Genre: Mystery
Release Date: March 7, 2023
5 Stars
Special thanks to the author for an arc of this book and for a fantastic interview (see below)!
Review:
Birds In Flight is the story of two estranged sisters, reuniting after twenty four years in an effort to solve the mystery of what happened to their mother and a young child accompanying her one dark, stormy night a lifetime ago. Their mother had fled their father and America for a life road tripping around Australia in an old camper van for reasons unknown to her two unhappy daughters. They traveled from place to place, sometimes pausing long enough to get to know a few of the locals before being abruptly jerked up and forced to move on again by their skittish mother. While dutiful Lily quickly adjusted to her mother's flighty ways, rebellious daughter Iris resented the life she'd been forced to leave behind in America and took every opportunity to make her resentment and displeasure known. And then came the fateful night they drove through the Australian everglades on the way to the next small town - her mother stopping on the side of the dark road, picking up the small child traveling with them and disappearing into the black, rainy night never to be seen again. Later, Lily will recall being alone in the van, petrified and jumping at shadows when police abruptly stormed the van shouting questions. A man had reported seeing a woman in the area running down the road chasing a little girl and called it in to authorities. What Lily can't forget or justify is the sight of her older sister Iris running back to the van, soaked to the core with her yellow rain jacket held over her head. Iris refusing to answer questions about where she'd been or what she'd done, warning Lily to keep her mouth shut. Iris creating a rift between siblings that grew wider day by day until their relationship is hopelessly fractured by lies, secrets and innuendos. A fracture that will keep them apart, living on two different continents for twenty four years.
Now, a lifetime later, Lily receives a phone call from police in Australia - during a big flood of the Everglades, something of her mother's surfaces. Could this be the piece of evidence they've been waiting for? Lily returns to Australia to meet the detective and hopefully, finally, shake the truth about what happened that fateful night from her sister Iris. The two sisters form a tentative, fragile truce and, with their own children in tow, decide to reenact their mother's road trip from twenty four years ago - hoping to uncover clues, to find answers and maybe, just maybe, find their way back to each other. But is either woman ready to accept the truths that emerge when skeletons are rattled? Will it bring them back together . . . or finish ripping them apart?
Birds In Flight is the second book I've read by the multi-talented author Anni Taylor. Her descriptive narrative brings Australia, with its ever changing landscape and environment, to life in living, breathing color - the vivid sights and smells, the unrelenting heat and cold, the merciless dry and wet. I felt like I was on the road trip with Lily and Iris, both as young girls with their mother and later as adults with children of their own. Through past and present chapters, the author renders a mesmerizing tale of two doomed road trips twenty four years apart. The tempo of each road trip sets a steadily increasing, ominous pace, building tension as they move from place to place, person to person, asking questions, seeking answers even as the strain and half-truths between siblings fester. As they travel, they begin learning more about their mother's life and motivation before them, and it shocks and saddens them, driving their desire to find either her . . . or justice for her. Characters are well-fleshed out and believable with a few red herrings woven in throughout. Taylor does an excellent job of manipulating both characters and readers through an emotional, twisted plot line to an ending I didn't see coming.
Anni Taylor is an author that's earned a spot on my short list of favorite authors. Her books are highly readable and entertaining while also managing to draw attention to social issues such as misogyny, estranged siblings/families, abuse and social class. Birds In Flight is a dark, highly atmospheric story about love, loss, forgiveness and second chances. It's about the true meaning of home and embracing our past in order to live our future to the fullest. It's about learning to forgive even if you never forget. Highly recommended to fans of mysteries, suspense and thrillers with a lot of depth and heart.
Synopsis:
Two estranged sisters reunite to solve the harrowing mystery of their missing mother.
In 1998, the American Jorgenson family had been on a year-long road trip in Australia. One humid, storming night, the mother - Elsa Jorgenson - vanished in an isolated stretch of Australian everglades. Elsa was never seen again.
That night, twelve-year-old Lily Jorgenson was left alone and terrified in the family camper—even her teenage sister Iris is missing. When Iris comes racing back through the rain, she refuses to tell where she’s been. Lily is certain her sister is hiding a dark secret.
24 years later, Lily is a travel writer living a settled life with her son in Pennsylvania, USA. Lily and Iris are estranged, with Iris’s secret having torn them apart. When floods dredge up their mother’s backpack from the everglades, tantalizing clues are uncovered, and the police reopen the cold case.
