This was a beautifully written historical fiction novel. I enjoyed getting to sit down and read it at the end of a long day.

I was in the middle of 'Birdcage Walk' when news came through of Helen Dunmore's sad and untimely death. I have followed her work since the early days of 'Zennor in Darkness'. Fortunate to hear her speak at a reader event. I was impressed by her erudition and grace.

What a stunning range: from historical novel, to Cold War thriller to ghost story. My particular favourites are 'A Spell of Winter' and 'House of Orphans'. I suspect 'Birdcage Walk', set in her beloved Bristol, will join them. After struggling a little with the dry tone of 'Exposure', I found it a real return to form.

Thank you, Helen. Your readers will miss you greatly.

Central to the story is a young married woman whose remote and mysterious husband does not encourage her close relationship with her mother.  A tragedy occurs which only serves to bring her closer to her family and further from her husband. Set in Bristol at the end of the  18th Century, this features strong female characters. Excellent story written so expertly by Helen Dunmore. She will be sorely missed.

Whether it’s the Nazi’s devastating winter siege of Leningrad in 1941 (The Siege), spies and Cold War drama in 1960s London (Exposure), or the effects of the French Revolution on the people of England in 1792, Helen Dunmore’s historical fiction enlightens and captivates. In her latest and sadly, last novel, Birdcage Walk, Ms. Dunmore chose the period of the French Revolution as her timeframe. John Diner Tredevant is a builder and land speculator. He has borrowed money to build a terrace of houses overlooking The Gorge at a most unpropitious time. His wife Lizzie is the daughter of idealists whose support of the French Revolution puts them in constant danger. As Diner’s business continues to fail and his debtors close in, his moods become more erratic and he questions Lizzie’s independence. His past begins to intrude on their present and as she finds out more, Lizzie begins to fear for more than their ability to withstand these financial blows to their future. Birdcage Walk is a dark and brooding book, most likely drawing its nature from the excellently drawn character of Diner. I had less feeling for Lizzie, whose innocence and immaturity I found grating at times. The conversations that take place at her stepfather’s house give good context to the current events of the period. Helen Dunmore provides an informative Afterword that explains her motivation behind this work, and an insight into The Siege and Exposure as well. When you read one of her historical novels, you come away with far more than a story. You’ve been given a segment of history.

Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore follows the story of Lizzie Fawkes as she navigates through the turbulent time of the French Revolution. Though she lives in Bristol, England, her mother and step father are heavily interested and support the revolution drawing Lizzie in, much to her husband's disapproval. Her husband, John Diner Tredevant, remains an ominous threat to Lizzie, as his business ventures in the housing market begin to fail as the Revolution gains momentum.     

Overall, this was not a bad book. It was well written and flowed well but I honestly wasn't captured. I felt like the time period of the French Revolution didn't add anything to the plot. Had it been set simply in the late 1700's without the historical context, it would have played just as well. The only thing it added was the feminist perspective on the French Revolution since Lizzie's mother wrote political articles. 
I was expected a much greater "thriller" style book and it wasn't. There was a tease of a murder but that seemed to be an afterthought. There was no cohesive build to the reveal of who and how so ultimately, I didn't care as much when the reveal happened.. The character of Diner was well written in his creepy bi-polar personality since was good.. The characters were all well written, and I enjoyed how even the more minor characters were fleshed out.
My other disappointment was that the book was not bookended with the opening scene. The story begins in present day with this girl walking her dog into the cemetery and coming across the grave of Julia Fawkes, Lizzie's mother. She's curious so she goes and researches it. But that's it. That's the last that we hear of the character and that kind of irked me a little bit. I felt unsettled with that ending. Either that beginning wasn't necessary or it just needed to come back around and be referenced again. 

Overall, it wasn't a bad book. I enjoyed the drama of it and the characters were great. My disappointment was in the parts that could have been omitted and it would have made no difference to the story.

