Fledgling

sigh! Shut up! I’m not crying you are! There is no way that you’re gonna finish this book without feeling just a little bit of grief that it is over, this book will effect you and you’ll not be ready for that. Hannah’s writing is so immersive after spending some time reading I would look around me in shock that I wasn’t in Ghana and I didn’t have a little baby Finch nesting in my hair (full disclosure I don’t actually have enough hair for this to happen but we can dream).

Hannah follows her husband to Ghana when he gets a job there, she has no job herself and feels an incredible amount of homesickness and a loss of identity. She struggles to make friends and doesn’t conform to what is considered normal for a wife…as is often the case Nature steps up and embraces her. Witnessing somebody knocking a nest off a building she finds a young swift on the ground, too young to take flight, Hannah’s compassion kicks in and she takes it home. After much research she finds out as much information she can as she slowly bonds with the swift, gradually earning a sort of trust. There are many ups and downs and a huge amount of commitment on Hannah’s part, the ups will make you grin big time and the downs will hit you hard.

It’s when Hannah comes across a Finch in need of help that she truly finds herself, the bond between human and bird was incredible, the quickness that the bird decides Hannah will be the giver of food was impressive and each time it flew to her for safety had my heart melting. The question that was constantly on my mind was “is this bond too strong, has the bird lost it’s wild ways?” I said before that the book is very immersive and as the day arrived where the bird needed to be released I noticed the book was also nearing the end, it was a very weird feeling, usually at the end of a good book I feel happy that it is ending and gave me a good time, this time however, it was hard to let go, I decided if Hannah could let go then I would have to too.

There is more to the book than this little bird, Hannah shares with us all the other creatures out there from spiders all the way up to fellow humans, this is a full on nature book. How she sees other humans is very much like how I see them, nice to find I ain’t alone.

100% recommend this book, stunning cover, beautiful end papers and a wonderful, honest account of one woman trying to find who she is in a strange country, I enjoyed every single page. If I ever find a bird in need of help I feel more prepared now.

Blog Review (with a video): felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/04/14/blog-tour-fledgling-by-hannah-bourne-taylor/