This book was really good and I got swept up into it from page 1. I loved the fabulous cast of characters and the twisty plot. It was super suspenseful as well and I couldn't put it down. I really wanted to find out what happened at the end so I just kept reading. I will definitely look for more books from this author. Definitely a must-read book for the fall!!!!

The opening of The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti creeped me out, as it was designed to do: “The day the birds fell, I dealt the tower card.” Based on the title, you might infer the birds mentioned were blackbirds, yes? But no, we learn at the start of chapter 2 that “A month before Nate was fired, nearly a thousand starlings fell from the sky. Not fluttering to the earth like snowflakes, but plummeting, like quarter-pound raindrops.”

So I was already thinking maybe I was just not reading carefully enough (happens more with each passing year, but I went back to resolve my ornithological confusion). TBH at the end of this excellently written and paced mystery/thriller, I was still not clear on the whole bird thing. But a fun read!

Here is the basic premise: there is a small town in the east where the high school has a beloved high school teacher, who is also the baseball coach in a town where baseball means WAY more than either football or basketball. We are led to wonder about his possible involvement with the disappearance of a female student as we learn that Nate, the teacher/coach, “…always had a soft spot for her and those like her: the damaged, pretty girls.” When the police become involved, Nate is less than fully honest about his involvement with Lucia, the missing student. While being questioned, he “…had no way of knowing that this moment would become the linchpin, the moment that all the moments after would hinge upon. The papers would call him a murderer; …ex-friends, his gym buddies…would say, Nate was the last one to see her alive, right?”

Really nice way she reveals information about the four main characters who tell the story in alternating points of view: Nate, his wife Alecia (who is a frazzled stay-at-home mom to their autistic son and maybe is inclined to suspect Nate’s involvement; Lucia, the missing student: and Bridget, a co-worker and buddy of Ned who was part of the two-couple friendship with Nate and Alecia before her husband dies (and was the only character I REALLY liked). Not everyone in the story is likable or smart. In fact, Nate seems like quite a dolt and Alecia sure was quick to suspect her husband of possibly killing a student with whom she is sure he was having an “inappropriate relationship” and she was awfully bitchy to Bridget. I wanted to like her, but found her annoying as her frustration with Nate, their child, and the marriage in general kept moving her actions along.
Again, some great writing, as in this passage where we learn a great deal about both Lucia and Bridget: “Lucia tackled pain and death clinically, a biology lab discussion. As if Bridget’s hurt could be pulled apart like little frog’s legs, pinned back to the wax, sliced clean down the middle and simply exorcised.”

Okay, there are lots of clichés here, in the small town, star athletes, rocky marriage, beloved teacher, etc. But Kate Moretti is a GOOD writer and my only thought was some editing of the narrative about the woods/mill etc. might have helped. Overall, it’s a fairly quick read, and quite well written. I’ll definitely check out Kate Moretti’s other work, and I appreciate Atria Books and NetGalley for providing a copy in exchange for my honest review. Four stars.

IMG_0609The Blackbird Season is a dark thriller that is hard to put down. I recieved an advanced e-copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. I give it ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5 stars.

••••

Out of nowhere, hundreds of birds fall dead from the sky onto a small town without explaination. With everyone in town rattled from this event, a teacher at the local high school is accused of having an affair with one of his students. The teacher, Nate, swears its not true but the girl, Lucia, says that it is. As the rumor mill gets going, Lucia's behavior gets stranger and stranger. Some students accuse her of being a witch while the teachers try to defend her and her broken home. When the sitatuon is as bad as it can possibly get, Lucia dissappears. Now Nate, who was questioned for having an affair with Lucia, is now being questioned for the murder of the missing girl.

•••

I read this book fairly quickly, it was addicting and hard to put down. I liked the plot twists and the ending. I would have given this four stars out of five but knocked it down half a point for two reasons: the first reason is that each chapter had a date at the beginning and the dates jumped all over the place. They went forward and backward and forward and backward in time, in a way that didn't quite make sense to me. I was constantly flipping to the chapters before to figure out when the current chapter was happening. I was confused but that's just me, somebody else may have no problem with that. My second issue is with the characters. While they were all well-developed, I didn't personally like any of them. The story is told from alternating points of view, those being Nate, his wife Alicia, and their friend Bridget. If they were real people in real life I would not like any of them, so it made reading from their points of view less enjoyable. Again, this is a problem I personally had but many other readers may not have. Overall, it was a strong thriller that I would recommend.

I was incredibly captivated by the characters in Moretti's world. I wanted to hear more from each perspective and was upset when perspectives shifted. HOWEVER, as I met each new character, my disappointment turned to enthusiasm over meeting the next great character in this story. What a great novel, Moretti really created a powerful, relatable world. This was not my first of her wonderful novels and will certainly not be my last. 4 stars!

This story has so many layers! It is an excellent book for book clubs and discussions on autism spectrum disorders, marriage, troubled teens,rape, social media and the boundaries of students and teachers. A suspenseful story with the right amount of on the edge tension that had me thinking and guessing til the end. Thank you, Simon and Schuster eGalley for the early advance copy to read.

