Review – The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti

I received this book for free from the publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti
Narrator: Joy Osmanski, Rebekkah Ross, Cassandra Campbell, Gibson Frazier
Published by Simon and Schuster, Simon and Schuster Audio on September 26, 2017
Genres: Fiction, Psychological, Suspense, Thrillers
Length: 11 hours 11 minutes
Format: ARC, Audiobook, eBook
Source: Library, Publisher
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“Exceptional…a deliciously sinister glimpse into the duplicity of small-town lives and the ease with which people turn on each other when tragedy comes calling. Moretti's tale of jealousy and obsession is nothing less than dark magic. Witchery indeed." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Known for novels featuring “great pacing and true surprises” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) and “nerve-shattering suspense” (Heather Gudenkauf, New York Time bestselling author), New York Times bestselling author Kate Moretti’s latest is the story of a scandal-torn Pennsylvania town and the aftermath of a troubled girl gone missing.

“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.”

In a quiet Pennsylvania town, a thousand dead starlings fall onto a high school baseball field, unleashing a horrifying and unexpected chain of events that will rock the close-knit community.

Beloved baseball coach and teacher Nate Winters and his wife, Alecia, are well respected throughout town. That is, until one of the many reporters investigating the bizarre bird phenomenon catches Nate embracing a wayward student, Lucia Hamm, in front of a sleazy motel. Lucia soon buoys the scandal by claiming that she and Nate are engaged in an affair, throwing the town into an uproar…and leaving Alecia to wonder if her husband has a second life.

And when Lucia suddenly disappears, the police only to have one suspect: Nate.

Nate’s coworker and sole supporter, Bridget Harris, Lucia’s creative writing teacher, is determined to prove his innocence. She has Lucia’s class journal, and while some of the entries appear particularly damning to Nate’s case, others just don’t add up. Bridget knows the key to Nate’s exoneration and the truth of Lucia’s disappearance lie within the walls of the school and in the pages of that journal.

Told from the alternating points of view of Alecia, Nate, Lucia, and Bridget, The Blackbird Season is a haunting, psychologically nuanced suspense, filled with Kate Moretti’s signature “chillingly satisfying” (Publishers Weekly) twists and turns.

I really enjoyed this book! I was lucky enough to receive a copy of this book for review before its publication date several years ago. For some reason, I didn’t get the chance to read it and it moved from the top of my tbr list. When I was browsing my library’s offerings, I decided it was finally time to give this book a try when I saw that this audiobook was available. It turns out that I really wish I hadn’t neglected this book for as long as I did.

This book is told from multiple points of view and it did take a minute for me to realize what the book was actually about. The book starts out with a lot of blackbirds falling from the sky and everyone wanting to know why but the focus of the story quickly shifts to a teenage girl, her disappearance, and a possible affair. We learn the details of this story from several key characters including Lucia, the teenage girl at the core of this mystery. Nate is a high school teacher and the school’s baseball coach who is suspected of having an affair with Lucia. Alicia is Nate’s wife who has no idea what to think of the accusations against her husband. Bridget is a high school teacher who happens to be good friends with Nate and Alicia. I thought that the multiple points of view worked very well with this story which each character having something important to add to the story to move things forward.

I was hooked by this mystery early on. I had no idea whom to trust and was at a loss as to what I thought might have happened. I must say that I was rather surprised by the outcome of the story and thought that it worked well. I wouldn’t say that I really liked any of the key characters, with the expectation of Bridget, but I felt that they were all very genuine. I really liked that we saw the struggles that Alicia encountered in raising a child with autism and the impact of that stressor on her marriage.

I thought that the four narrators did a fantastic job with this story. All of the narrators had very distinctive voices so it was always very easy to determine which point of view the book had moved to. I thought that the narrators added a lot of emotion and excitement to the reading. I thought all of their voices worked well for this story and I believe that their performance added to my overall enjoyment of the story.

I would recommend this book to others. I found this to be a compelling mystery that kept me guessing until the very end. The cast of narrators was able to bring the story to life which added to the appeal. I look forward to reading more from this talented author in the future.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Atria Book via NetGalley and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library.

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