Salt Modern Fiction
2 total works
Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards
Longlisted for the Not the Booker Prize 2019
‘Something terrible is happening here. Something terrible has already happened.’
Kiev 1992. Rachel, a troubled young English mother, joins her journalist husband on his first foreign posting in the city. Terrified of the apartment's balcony, she develops obsessive rituals to keep their baby safe. Her difficulties expose her to a disturbing endgame between the elderly caretaker and a local racketeer who sends a gift that surely comes with a price. Rachel is isolated yet culpable with her secrets and estrangements. As consequences bear down she seeks out Zoya, her husband's fixer, and the boy from upstairs who watches them all.
Home is uncertain, betrayal is everywhere, but in the end there are many ways to be a mother.
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!