Within a few pages, I was totally immersed in an off-season Pacific Northwest resort community. The stories of ornithologist Frankie and musician Annie with her non-verbal five-year-old son Aidan intersect and entwine when Frankie rescues a crow, enchanting Aidan and setting in motion new relationships and fresh possibilities for women who'd retreated from overwrought, challenging lives. I deeply enjoyed the remote setting and learning more about birds and crows. While parts of the story were hard-going, overall the book was a true delight, heartbreaking and heart mending at the same time. I liked walking the paths, making the observations in an unfamiliar place, and absorbing folklore and stories. I received a copy of this book and these thoughts are my own, unbiased opinions.

Brilliant. Utterly brilliant.

This book was harrowing and raw and joyful and every single thing in between. It’s beautifully written with tidbits of bird facts and music composition that honestly made me love it even more.

I fell in love with June Lake, Frankie, Anne and Aiden. I loved their stories and their grief and knowing that they aren’t perfect and don’t try to be. It was refreshing to connect to these characters on such an emotional level.

The novel started slow but built up as it went on. I became invested in the characters and their journeys through life and love and heartache.

If you love anything by Kristen Hannah, you’ll love this novel!

And finally - thank you so much to NetGalley and Dutton/Penguin Random House for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Contemporary | Adult
Cover image of Crow Talk, by Eileen Garvin (2024)

I’ve been eagerly awaiting this second novel by Eileen Garvin, after the delight of The Music of Bees. While it doesn’t quite reach the heights of her debut, it is a fascinating examination of family dynamics, growing up, and the science of crow communication, wrapped up by the spectacular landscape of southern Washington state. Frankie O’Neill is holing up at her family cabin on the lake, limited to boat access only, unemployed and with few prospects after a falling out with her master’s thesis advisor. Relations with her mother are strained, and she is still grieving the death of her father just a few months before. Also at the lake are Anne Ryan and Tim Magnusen, with their son Aiden. Aiden is five, a bright and talkative boy until his behaviour changed starting less than a year ago. Now he doesn’t speak, and is prone to violent tantrums, causing Anne’s heart to break as she struggles to understand what her son wants, and creating an increasingly wide rift between her and her in-laws, as well as her upwardly mobile husband. At the heart of this story is how these two women become friends as they work their way through their life challenges, figuring out how to regain control when they are feeling so powerless. In addition to the women’s alternating voices, Garvin offers an intriguing perspective on human relationship dynamics with information about the common American crow, its habits and characteristics, information that occasionally serve as a foreshadowing – “The American crow does not migrate.” While the book is slow to start, I found myself warming up to both women’s stories, growing to appreciate their struggles with identity, place, and voice. I’ve also grown rather fond of the rascally, noisy crow! I did find the ending disappointingly neat and tidy, but the journey is what matters, right? My thanks to Dutton Books for the advance reading copy provided digitally through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
More discussion and reviews of this novel: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195430705

I loved Eileen's last book and this one did not disappoint. She has a gift for slow-burn unusual characters and relationships that show lonely people finding their flock. I love the PNW setting because small-town Oregonians are so darn colorful.

Frankie O'Neill, retreats to her childhood summer refuge after her father's passing and her master's thesis takes a nosedive. Amidst isolation and familial strain, Frankie finds solace in unexpected companionship when Anne Magnuson and her son, Aidan, arrive seeking solace of their own.

Garvin weaves Frankie's observations of crows with the complexities of human relationships. Anne's struggle with her son's silence and her own creative blockage resonates deeply, mirroring Frankie's own battles with communication and connection. I like how the chapter introductions offer insights into bird behavior that beautifully echo the themes of each section. Through these delicate nuances, the reader is drawn deeper into the intertwined lives of the characters and the mysteries of the avian world. The prose offers a poignant reminder of the beauty that surrounds us, even in our darkest moments.

I think I'm in love with the literary fiction trend of blending nature and human life seamlessly.

I absolutely loved this author's last book so I was looking forward to this one immeasurably. While I didn't enjoy this one as much (it was a lot heavier for me), it still put me right into nature and beautifully written. I found the ending to be a bit too tidy but I was glad for the relief after such a dark and heavy book. I would absolutely recommend this author to those that love nature and literary fiction.

Crow Talk comes out next week on April 30, 2024, and you can purchase HERE!