I haven't read a Kate Moretti book before, but I definitely will again now. I found this book full of suspense and a real page turner. A girl known as "the witch" in this small town, disappears on the same day 1000 dead starlings fall from the sky. There are so many twists and turns and we aren't sure what or who is really involved.

The only reason that one of the main characters, Alecia owned hiking boots was because of her husband Nate. How ironic that her first real hike involved looking for a girl he might have ......what? Kidnapped? killed?

It was disturbing at times but un-putdownable too

A suspenseful tale set in a small town full of hurting people with little to do aside from gossip. We all know life can change in a blink of an eye and what we see, or perceive to see, can cause lots of trouble.

After reading my first Kate Moretti novel not long ago and thoroughly enjoying it I was anxious to read this one!!!! Kate did not disappoint!!! I really enjoyed this book. I had so many suspects in my mind but never quite figured out how they would all tie together!!! The suspect turned out to be the one I didn't think possible which made me enjoy the book even more!!! Well done

I received a free advanced reader's copy of The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti, through NetGalley (thank you!). I read this book in two days because I simply could not put it down! It intrigued me from Page 1, and the suspense kept building!This was a true "whodunnit" mystery with plenty of plot twists and turns. The story is about a missing girl, Lucia, who has implicated her teacher, Nate, of having an affair with her. She then goes missing. The story is told from the points of view of: Nate (the high school teacher and accused), his wife, Alecia, their family friend and fellow teacher, Bridget, and the missing girl, Lucia. There are dark secrets looming underneath the surface that may change your mind when you feel convinced you know who caused Lucia to go missing, and why. The characters were so well-developed that you will feel a kinship with each one. There is also an element of the mystical, leaving you to wonder about the natural order of things. If you liked reads such as Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, you will love this one even more!

Great book! I loved how the various points of view helped the story to unfold. I enjoyed reading this author.

Told from the alternating points of view of Alicia, Nate, Lucia, and Bridget, THE BLACKBIRD SEASON by Kate Moretti delivered a mystery that kept me guessing. A scandal, secrets, dead birds and hidden truths rock a small-town and its inhabitants.

“Where did they come from? Why did they fall? The question would be asked a thousand times…

Until, of course, more important question arose, at which time everyone promptly forgot that a thousand birds fell on the town of Mount Oanoke at all.”

It all begins as thousands of them fall from the sky on to the baseball field. Everything is closed, and some folks cover their windows with plastic and refuse to venture out but an accusation made regarding a favorite teacher and coach, and soon make the birds yesterday's news. Nate Williams is caught hugging a troubled student in a hotel lobby, and soon the birds are forgotten.

The Main Characters and POVs:

Nate-Married to Alicia, he is high school teacher and coach for the baseball team. Nate is popular with the townsfolk, administration, and students. Most students have his cell phone number and confide their problems to him. Nate thrives on the attention and feels displaced at home. I struggled with Nate's innocence, and while filled with good intentions his actions made me scratch my head.
Alicia- Wife of Nate Williams. Mother and primary care giver of their child Gabe, an autistic child. Alicia is in denial about their son, lonely and unable to determine the truth when the scandal breaks. I struggled with Alicia, but Moretti soon validated her feelings, and I felt for her struggles with Gabe. Most wives defend their husbands until the truth is revealed, so Alicia's actions, mannerisms, and comments surprised me.
Lucia - is a troubled young woman. She is eighteen and from a broken home. She feels like an outsider, even within her circle of friends. At school, she is referred to as weird, and believed to be a witch. Her journal entries tend to be dark, and she seems fixated on Nate. Lucia's voice is often unreliable creating tension.
Bridget- a fellow teacher, is suffering from depression after losing her spouse who was Nate's best friend. She becomes an integral part of solving the mystery and scandal that unfold. She believes Nate is innocent and soon finds her faith tested.
The townsfolk, police, and Lucia's peers all play a roll in moving events forward and revealing truths as this twisted tale unfolds. Moretti did an excellent job with red herrings, creating believable characters and setting a tone and pace that kept me flipping the pages.

The timeline is nonlinear falling before and after the birds fell. It created an engaging, suspenseful read but it is important to pay attention to the date at the top of each chapter.  The story built creating tension until we reached a climactic ending. The story was solid and felt plausible.

THE BLACKBIRD SEASON delivered an addictive tale and was my first encounter with Moretti. I look forward to reading other works by her.

How well do you really know the people you are closest to? That is one of the many questions posed in The Blackbird Season. Nate is the popular teacher/baseball coach that all the kids seem to like and go to when they need help. Alicia, Nate’s wife, has lost touch with him because her whole world is their autistic son and there is little space there for Nate, so when Nate is accused of having as affair with one of his students, Alicia can’t be certain he is innocent. Even his good friends question Nate’s behavior. Why was he seen with the troubled girl with the striking white hair outside a cheap hotel? What explains the strange things the girl wrote in her creative writing assignments?