Enjoy Helen Dunmore's writing but felt this book did not flow as well as some of her previous stories.  Felt the introduction did not necessarily flow well into the actual story and it plodded in several places.  I enjoyed the historical references but not being a French speaker found the lack of translation irritating.  On the whole I felt it was not one of her best.

I fell in love with Helen Dunmore some two decades ago when I read a book of short stories called The love of fat men - as often happens with first love it can burn brightly and fade away, that's what happened and since then I've often struggled to even listen to audio versions of some of her recent work. So it was with some trepidation I entered Birdcage Walk.
It was a clunky start and the haste of motion from the main male (but weirdly feminine perspective) of the main character, in having an idea to the pursuance of it felt forced - this clunkyness melted entirely away when the text jumped to 1789. Dunmores usual enigmatic style kicked in at this point and I was hooked.

At the 17% mark and the characters have intrigued me but the plot and message of the book remain elusive.I'm not a fan of time hopping fiction and I'm kind of dreading returning to the present which I guess is inevitable as that's where the story begins. 

By 25 % I can't put this book down. Every character has a life, feelings, backstory and purpose. Lizzie glues it all together from her small world view showing a much broader world perspective and insight than she is credited for by any of the subsidiary characters.

Reaching the 78% mark leaves me feeling sad at the passing of Helen Dunmore this week and marvelling at her ability to draw me in to a story that has political parallels of startling coincidence to the times we live in now. Hopefully no one will be beheaded, but the divisions brought forth by the Brexit vote and general election are mirrored in the opposing viewpoints of Diner and Augustus beautifully and poignantly.

What a great loss to the world Helen Dunmore is. 
This book is a triumph, beautifully observed and constructed, a fitting legacy from a great great literary voice.

I read this exquisite novel and finished it the day after I learnt of Helen Dunmore’s death. The news has tinged my reading of the novel and I read ever more deeply into it. She writes in the afterword that after she finished writing and editing this book she was diagnosed with a serious illness; unconsciously she has worked in personal layers into her novel.

This novel deals with death and how one lives on (or doesn’t) after the death of loved ones. It is incredibly sad and poignant in retrospect and one can’t help feeling sad for Dunmore’s family and friends. But, unlike Julia, Dunmore will live on in her writings.

I have had a literary crush on Dunmore ever since I came across ‘A Spell of Winter’ many years ago and have since then devoured everything she has written – be it poetry or prose. The sensuality in her writing is always present – she manages to take you back in different historical periods (or not) with apparent ease, all five senses ablaze and buzzing. 

‘Birdcage Walk’ was no different. I loved all the characters in this novel. She captures the complexity of human nature so profoundly. I particularly loved her rendition of the complexity of John Diner and Lizzie’s passion for him. Dunmore has created another Heathcliffe and in spite of the danger bubbling under the surface, she creates a credible comprehension of just why Lizzie married him and loves him (but also fears him). This is a story of marriage, of grief and the cycle of life: death and birth are tightly intertwined. 

Helen Dunmore’s deft handling of language is always surprising to me. I am in awe of how she plays with language of the period of time; her depictions of nature and people read like poetry.

‘Birdcage Walk’ is another absolutely excellent novel by Helen Dunmore. One I will be re-reading again soon.

There is a dark tension about Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore. This historical thriller/mystery is set in the radical community of Bristol at the end of the 18th century.

Lizzie Fawkes' mother Julia is an iconic pamphleteer in the radical politics of the time, Lizzie moved from town to town with her mother and stepfather until they settled in Bristol where she met her husband John Diner Tredevant, a builder and developer. As the story unfolds, Lizzie's husband and mother pull her in different directions while uncertainty gnaws at the reader.

The period and setting are fascinating, the dark tension is pervasive from early on and builds to a good climax but overall there was something contrived and unsatisfying about Birdcage Walk

I almost gave up this book due to the slowness of the first half, but could not abandon it, and I'm glad I continued. The second half sped up, and I will think about this book for a while.

