Birdeye

Synopsis

One chilly April morning a stranger shows up at a commune in the Catskill Mountains, upstate New York. Conor is greeted by Liv, sixty-seven years old, mother, cancer survivor and founder of the once pilgrimage-worthy Birdeye Colony, now well past its heyday. Liv lets him stay, unaware that her two oldest friends are about to make a devastating announcement. Conor seems to offer a lifeline, but who is he really? As truths masked by free spirit push their way into the open, Liv must reassess what she asks of those she loves most.

Birdeye is a novel about tolerance, the choices we make in good faith, and, ultimately, what they cost.

Praise for Birdeye

‘With luminous prose, infinite humanity and exceptional storytelling, Heneghan shows us family – whether chosen or given – in all its fascinating complexity. Evocative, haunting, masterful.’ —Claire Fuller

An emotive, twisty read that explores the strength and choices of women determined to create a better world – make your next read a journey of passion, buy your copy now!

Praise for this Book

‘With luminous prose, infinite humanity and exceptional storytelling, Heneghan shows us family – whether chosen or given – in all its fascinating complexity. Evocative, haunting, masterful.’ —Claire Fuller

‘Written with gorgeous precision and a haunting intensity, Birdeye will not let you go. The novel is richly reminiscent of Elizabeth Strout’s fiction, full of spiky individualistic types whose flawed stubborn fealty to their beliefs take the story in surprising, and moving, directions.’ —Carole Burns, award-winning author of The Same Country 

‘Wonderfully drawn and developed, complex and contradictory in all the best ways, selfish and selfless, self-aware and oblivious – Liv Ferrars is utterly real.’ —Sarah Butler, author of Starling

‘Birdeye is a compelling story of maternal courage and an edgy evocation of countercultural life in the Catskills. I found it moving and surprising.’ —Katie Munnik, author of The Aerialists

Reviews of this Book

‘What I loved about this book was the element of found family, I’ve always enjoyed books which deal with this and Birdeye was a perfect example. Each of the characters were fully fleshed out and believable and I had a real affection and connection with Liv. Judith Heneghan writes with such precision and I was fully sucked into the narrative and the psychological aspects of a world that was once steady and solid becoming precarious and rocky. This was one of my standout reads of the year so far and I’d urge you all to read it.’ —Bookishchat

‘Heneghan’s way with character and setting is nigh-on perfection. With the lightest of brushstrokes, Heneghan creates something that feels real, authentic in a way that many authors strive for but many fall short of. Liv is real, I’m sure of it. There’s a truthfulness to the depiction that goes beyond whether or not an actual person called Olivia exists and said or did any of these things. Her heartbreak, her anger, her love, her tiredness all ring unmistakably true.’ —James Kinsley

‘★★★★★ You'll most likely be drawn to the cover of this novel, which is a work of art in itself, but this is, first and foremost, a beautifully written novel with, often, a hypnotic narrative style. The characters are well-drawn, and the setting is beautifully rendered. What a treat to read another Judith Heneghan novel. Highly recommended.’ —Kerry Hadley-Pryce, NetGalley

‘★★★★★ I found this to be one of those quietly powerful books! It grabs you with the characters and the setting, and gets under your skin as you follow their story showing their strengths and vunerabilities and beautifully captures what it is to be human. A really absorbing read and one I’d highly recommend!!’ —Books and Me

‘Birdeye is about mistakes and redemption; shifting norms and values; the weight of history; the elusiveness of liberation; and what it really means to love. Like Judith Heneghan’s other work, it is beautifully written. It portrays a universe of magical intensity. It wears its symbolism lightly, yet almost no sentence is superfluous, which is why it well repays re-reading. One small example: “If Liv was the roof and floor of the Birdeye House, and Rose, the air within it, then Sonny and Mishti were its four walls, holding everything together.”’ —Christina James, Crime Novelist

Praise for Previous Work

‘A captivating story about foreigners in Ukraine in the 1990s. In Snegurochka grand historical and political narratives – of Ukraine’s newfound independence, of the Second World War – interweave with the very personal stories of the book’s female protagonists – Rachel, Zoya, and Elena.’ —Emily Couch, The Moscow Times

‘It’s a very interesting and clever read. With no narrative tricksiness it shows us the author’s knowledge of that time and place, and more importantly a wonderful character, one who struggles with her new-found family and her new-found sense of displacement. Rich and readable, this is well worth turning to.’ —John Lloyd, NB Magazine

‘An unnerving and enthralling novel set in newly independent Ukraine, Snegurochka is a captivating story of motherhood, betrayal, belonging and control.’ —Hampshire Life

‘It is a joy to read a novel in which the elements fuse so harmoniously: taut but lyrical prose, an exceptionally vivid sense of place, politics and culture but also of a pivotal time which is neither recent nor of the distant past. I regularly say that a good novel makes me feel I’ve seen the film; this one made me feel I was there, confronted with the vertigo-inducing view from that balcony.’ —Isabel Costello, The Literary Sofa