Lily returns to Australia, determined to force Iris to finally tell her secret - and to do that, she'll have to reunite with her. But when Lily unlocks the gut-wrenching events of the past, everything she thought was true about her family is about to shatter.
Interview with Author Anni Taylor:
Q. Tell us a little about Birds in Flight.
Anni: Birds in Flight is about loss and forgiveness and finding a place to belong.
Two estranged sisters—Lily and Iris—reunite in an attempt to find out why their mother vanished on a road trip when they were young. The story follows the younger sister (Lily) as she navigates this deeply traumatic path.
Lily discovers a tantalizing poem her mother wrote, which speaks about the one big mistake she made. Iris is certain that their mother’s big mistake was having children. Is it true? On that stormy night 24 years ago, did their mother decide to run away and leave her daughters behind? Or did something terrible happen?
Q. Where did the idea for this book come from? What compelled you to write this story? What’s the significance of the title?
Anni: I was enchanted by the idea of an endless summer, of a mother who felt compelled to take her children and follow the sun up and down a coastline. I had a strong sense of this person, but I wasn’t sure what was driving her. Was she seeking truth? Or was she running from something or someone—or herself?
The title, Birds in Flight, was just a working title at first. It came from a line the mother told to her girls—that they were birds in flight—forever free. Over time (the book was a year in the writing), it began to seem perfect.
Q. The setting for Birds In Flight is Australia – one you’ve used in your other books. What’s special about this place/setting for you? Why was it the perfect setting for Birds In Flight?
Anni: In Australia, the caravan/campervan holiday road trip around our coastlines is something very familiar to Australians. In my story, a familiar, ordinarily happy thing takes on a dark tone.
The two girls—Lily and Iris—don’t understand why their mother dragged them all the way to another country after she left their father. They feel like fish out of water, especially when their mother yanks them out of their new school to take them on a road trip (a road trip with no definite end). The sisters are footless and falling through air, with no one to catch them. When their mother goes missing, that sense of freefalling is magnified.
So, the setting was all about magnifying the feeling of being completely lost and out of place—and about the characters trying to find a way out of the wilderness in their own minds. Also, the setting mirrors the mother’s mind in the eyes of her daughters—strange, unknowable and wild.
Q. What do you see as the role of the estranged sisters Lily and Iris in Birds In Flight? What makes them the best choice of characters through which to render this story?
Anni: In 1998, 12-year-old Lily is bewildered by the circumstances that landed her in a foreign country. But life turns unexpectedly blissful for her—travelling & exploring & (importantly) developing a close relationship with her mother. But fifteen-year-old Iris is resentful and rebellious, being at the stage where she wants independence and interaction with other teenagers and boyfriends.
After their mother goes missing, Lily is desperate to reconstruct what she’s lost, while Iris is equally as focused on making up for lost time.
The two sisters are both very driven characters and neither of them forgive easily. With Lily being certain that Iris knows something about their mother’s disappearance, it makes for an intense dynamic between the two sisters.
Q. In Birds In Flight, you use the mother’s missing journal to reveal her past story to her daughters and to readers. Why did you choose this method of including her story vs. having her story revealed through flashbacks?
Anni: I wanted those scenes to play out as if Elsa (the mother) was in the room telling her story to her daughters in person. The journal allowed me to show the immediate reactions from her daughters—the shock, disbelief, heartbreak, despair and rage.
Q. Talk to us about what’s next for you. Are you working on something you can share with readers?
Anni: I took a break over January, with my youngest son home from school (school holidays in Australia run the whole of January). The problem for me now is having so many ideas for a new story and being unsure which idea to go with!
I have two exciting ideas that I’ve started. The way it always happens is that a character begins standing out in my mind so vividly that they take over and take the lead. For example, in 2019, I was writing the story of a young police officer, and I had a detective near retirement age showing her the ropes. This older detective (Kate Wakeland) completely dominated every scene I put her in—so much so that I had to throw out the story I was writing! I ended up writing three books about Kate Wakeland (Tallman’s Valley Detectives).
With Birds in Flight, Lily, Iris and their mother seemed very real to me. I could sense these three women and their inner lives. I need that strong sense of character in order to write a story about them.
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