Songbirds by Christy LefteriMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A book inspired by real events, about the women who migrated from poorer countries to ones of wealth, where they work menial jobs and send the money home. Typically the women are leaving behind children and other family, but don’t see a future without a way to make money for education, to get ahead. So they make the unthinkable choice to leave the country, be a mom via internet, and send money home.
This story is based in Cypress, told between to different voices, of Petra and Yannis. Occasionally between their chapters there is this foreboding interlude that describes among other things a decomposing rabbit. I could have done without that!
Nisha is missing. She is Petra's maid and caregiver of her child, while Yannis is the tenant in the apartment above who loves Nisha, asked her marry to him the day she went missing.
Petra learns about Nisha while searching for her, realizing she never knew this woman despite her being so enmeshed in Petra's life for ten years. Petra also learns how hidden from life she was with her own child. Nisha came to help Petra shortly before she gave birth, just after her husband died. Petra lives in this perpetual mourning, a shadow of a life for ten years while Nisha raises her daughter.
The mystery is the propulsion for the story but it is Nisha and the other women on the island who are the gems of the book. Not entirely an easy read, but a good one.
Thanks to Ballentine and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.
Although I got an advance eBook copy, I ended up reading via audiobook. The narrator did an excellent job and would recommend this version as well.
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