Nobody tells the truth about having children, Anne knew. People congratulated you and said how lovely and isn't that just grand?

Being a parent is the best thing that ever happened to me, they said.

My child is my biggest accomplishment, my greatest pride. They were all bloody, awful liars. Nobody ever admitted that being a mother is an epic of failure. There were just so many opportunities to fail: when your baby won't eat, or sleep, or stop crying, or has a rash, or has a cold, or won't look at you, or won't speak to you. Or stares at his hands and won't respond when you say his name. Or screams inconsolably for some unknown reason. Or worse things.

Or when you take your attention off him for one minute and he vanishes into thin air.

Two women struggling with challenges and grief meet as neighbors in a small resort community in the off season in this emotional novel. Frankie's unmoored after her academic efforts blow up and her father dies so she retreats to June Lake, where her family has had a shabby cabin for years. Anne an Irish woman married to Tim, scion of a publishing company, is mom to Aiden, a small neurodiverse (or is he) boy. She's also a musician who lost her bff and her grief has overwhelmed her. Garvin merges the two women over Aiden, who responds to Frankie and a fledgling crow she's rescued. There's a lot of drama here, in both women's lives, but they never seem to connect with one another. Their individual stories are more interesting than the whole. Almost more interesting, to me at least, was the information about crows (I know) but I found myself skipping the (short) folklore chapters because they didn't seem to add anything to the narrative. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. A good read.

Thank you so much to Dutton for the free book and PRH Audio for the free audiobook!

Truthfully, I didn't expect to really enjoy a book about crows, but I also never expected to enjoy a book about an octopus (REMARKBLY BRIGHT CREATURES) but the author of that one blurbed this one, so that's all it took to convince me I needed it!

What really surprised me in this one was the connection I felt towards these characters. I didn't feel an instant connection to them, but it came slowly at first and then hit me like a ton of bricks by the end of the book. The more the story went on, the deeper everything became: the writing, the plot, the character development.

Since this book was so unique it's hard for me to compare it to anything. The only book that kept coming to mind while I was reading it was HAPPINESS FALLS by Angie Kim, so if you're a fan of that one, you absolutely need this one!

I think if I had to describe this book in one word it would be PEACEFUL. While some parts were (very) intense, the whole vibe was just a beautiful and peaceful story that I found really comforting. This is definitely one to savor and slow down and enjoy!

I can't wait t see what Eileen does next!

This will be available on April 30th!

I enjoyed this story immensely. In it two disparate women meet at a Pacific Northwest lake and become friends communicating with one woman's unusual and enchanting little boy. Frankie is an ornithologist has a situation with her advisor that is making her Master's difficult, if not impossible, as well as dealing with the death of her beloved father, so returns to the family's summer home by the lake to take stock. Anne, her husband, and little boy Aiden are taking a last vacation at the lake before her husband takes over the family business. Anne is still dealing with the death of her closest friend, her relationship with her husband and his family, but most of all, dealing with her son's current emotional and communication difficulties. When an injured young crow draw them together, each is drawn to rediscover what truly is most important in their lives and hopes.
The author weaves backstory and present together masterfully. Frankie and Anne are very different people who would never have connected in other circumstances, and it is this difference that triggers the new ways of looking at things that each needs, as well as the power of true friendship. And Aiden's journey is equally fascinating. And extremely enjoyable story, beautifully written with a smoothly flowing narrative. The "and what happens next?" of real life. Lovely.

Thank you NetGalley and Dutton for providing the eARC in exchange for an honest review!!

I have a LOT of thoughts about this one. This is a book about family, grief, birds, autism and a little bit about alcoholism.

Frankie O’Neil is a lonely ornithologist working on her dissertation and running into many problems at her family’s lake house. She forms an unlikely friendship with her longtime neighbors wife Anne Ryan and her 5yr old son Aiden who does not speak. Frankie starts caring for an injured baby crow and through that interaction, she starts to discover a new path.

Anne is far from her home in Ireland and trying to help her son thrive while dealing with her overbearing in laws and complicated relationship with her husband. The beginning of the book was a bit hard to get into but once you get in the groove, its hard to put down! It breaks your heart and puts it back together in a warm hug.

