What starts out as a potentially interesting mystery segues into something different, but it's not well defined. The murder of a beautiful high school girl exposes the sordid secrets of the town. Well drawn characters Liked it, but didn't love it.

This was a wonderfully paced mystery. I felt like it followed the traditional format for murder mysteries and I quite enjoyed that. The characters were interesting if not mildly eccentric and the setting was rather complimentary.

This was such a unique and poignant story. The book ended up being nothing like what I was expecting. The different narrators gave the murder mystery such an interesting perspective. There were some narrators I hated (though I believe we were not supposed to like them) and some narrators I really enjoyed and rooted for. This was not a typical thriller...but instead deeply character driven story. The large amount of narrators sometimes was confusing...and the sections for each narrator was so long that sometimes by the time I got back to a narrator I would forget where we left off in the story with them. But otherwise, this was an enjoyable character driven story that delved into some sensitive topics.

**some slight trigger warnings.""

Birds of Wonder was an excellent, fast read peopled with marred humans who try to do the right thing despite their inclinations. This is not a police procedural nor a murder mystery per say. We have death, foster kids, illegal aliens, wine making and artistic endeavours from the viewpoint of our six protagonists, which really delves into those characters involved more than the potential crimes. Amber seems like the perfect teen taken much too young, the foster twins will break your heart at times, but it is interesting to watch them mature and grow stronger. You can understand Jes if you have had any painful relationship in your memory, Beatrice if you are a mother, Liam if you have finally found yourself at 45. Edward is that man in your neighborhood that you vaguely fear and his sister Sara is sadly broken. I found Waldo very interesting and Liam's handling of Waldo's situation kind.

Altogether, Birds of Wonder is a book I am happy to recommend to friends and family, and one I will want to read again at my leisure once the garden is in. And Cynthia Robinson is an author I will follow. I like the way her mind works....

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Cynthia Robinson, and Standing Stone Books in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book - all thoughts and opinions are my own.

I genuinely enjoyed this take on a typical murder mystery. Birds of Wonder takes the standard police procedural and turns it on its head, creating a story that follows the work to solve a case from the perspective of several incredibly diverse characters.

When a local girl, Amber Inglin, is found dead in a field, no one can predict the rippling effects it will have on the local community. Beatrice, Amber's teacher, who finds the body; her daughter Jes, the local police officer who lands the lead on the case; Liam Walsh, the owner of the field where Amber's body is found, who is also Amber's former child services lawyer and summer job boss; Edward, a local artist and one of the last people to see Amber alive; Conner, her foster brother and his twin sister Megan; and Waldo, a local man who speaks to the birds and works with Liam at his vineyard.

Cynthia Robinson does a remarkable job of intertwining perspectives of six characters, slowly unraveling what happened to Amber, and the consequences of the crime on everyone involved. Beautifully written, drawing in the most stunning descriptions of birds that offset the story line perfectly.

I walked into this book fully expecting a standard crime mystery, and instead found myself pleasantly surprised with a well paced character drama. I absolutely adore books with flawed lead characters, and this one did not disappoint. My only wish is that we could have delved further into Jes and her life.

This book would make a great read for book clubs everywhere - the twists and turns, combined with the complexity and diversity of characters would make for terrific discussion! A solid recommendation for lovers of a good character drama; get this one on your to-read pile.

Synopsis from Amazon: One August morning while walking her dog, high-school English teacher Beatrice Ousterhout stumbles over the dead body of a student, Amber Inglin, who was to play the lead in Beatrice's production of John Webster's Jacobean tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi. Barely able to speak, Beatrice calls the police. That is to say, she calls her daughter. Jes is a detective with two years of experience under her belt and a personal life composed primarily of a string of one-night-stands, including the owner of the field in which Beatrice has found Amber. In addition to a house and a field, Child Services lawyer Liam Walsh owns a vineyard, where Amber Inglin, along with a handful of other teens who've had difficulty negotiating the foster system, was an intern. Set among the hills and lakes of upstate New York and told in six vibrantly distinct voices, this complex and original narrative chronicles the rippling effects of a young girl's death through a densely intertwined community. By turns funny, fierce, lyrical and horrifying, BIRDS OF WONDER probes family ties, the stresses that break them, and the pasts that never really let us go.

Congratulations to Cynthia Robinson on publication of her I believe debut novel … an enjoyable read filled with an interesting cast of characters … some funny, some cringe inducing, some heartbreaking and all interesting and unique.

Ostensibly a murder mystery, this book soon evolves into a character study as we learn more and more about the people that were involved in Amber’s life. It soon becomes an insightful exploration of relationships, family and otherwise … an absorbing and sometimes disturbing story that comes to a satisfying conclusion. I enjoyed this book.

