing story. I highly recommend Vita and the Birds. And yes, there are some enchanting and wonderful passages about birds. As Vita says, ‘Birds are warm and alive, like us. And they answer back if you talk to them.’ 5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to Harlequin Australia - HarperCollins and Netgalley for my review copy.

I loved the dual timelines! It really helped to get to know each character. But I didn't love that there were too many mysteries/things going on. It felt a little crowded and like it was there purely for filler.

Overall, Polly Crosby has a way with words and this book will hook you in with the descripive writing and atmosphere! Even though this was a slow read, I really found myself enjoying the first half of the book and I wish it had a slightly better ending.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book.

Eve Blakeney and her four brothers spend every summer staying at their grandmother’s old fisherman’s hut in Suffolk and with their mother Angela. They love visiting their granny Dodie, and they swim, hold bonfires on the beach and tell spooky stories. The old derelict cathedral of the Marshes can be seen in the distance and it’s made from sheets of glass and once belonged to Goldsborough family. The kids are told to stay away from it due to it being dangerous, run down and there have been rumours about a girl disappearing in the area years ago?

Years later, Eve's mother has passed away, Eve returns to the cottage, to try to come to terms with losing her mum and sort through the piles of sand covered belongings dating back to when her granny's time. Dodie was a painter, as Eve goes through the boxes of clutter, she finds old paint, brushes, an old dress, birdcage and some letters.

The story has a dual timeline, it’s told from the three main characters points of view, Eve, her grandmother Dodie and a lady called Vita. It alternates between 1997 and goes back to 1938 and it's extremely easy to follow.

Lady Vita Goldsborough lives under the thumb of her controlling older brother Aubrey, she spends most of her time at their Suffolk estate and he works in London. Vita loves birds, she watches them fly over and at times she wishes she was one. A lonely Vita meets local surrealism artist Dodie Blakeney, the women become good friends, and they spend time in the Cathedral of the Marshes. A big hot house, full of plants, exotic fruit trees, and a pond. Aubrey does nothing but drink, criticize Vita when he's home, the family fortune is dwindling and Vita doesn’t trust him.

As Eve sorts through years of possessions and happy memories, she works out her grandmother and Vita knew each other. Eve thought Dodie held a grudge against them, she didn't want to speak about the Goldsborough family and it's all rather odd. Eve uncovers a decade old secret and she wonders if her mother Angela knew the truth and how she would have felt about it?

I received a copy of Vita and the Birds by Polly Crosby from NetGalley and Harlequin Australia in exchange for an honest review. If you like well written and composed stories full of hidden secrets, mystery, and intrigue, dangerous and strange circumstances and set in an old creepy rundown building this novel would be the perfect for you. Ms. Crosby covers topics such as a mothers love from her children, how there are many kinds of love and most of all you should love yourself. Five stars from me, a perfectly balanced dual timeline historical mystery, I didn't guess the big secret and book wasn't at all predictable.

the beauty of vita and the birds is like to that of a big jungle cat; there is something of a wildness in the Suffolk backdrop, a fecund jungle within the dialogue where what characters expressly pronounce blooms into deeper more sinister flowers of subtext. The storyline pacing brings to mind a puma slinking back and forth within a cage - waiting to break free upon the climax and devour us with if not shocking revelations (as the emphasis here is not so much on the plot twists but rather on the emotions we are wrung through to get there) then our reflexive urge to both look away and ram our faces against the page to watch this tragic train crash in real time. We are deeply conscious of this essentially preordained tragedy as we travel between past and present. There is no avoiding the final hour of the tragedy of Vita Goldsborough, it has already happened and as we delve into the chronicle of her life, the inexorability of her story is almost claustrophobic. Crosby's writing outstrips so many contemporary writers today, it is a work of visual art whose proverbial brushstrokes paint a world so intimately intertwined with art and artists.

grief and the feminine expression of it drapes an in turns mournful and ironically optimistic pall over the events of the novel. Through this historical fiction genre, we witness how women's grief is too often taken and mutated by men in authority into ammunition of control and accusations of a distempered/hysterical mind. A woman is allowed no weakness and yet must always be weak. In the present day of Eve's storyline, we have a woman who has only recently lost her mother and stumbles through her reconciliation with this profound loss. Her brothers, whilst loving and in no ways comparable to the brutish Aubrey, Vita's older brother - do not quite understand Eve and her grief and their attempts, though well-intentioned, at times stifle her. Nevertheless, the thematic treatment of grief holds onto the promise of eventual allayment with teeth and claw, despite the all too often overwhelming tragic motion of the narrative. Here, suffering is the beaten path, travelled first by Vita and then Eve.

the reasons behind my conferring this a 3 star rating as opposed to say a 4 or 5 star are in some ways difficult to elucidate but i will make a feeble attempt. The apotheosis, that is the dénouement or climatic moment, is in some senses underwhelming when placed abreast of the rest of the story. It feels almost as we are violently lurched to a stop and left more than a little bereft. Characters become either caricatures of themselves or act out in manners which are diametrically opposed to everything we've learned about them until that moment. The explanations we're proffered for character motive above all, are unsatisfactory and lack veracity. Aubrey in particular was this leering figure who cast his shadow over everything and yet we feel we never really know the corporeal character at all. There is something almost surrealist and phantasmagorical in the effect; he is the monster under the bed but this is not meant to be a children's story. For myself, these deficiencies in character integrity are manifest enough to lower what could have easily been a 5 star read.