As an avid bird lover myself, I really liked the chapters starting with bird facts and the immersion of nature was so so wonderful. The way autism is talked about is pretty good too. It focuses on the parent's difficulties with finding accommodations and understanding what their son needs, but it also gives you insight into what the son himself is asking for. It doesn't feel as one sided or dumbed down for the audience, just a humanizing portrayal of how much fear and prejudice people had towards autism in the 90s (and still today!).

Even with some flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. At some times, it felt like it was written for me. I will for sure be purchasing this and rereading and annotating, all that jazz!!

I love crows. I love them so much that I have a crow feather tattoo on my arm. I also have a family of crows that I feed and they bring me gifts. Have been visiting me for years. So I was excited when I saw this story.
The characters was written well and I got very much involved with what happened to them. I am definitely going to look for more books by this author. Highly recommend for people who love to read about interesting characters with great character development.

Crow Talk is one of those books that sneak up on you as you read them. I was slow to warm up to Mary Francis O'Neill, the young woman at the heart of Crow Talk, and early on she is so geographically and socially isolated that I began to wonder if I ever would. It's not that "Frankie" is an unimpressive woman. As noted in the novel's very first paragraph, Frankie is first in her University of Washington graduate school class, was the first female from her high school to win a "full ride" to that school, and was even the first in her family to earn a bachelor's degree of any kind. And then there's the revealing kicker: she's also the first on either side of her family to reach the ripe old age of twenty-six without giving birth.

Frankie has come to June Lake to regroup. She's frustrated and she's running from something, and the empty family cottage feels like her only refuge, a place where she can finally finish her thesis before getting on with the rest of her life. But there is obviously more to the story, and layer by layer, Frankie's past, her family dynamics, and the shakiness of her future are revealed. Frankie is unemployed (and perhaps unemployable), homeless, friendless, barely speaking to her family, and simply out of options. It is June Lake or nothing, even if she is the only one on the isolated lake as winter approaches.

Then Aiden, a little autistic boy who suddenly stopped speaking a few months earlier, and Charlie, a baby crow with an injured leg, change everything. Frankie might not be able to heal herself or her family, but she's a natural when it comes to Aiden and Charlie, both of whom seem to recognize just how important Frankie might turn out to be in their own worlds. And maybe, just maybe, Aiden and Charlie Crow can return the favor.

It was only after finishing Crow Talk that I realized how fully invested I had become in the Frankie O'Neill character and how real she felt to me. Eileen Garvin has created a unique little world here filled with people I hated to see leave my own. Sure, her story is heartwarming and inspirational, but it's more than that. Much like Garvin's previous novel, The Music of Bees, Crow Talk is a painless science lesson. I came away from The Music of Bees understanding and appreciating more about the importance of bees and the intricacies of beekeeping than I ever expected to know. Crow Talk taught me about the fascinating life cycle of crows and the way that crows can interact with humans, even to recognizing the faces of their "allies."

Eileen Garvin has become an author I trust, and I can't wait to see what she has to teach me next time around.

Frankie is an ornithologist whose father has died, and whose advisor has turned against her and refuses to accept her thesis. She returns to her family’s remote cabin in the mountains to mourn the losses of both her dear father and her career. There she befriends Anne, a musician who is suffering from writer's block after the tragic death of her best friend. Anne's five year old son Aiden refuses to speak, but finds a friend in Frankie, who introduces him to an injured crow that she has rescued. Careful observation of the crows leads Frankie to new insights and submission of a scholarly article for publication.
Both Frankie and Anne have difficult relationships with their families, but both find solace and renewal in nature. I felt as if I were mourning the loss of a friend when I finished the book.

3.5 stars rounded up - this book broke my heart and pieced it back together. i am a sucker for birds. i am a sucker for broken people finding each other and healing. my absolute favorite thing is this isn’t a romance. it’s just a beautiful, well written story about finding yourself again. my only real gripes are the pacing - the beginning was truly brutal and it took quite a long time to get to the plot - and the fact anne stayed with her husband who just on a dime decided to no longer be a jerk.

I fell in love with Garvin’s debut novel THE MUSIC OF BEES when it first released and have been looking forward to her sophomore novel.

The story is told in two POVs Frankie an ornithologist who returns to her family’s cottage on Beauty Bay a community of homes set on a lake in the foothills Mount Adams where she grapples with her future and grieves her late father. Anne an Irish musician, married into a wealthy family and raising her son shows up at the neighboring home on the bay.