Thank you to Net Galley and Standing Stone Books for the advance copy.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for an electronic ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. The premise of this novel is that a teacher, Beatrice, out on a walk with her dog, stumbles across the body of a student who has been killed and dismembered. This student happens to be the star of a play Beatrice is directing (and with which she is obsessed), and Beatrice's daughter, who is a police officer (one who flagrantly dismisses protocol) is assigned as the primary investigator. There are many potential suspects who also narrate portions of the novel, and all of them have secrets to hide. This book is dark, and I am a fan of dark novels with troubled characters, and there are plenty that narrate this novel (6 to be exact!). The problem for me with this particular novel, is that these troubled characters have few redeeming qualities, and those that do keep them under wraps until the very end. As a result, I just didn't like them much. This is a mystery and the story is compelling, but the mystery itself just sort of fizzles out with a whimper. However, the resolution is satisfying and quite hopeful for such a dark story. The good news is this debut work by Cynthia Robinson is beautifully written, and I would be interested in reading more from her.

When Beatrice goes for a all one morning, the last thing she expects to find is a body in a field. And not just any body, but that of a young girl she knows. Amber Inglin is the star in Beatrice's play The Duchess of Malfi. What follows is a complex, lyrical tale that is by turns sordid, and amusing.

Robinson's debut Birds of Wonder showcases the truth that everything is truly connected, that everyone touches one another through shared events, even if the connection is two, three, or more people removed. Told through six different viewpoints, we are guided through the events leading to Amber's demise.

I enjoyed the overall concept of this story, and the beautiful writing. Each character had their own quite distinctive personality, crafted with care. Many of these characters were not likable, and not meant to be. Edward is a good example! This dude was downright creepy, but believable. Where things really shine were the interpersonal dynamics. Hard topics such as rape, abuse, and forced pornography are dealt with, illuminating aspects society might prefer to ignore.

Though this was less a 'procedural’ novel, I found the crime and motivation interesting. Where things unraveled for me was with Jes. She's incredibly unprofessional, and does several things that would seriously jeopardise this case once it's in court. A good lawyer would rip it to shreds. If that were the point of the story, it'd be fine. But that didn't seem to be the point. And in the end, the solving of the crime itself seemed underwhelming.

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Standing Stone Books for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The body of a girl found in a field affects a whole community, as everything and everyone is connected in some way, and the crime investigated has far-reaching impact and touches a few difficult subjects. This debut novel had a lot of potential, but ultimately disappointed me.

But let's start with the positive, which did dominate the first four fifths of the book (hence 4/5 stars)! In a dense narrative spanning just three days, Cynthia Robinson combines atmospheric scenes with great character portraits, while neither overburden the action. The potential for conflict, both internally and between the characters, was palpable everywhere, the air basically crackling with it. And while the characters are not exactly likable, they did carry this story. All had distinct voices and brought the narrative forward without giving anything away. The book also greatly discussed and brought forward the injustices of rape and abuse culture, the foster care system and child pornography. There was an overarching bird metaphor woven into the plot, which was obvious but not overbearing.

Now on to the less great aspects: if the setting is indeed supposed to be the Ithaca, New York, which has roughly 30.000 people, then I felt that the "small town" vibe was too exaggerated. It became a romanticized plot point with no connection to reality. Also, I found the solution to the crime to be way too simple and felt that there was too little detective work done. So much more could have been made out of the great topics mentioned above! It certainly was not a book full of the usual tropes, but this is not the right way to avoid stereotypes either, because it fell flat. The ending then felt sugary, or even, dare I say it?, lazy. It was just too simple. I would have liked a bit more of a bang for a story that carried so much potential in its topics and cast of character.

When Beatrice, a high school English/Drama teacher discovers the dead body of Amber, the star of her high school play, while out walking her dog, she calls her daughter, Jes. Jes, Jesca Ashton, is a new police detective whose disliked by her good-ole-boy partner and barely tolerated by his uncle, the chief of police. Being first on the scene gives her the chance to be primary, a chance to prove herself if she can find the murderer. Unfortunately for Jes, and for readers, she is not very professional and her biases drive her investigation and Birds of Wonder off the rails.

Cynthia Robinson’s Birds of Wonder is full of suspects and with shifting points of view, we get to hear from all of them. The story is told by Beatrice, who found the body; Jesca, our fearless and dreadful detective; Liam, the philanthropic vintner who used to be Amber’s lawyer; Waldo, the “magical Latino” who worked with Amber at Liam’s vineyard; Edward, the creepy artist who was asked to drive Amber home; and Conner, Amber’s foster-brother and budding photographer. By coincidence, Jes and Liam had a one-night liaison in the past, one they repeat.