At the beginning, we learn that a man has killed a woman and buried her body on an island across the river. Next, we meet Lizzy, young wife to Diner, who is building some luxurious houses overlooking the Gorge in Bristol. Lizzy's mother Julia is married to Augustus, and they are eagerly following the progress of the French revolution with a group of friends. Julia dies in childbirth and Lizzy brings her half brother home to raise him, despite Diner's objection. Diner feels the revolution is bad for his business and he is right, no one wants to buy his beautifully built homes and they sit forlornly on the cliff, empty and roofless. As Diner loses more and more of his business and cannot raise funds to carry on, Lizzy begins to fear him, but refuses to let him see it. This culminates in a cold morning on the Avon River.

I was disappointed that the present day man who had adopted a dog from the prelude did not reappear at the end of the book. I thought he would. I learned while reading this book that the author had just died and had finished the book after learning of her illness. This book set a moodiness over me while reading it, and as I said, I will think of it often. Thanks to Net Galley for a free preview copy.

Great historical novel, up to Helen Dunmore's usual high standard. .

Deep and enthralling read. Very much enjoyed the detail, imagery and the story. Very sad to hear of Helen's passing. Thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

I liked Lizzie as a character, but I just couldn't get behind anyone else, and no one really pulled me in. If the other characters had been as well written as she was, the book might have interested me more.

I found this book a bit hard going and not so engaging as her previous novel.  It describes a different world to that inhabited by Jane Austen's characters although they are not far apart in time.  It was interesting to find out some of the background to the great Clifton crescents as I lived and worked in the Bristol area for many years.  The impact of the French Revolution was more than I realised as one usually only thinks of the emigres fleeing their homeland.  Diner was an intriguing character and I kept wondering what he was going to do next.  The main protagonists though are the women who are an interesting mix of strong, humble, naive and proud.  Thought provoking.

The late 1700s in Bristol, England was a time of great change. Events in France were disturbing and would affect England as well. Lizzie Fawkes is a spirited, young woman who is married to John Diner Tredevant. She has to tone down her style of living and her behaviour as he is conventional and does not like anything out of the ordinary. 

Lizzie's mother has been unconventional, a writer of ideas and an idealist. These trends are not popular with Lizzie's husband and Lizzie finds herself trying to tread a middle path keeping the peace at home, and finding solace and love with her mother as well. 

There are parallel conflicts throughout the story. Tredevant himself is hiding secrets of a horrendous kind and it is bound to come out at some time. He is also greatly in debt having over extended himself. It adds to the tension in his household. He is at odds with Lizzie's behaviour and this creates another side story as it were. Lizzie's mother's life was itself complicated and her having conceived and had a child in her forties added to the tension in the story. The survival of the baby and nurturing him created another tense situation for Lizzie.

I found the different strands of the story a bit too much to assimilate though the setting of the story and the events in France were very well itemized.  The characters of Lizzie and her mother were developed but the story did not take off very well from that point
Goodreads and Amazon review up on 6/6/2017. Review on my blog mid September 2017.

Unfortunately while this author has developed characters so well, the storyline that these characters are involved in moves so slow and bores one to tears.

Written about a crew of revolutionaries living in Bristol, England during the time of the French revolution, it details the life of Lizzie Fawkes, the daughter of a radical mother and stepfather. Lizzie married to a house builder Diner, who is so desirous of having a wife he can control, lead a life that seems dark and brooding. Lizzie worships her mother and at her death assumes responsibility for her mother's newborn son. All the characters tread a mysterious line and one finds that they seem to mistrust one another and possibly fear is evident. Each of the characters seem to be in a constant state of losing over one's shoulder as if they expect the guillotine to fall upon their necks even though they do not live in France. 

I have not read any of Ms Dunmore's previous novels, but probably this one was not a good choice as a start to her works.

Thank you to NetGallery and Penquin Book for an advanced copy of this novel.