This rollercoaster of a novel shines a harsh light on small town life. Nate was a life-long resident that was beloved by his students and their parents, yet they are more than willing to condemn him. They are also more than willing to condemn the poor troubled girl Nate supposedly took advantage of as long as it made them feel their children were not in danger. At the heart, this is a story of loss - loss of a marriage, loss of a spouse, loss of a friendship, loss of trust.

Kate Moretti has woven another wonderful tale of suspense and insight and I look forward to her next fabulous work. Thank you to The Tall Poppies, and NetGalley for furnishing me with a review copy of the novel.

4 stars for this unsettling thriller set in small-town America.

The book is written from the perspectives of four main characters: Nate Winters, teacher at Mt Oanoke High; his wife Alecia who cares for their autistic son Gabe; recently-widowed colleague and friend Bridget Peterson; and 18-year-old pupil Lucia Hamm. Nate has always been popular and is seen as a good man: bringing in bagels for pupils who have had no breakfast, putting in time, care and effort with the boys he coaches at baseball, and buying birthday gifts for the school admin staff. Then everything falls apart when he is accused of having an affair with Lucia, an accusation of abuse of the teacher-pupil relationship that sees him suspended from his post and being questioned by the police. Nobody trusts Nate any more, least of all his wife. And worse is still to come...

This is an absorbing thriller, and a good study of small-town life where everyone knows one another - or believes that they do until they are jarred by the book's events. The characters are well-drawn, with authentic life-stories. I would be interested to read more about Bridget in particular. The only part of the book that I disliked was that the date was given at the head of each section: the story jumped backwards and forwards in time frequently, I think readers are used to this and to figuring out a timeline for themselves. By providing a date, the impulse is to double-check where the section's events fall in the timescale of the book, by skipping back to the heading. This lifts the reader out of the story, and is also irritating especially in an ebook as it can be time-consuming finding the heading again.

I particularly liked how a sense of menace was built up in the novel. The title The Blackbird Season comes from a near-Biblical event at the beginning of the book: hundreds of starlings falls out of the sky instantaneously, their simultaneous deaths inexplicable. There are mentions of blackbirds, starlings, crows and ravens throughout the book, especially in connection with Lucia and with tarot cards. And the birds are also seemingly linked to the town's dead industrial past: the closed paper mill. Has the mill caused the deaths because of noxious gases or arsenic byproducts or something else? The mill looms, threateningly huge, dark, derelict and dangerous, a malevolent presence. The sense of menace in the book gains power from being so nebulous. This aspect of the novel reminded me of John Burnside's fabulously dark novel Glister.

I received this ebook free from NetGalley and the publisher.

Fantastic! Suspenseful! Wonderful writing! I loved Alicia and thought the character development was perfection. I felt as though I was walking in her shoes. I enjoy the points of view switching around (that seems popular these days) because you get to know what others are thinking and feeling. This was creepy and would be perfect to read this autumn as Halloween is right around the corner.

I stated to read this book and got about 20% done when I gave up. I have a hard time reading about children with autism as someone who has a sibling with it, and was distracted by that plotline enough to not care about the mystery taking place behind the scenes. I did not publish this review because I felt like I was a bit biased in my criticism of the book. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

This book was an ok read for me. It had many different characters and I didn't really connect with any of them or find them interesting. I heard many good things about this book so I think it comes down to what your preference is.

Kate Moretti's The Blackbird Season takes a strange coincidence to provoke a supernatural feeling in this very twisty and tense mystery. Fast paced and creepy, a good mystery read.

Wow. The psychological suspense in this book starts immediately with the ominous and mysterious falling of dead starlings in the Pennsylvania town where the story is set.  The writer of the journal entry in the opening also mentions having dealt the tower Tarot card that same day.  The suspense proceeds full force.   It's the same day a high school girl call " the witch" disappears.  One of the beloved teachers and baseball coach has been accused of having an affair with the girl before her disappearance.  He claims he was just trying to help her with a bad situation.  His marriage has some issues because his wife feels he spends more time with the students than with her and their autistic son.  Many of his actions certainly look suspicious leading you to wonder whether or not he is innocent.   All the chapters  alternate in time before and after the day the birds fell, and they alternate in telling the story from the various characters perspectives, dribbling out bits and pieces of information in each.The book has good, well developed characters, a great suspenseful story line that  keeps you turning the pages quickly to try to discover what has really happened.  This was my first Kate Moretti book, but it certainly won't be my last.  Highly recommended.

I went into this book thinking it would be a fast, page-turning suspense. I think it ended up being more than that. There definitely were some questions about what really happened and of course where is the missing girl? What I really liked about the book was the story behind all of that. It showed the lives of people living in a small town, devastated by the closing of a mill. The teen angst and drama of the characters in high school seemed relevant and realistic. The teen angle might give it a YA feel for some, but I didn't mind that. I think it got a little unrealistic towards the end and the back and forth narratives switching between different times was confusing at times. All in all a good read. I will definitely be reading more from this author! Thank you to the publisher Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

See my review for The Blackbird Season below!