Jes pays no attention to police procedures, blithely sleeping with a viable suspect because she assumes he is innocent. Somehow, I don’t think the Supreme Court has a sleeping-with-the-suspect exemption to the Fourth Amendment, either. She allows her personal animus to violate someone’s civil rights, doing her best to ruin his life. This case is more about Jes exorcising her own demons than finding the truth for Amber.

There are things to like about Birds of Wonder. Robinson writes about art with lovely prose. There is compassion for the lost and broken–some of them. Her writing about nature is evocative. She writes beautifully, the problem is not the prose, it’s the story.

I found elements of the story distasteful. We are supposed to overlook Jes’ many failings as an investigator because the crime she is investigating is reprehensible. Then, when we learn she has the wrong end of the stick, we are supposed to overlook her errors because she saw something suspicious on a trip to Thailand, something she never confirmed, by the way, giving the accused no opportunity to offer an alternative explanation. Given how wrong she was about this investigation, why should we trust her instincts in the past?

Worse, Robinson contrives additional incidents while Jes was traveling to further justify Jes’ behavior and somehow we are supposed to approve of her. I don’t. Police are given extraordinary power and I am not okay with police abusing their power nor am I okay with the idea that it is all forgiven because of some past events. Civilians are not given a pass for that.

Frankly, Jes is an awful police officer. She thinks she can ignore the rules because she is so much smarter than everyone else yet in the end, her fellow officers for whom she has such contempt have a better sense of the crime than she–though they are drawn so one-dimensionally even being right about one thing cannot redeem them. She resents her mother for something of which Beatrice is completely unaware. She breaks the law more than once, though I don’t mind so much when she helps Megan (Amber’s foster sister.) But all in all, this is a hot mess and the more I think about it, the more reasons I find not to like it. After all, I have not even mentioned the portrayal of Waldo, who functions as a Latino version of the “magical negro” trope.

Birds of Wonder will be released February 20th. I received an e-galley of Birds of Wonder from the publisher through NetGalley.

Birds of Wonder at Standing Stone Books
Cynthia Robinson author site

Cynthia Robinson's Birds of Wonder is a well-written story (and I loved the cover image). I'd expected more of a crime-focused novel based on the description (and because the book starts with the discovery of a body and moves into a police procedural approach at the beginning). However, I found that it became less and less of a central focus as the book progressed. That isn't a drawback, necessarily, but it wasn't expected and this may have dampened my reading experience a bit.

There are multiple points-of-view, which worked well (I enjoyed Beatrice, Jes, and Liam, in particular), but I would have been happier to have a more constant focus on one character. In a regular crime novel, I would have loved bouncing around different POVs and not sitting with a character for a longer period. Given that this became less crime-focused over the course of the book, I would have liked fewer POVs.

Overall, it didn't totally work for me, so I'm rounding down to 3 stars.

The story begins with the local drama teacher, Beatrice, finding the body of one of her students, Amber, in a field. The police are called which includes her daughter Jesca, a young detective. This opening leads the reader to think this will be a murder mystery but it is more exploratory than that. Told from five different viewpoints, we come to understand the various characters and their relationships. I found the relationship between Jesca and her mother Beatrice the most interestingly rendered while the other characters seemed less developed. I feel the writer was too ambitious with this pastiche of genres and didn't quite pull it off.

The type of writing for this book is very simple, everyone can ready this book and love it, because is not very big and the story can easily passionate you.

Everyone starts when a girl brutally murdered is found by her teacher in a park. And from here begin the real mystery that is the real point of this book. The story is told from the point of view of many characters, each connected somehow with the victim and the murder.

This book worth to be read and see the mystery being revealed at the and of the book - or maybe not, let go find it :)

As Cynthia already tells us: "Don’t expect a traditional crime novel or psychological thriller all the way through. It does start out that way, but then—purposefully—veers off into other territory."
Birds of Wonder is not a real crime or thriller. When the story starts with the murdered Amber Inglin, found dead in a field, you first think of a crime story to come. But then, the story is told through different eyes. With each new story, the confusion gets bigger and bigger.

I found the first part of the book a little tough to get trough. We move from Beatrice to Jes (her daughter, detective at the local police), to Liam (owner of the field where Amber is found), Edward (the one who brought Amber home after babysitting at his sister's place), Connor (brother of Amber's best friend Meghan, living with the same foster parents as Amber) and Waldo (employee of Liam, working near the fields where Amber is found). They all seem connected to the murder, or aren't they?

What secrets do all those people have and what is their relationship to Amber? Could one of them have done the horrible act of murder and severing her hand?

In the second half of the book, the different stories merge into one total story in which everybody's role is clear. The book didn't give me an epiphany at the end of the book, but I was compelled to hold on to the last page.