The story is very beautiful. Garvin writing of a sense of place reminds me of J. Ryan Stradel but make it PNW. I love her additions of 90s nostalgia throughout the story to give you a sense of time, which gave me Elin Hilderbrand vibes.

I loved the touchpoints at the beginning of each chapter. I found all the information on birds to be fascinating and the string of fairy tales subtly woven throughout. I would love a copy of the book mentioned but upon listening to the authors note it is fictional but will be revisiting some of the fairytale books she shared.

What brings Frankie, Anne and Anne’s son Aiden together is an injured baby crow. From there the story takes off in slow, beautiful, descriptive burn.

Thank you Dutton & PRH audio!
Releases 4/30

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Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin is a heartwarming standalone novel. This story revolves around two women, Frankie O’Neill and Anne Magnuson, and Anne’s young autistic son, Aiden. Frankie returns to Beauty Bay, a remote island on the shores of June Lake, where her family lived in a caretaker cottage; with most houses are closed for the off season. Frankie is determined to work on her master’s thesis, with having a dismissive and non-helpful advisor, as well as still grieving the death of her beloved father. Anne and her husband, Tim are staying for a while at the family mansion on the hill temporarily, with their five-year old son, Aiden; who refuses to speak. Anne is an Irish musician, and has not been able to resume her music, especially after losing her best friend to an accident.

Frankie rescues a baby crow, and slowly brings him back to health. When Aiden walks into Frankie’s house, though he is mute, he feels comfortable with Frankie; especially when Anne finds him in Frankie’s place. Aiden is very interested in the baby crow, who is now called Charlie Crow. In a short time, Frankie strikes a friendship with Anne, as well as Aiden. The story does revolve around crows, and Frankie’s dissertation is part of her study on crows. I really loved Charlie Crow, especially when Frankie fed him, and got him healthy again; and when he was freed, he would talk up on the branches in his own language.

Anne and Tim do everything in their power to keep Aiden content and loving, even though he does not talk. However, Anne’s in-laws interfere with their lives, as they constantly try to force him to talk. When Tim is offered to take over the company, his family decides that Aiden needs to be put away to a facility for those autistic; much to Anne’s horror. At first Tim agrees, since he will be very busy with the new job, but when an accident happens, and everyone in town, including Frankie try to find the missing Anne. It was a very emotional time, with Aiden finding his way back. Anne and Frankie both had their own issues, but they ended up with a close friendship.

What follows is a story of three main characters, with anxiety and grieving issues, who in time bond together to help each other heal. A wonderful story of hope, healing, friendship, and the healing power of rediscovering life. I did like all of our three main characters, as well the wonderful secondary characters we meet along the way. Crow Talk was very well written by Eileen Garvin. This was a heartwarming, poignant, emotional story of friendship and healing. I suggest you read this beautiful wonderful story.

I am an avid bird watcher and was drawn to this book because of the ornithology subject along with a story of two women who become friends because of a crow. A really good book with a very good story.

What a lovely, heart-filled, heart-felt book. The pace is just right to allow you to savor and wonder and immerse yourself in the story. One would think with so many aspects feeding into the theme of the book - communication of crows - it would feel disjointed, but it all works beautifully.
We have a young woman trying to complete her master’s dissertation, after losing her father; a marriage being challenged by not only a difference in family standards, but a child with autism; the challenge of weather and water on a remote lake… but threaded through it all is the family structure and communication of the crows.

Round up to 4.5

Crow Talk is a story about how nature can bring out the best and worst in us. Garvin weaves a tale about two families whose time away from it all on the shores of a remote lake shows them what they need most…connection.

Frankie seeks the solace of her family's mountain lake house in a remote area of Washington. Only a few cabins set near each other with the fanciest owned by Anne's in-laws. The women bond after Anne's 5 year old non-speaking son wonders into Frankie's cabin and becomes fascinated with a crow she is nursing back to health. Chapters alternate from the perspectives of each woman as they grow closer and deal with the traumas they have experienced. A feel-good novel of healing, growth, and friendship.

Frankie is an ornithologist staying at her family's lake cottage, trying to finish her Master's dissertation on spotted owls. She is facing problems with her dissertation while also trying to figure out her next steps and deal with the loss of her dad. She meets Anne, a mom with a son (Aidan) who has stopped communicating verbally, and the friendship develops as both Aidan and Frankie heal through their shared observation of crows in the woods.