3 stars. Lizzie Fawkes is the daughter of Julia Fawkes a radical feminist writer (in a second marriage to a radical pamphleteer), Lizzie herself has (against her families wishes due to the conventionality of the marriage and of her partner) married John Diner Tredevant, a heavily leveraged property developer whose latest project is a terraced development in Clifton, Bristol above the Avon Gorge. 

The book takes place in the early years of the French revolution – as the revolution gets increasingly bloody, forcing the radicals around Julia to examine their own thoughts on the revolution, and the economic uncertainty caused by the prospect of war increasingly hampers Diner’s attempts to sell his properties and expose the precariousness of his credit financed business model.

The plot development in the book is limited and much of it is revealed up front. In the first chapter we see a male character burying the body of a female in the woods near the river: all through the book we suspect who the two characters are. The first paragraph of the book tells us that the declaration of war in 1893 lead to a complete collapse in the Bristol house market and the bankruptcy of developers. Nevertheless  Dunmore by her use of atmosphere (weather is a key factor in the story), description of landscape (the heights around the gorge and the mysterious woods on the other side are almost another character in the book) and thoughts (the book is told almost entirely from Lizzie's first person viewpoint as she tries to understand Diner and gradually realises the truth about him, his business and her marriage) is not quite enough to maintain dramatic tension in the narrative. Many thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic through Netgalley for access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Birdcage Walk is set in Bristol, England during the French Revolution. It tells the story of Lizzie Fawkes, newly married to widower John Diner, despite her family's uncertainty of him. Diner is a near ruined builder with dreams of becoming a real estate mogul through the construction of a new housing community in Bristol. 

Lizzie has grown up surrounded by radicals (most notably her mother, famed writer Julia Fawkes) who have fostered within her an independent and questioning spirit. These radical ideas are a central element of the novel. The characters within the story are constantly examining the French Revolution and debating the merits of such an event. As violence consumes France, they all wonder whether or not such acts will reach them in Bristol. 

Diner does not agree with the opinions of Lizzie's family, believing that any radical change threatens the life he is trying to build for himself. He also harbours a dark secret regarding his first marriage, which he is desperate to keep hidden. Diner will do whatever it takes to ensure Lizzie submits to his way of thinking. 

In all honesty, I struggled with this book. The plot moved quite slowly and never really developed. There is an opening prologue set in the present day that is never revisited and seems misplaced with the rest of the novel. The opening chapter, set three years before the rest of the novel, details a murder and the burial of a body, a plot point which deserved more attention.

In her afterword, Helen Dunmore discusses her desire to share the stories of those individuals who have been forgotten by history. I can appreciate her attempt, however I had difficulty connecting with the individuals she chose to bring to life in this novel. Specifically, I spent much of the book waiting for Lizzie to grow into the strong, independent woman she was groomed to be, but instead was left unfulfilled by her story. 

Helen Dunmore's novel does an excellent job creating a vivid picture of life in Bristol in the late eighteenth century, however it was not enough to keep me invested in this novel.

Baroque is the word that comes to mind after finishing "Birdcage Walk". Drama, tension and poetic influence is how I would describe the book. I cannot say that I loved this new novel by Helen Dunmore. I felt the plot was missing some key climatic elements. I did not care for the heroine Lizzy, I was hoping for her to rise above her situation and so many times she let me down. Diner was very unlikable and controlling but yet Lizzy would throw herself into his arms again and again. Lizzy doubted herself so many times I struggle to call her the heroine. Lizzy's half-brother seemed to be the best thing that happened to her in the entire novel, and yet when it came to a decision between her brother and her husband, she chooses her husband. 

What I do feel Helen Dunmore excelled at was her descriptions and settings in the novel. She vividly captures what life was like in Bristol at that time in history. Her writing is poetic and sensual as she attempts to depict what emotional trials people might have faced during the French Revolution. However, Dunmore's repeated insertion of political discussion into the dialogue felt forced and did not really add anything to the development of the characters or the narrative. 

I would recommend this book to my friends but I am not sure I would reread it. 

I do want to give my appreciation to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for a free ARC copy of "Birdcage Walk". Thanks again.