I was almost afraid to look into them, in case I found Lucie there. When they saw me, perhaps they compared me to her.’ Like the second Mrs de Winter in Rebecca, Lizzie wonders if she can live up to Lucie’s place in Diner’s memory. ‘I wondered if any of the men had known Lucie…They would have seen her. Lizzie is Diner’s second wife and I found echoes of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca as Lizzie is tormented with curiosity about her predecessor, Lucie, who she is told died in childbirth in her native France. However, her mother, Julia, remains an influential figure in Lizzie’s life. Lizzie’s motivation for marriage to John Diner Tredevant is complicated: part passion and, seemingly, part desire for a place of her own following her mother’s remarriage. Set in a period of political upheaval in Europe, Birdcage Walk is a multi-layered novel that provides an intimate and, at times, troubling picture of a marriage seen through the eyes of Lizzie Tredevant. *links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme Published: 2nd March 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction In a tense drama of public and private violence, resistance and terror, Diner’s passion for Lizzie darkens until she finds herself dangerously alone.įormat: eBook, paperback (416 pp.) Publisher: Hutchinson She belongs to him: law and custom confirm it, and she must live as he wants. Diner believes that Lizzie’s independent, questioning spirit must be coerced and subdued. Soon his plans for a magnificent terrace built above the two-hundred-foot drop of the Gorge come under threat. But she has recently married John Diner Tredevant, a property developer who is heavily invested in Bristol’s housing boom, and he has everything to lose from social upheaval and the prospect of war. Lizzie Fawkes has grown up in Radical circles where each step of the French Revolution is followed with eager idealism. It is 1792 and Europe is seized by political turmoil and violence.

Birdcage walk book review