So in all a nice read. It didn't blow me of my socks, but for a debut it was a pretty inventive story. So, three out of five stars from me. And a special thank you to Standing Stone Books for providing the arc.

I think the author attempted to give this book an artistic and unique spin to the over saturated murder/mystery genre. What I first thought would be a standard murder/mystery ended up something different altogether. I’m not entirely sure I enjoyed all aspects of this book though. It seemed to me the whole town was full of seedy unsavoury people that made you dislike/suspect everyone of evil wrong doings that by the end you had no idea where the story was leading. The second half of the book was by far a more enjoyable read as it wasn’t your typical whodunnit mystery but a dissection of a town uncovering a host of murky characters and as you got deeper you got a better picture of the people in it and how everyone fit into the storyline. It was interesting with all the different narrators but sometimes the writing veered off track making it an uneven read overall. I’d give this book 3.5 stars as I was curious to see how the whole plot would unfold.

I found this book to be surprisingly compelling. The writing was lyrical while being effective and I couldn't put it down. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised by the book and author.

This first novel by a professor of art history, Cynthia Robinson, offers the reader a collection of six characters, ranging from teenagers to a doting English teacher who seems to be declining in her cognitive ability. The setting is around Cayuga Lake in New York and the teacher, Beatrice Ousterhout, stumbles upon the lifeless body of Amber Inglin, the star in Beatrice's annual theater production. Beatrice calls her daughter, Jes, who is a police detective and the saga begins.

The novel's narrative comes from six points of view including Beatrice and Jes. There is a sharp divide between the wealthy citizens, the educator, the cop, and teenagers who have the misfortune of being placed with foster parents who thrive on running an evangelical church. Amber's best friend, Megan, and her brother, Connor all live with the same family. The brother and sister thrive by being together, and Megan and Amber's closeness gives their life some comfort.

Jes has a difficult time dealing with her mother who lives in the cluttered family home amongst all her theatrical props and the detritus of her husband's ornithology work. The father has passed away, and as Jes works to distance herself further and further from her mother, Beatrice keeps trying to find ways to hold onto her. Jes was very close to her father, majored in theater in college but abruptly changed to graduate work in criminology, disappointing her mother. Jes' knowledge of ornithology comes in handy as she searches for clues surrounding Amber's death. The memories of her father's work also cause problems for Jes that unfold in the narrative.

BIRDS OF WONDER is a suspenseful, intricate look at relationships between family members, and those that we choose to make our family. It is a hard look at the reality of life today. No amount of scenic beauty, architecturally perfect homes, designer clothes, and sophisticated art galleries can wipe away what we do with our hearts, who we love and those we betray.

Thank you, NetGalley, the author, and Standing Stone Books for the opportunity to read and review this e-ARC to be published in February.

I found this an uncomfortable read, albeit one that kept me turning the pages. Everyone in the book is damaged or odd or really good at making a mess of their own lives. The subject matter is also a bit disturbing - a dead teenage girl and the community around her who have their secrets to hide.

The narrative shifts between six narrators, all of whom have their connections to the dead girl. What starts as a promising murder mystery (one of the narrators is the policewoman in charge of the investigation) turns into something darker but also, I felt, slightly anti-climactic in a way as the truth is revealed gradually by the different voices. Some of the characters are more believable and engaging than others, but the multiple narrator device was good at bringing tension to the story.

I can't say I enjoyed the book, but I did want to read on to find out what happened. I would recommend the book to people who like a compelling read and don't mind spending time with a bunch of quite strange characters!

Although Birds of Wonder starts off as a murder mystery, and while that mystery frames the novel, it is truly the story of the 6 narrators. Told in turns by these characters as an investigation ensues, the novel offers explorations of issues surrounding family relationships. Mother/daughter, sibling, and marital relationships are explored along with questions of loyalty, love, loss and what constitutes success. Each chapter is told from a single character's perspective. Occasionally, the transition between characters seems slightly jumpy, but overall their stories are eloquently related in their unique voices.

I'm really not sure how to take this book. First, the description is so misleading. It's about a young girl dying and the reader finding out the horrible ways she was exploited when she was alive.

There are six points of view. One is of a pedophile and I needed a shower after reading his section. Second, is in-the-foster-system-too-long gay teenage boy who I refuse to give sympathy toward. Third is the detective who is pretty standard with her strong woman long wolf thing. Fourth is her mother who I almost felt sorry for until the reveal about her husband. Fifth is the wine owner who I really felt sorry for in the end because he loves the detective because she's the only main female character he could. The sixth is the mentally ill worker for the wine owner and his perspective was only there for misdirection.

It took me awhile to get into this book until I realized that this isn't a murder mystery that involves a daughter and mother bonding over solving the case but about extremely messed up people.