Book Reflections – All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld

All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld held my attention from start to finish. I often wanted to eke out time to read this slim novel.

Wyld uses a clever structure of alternating chapters set in two time periods. The first follows protagonist Jake as a young adult on a small sheep farm in Scotland in the current era and moves forward in time by a few days. This portion of the novel features the delightful drunk named Lloyd who gradually works his way through Jake’s gruff defenses.

The second follows Jake as a late teen in the fairly recent past in Western Australia, working as a sheep shearer and moves backwards in time to her working as a sex worker and further backwards in time to when Jake was 15 and living at home in a coastal town in northern WA.

Wyld had me convinced of a certain pivotal circumstance that led to why she left home and started sex work and I did not at all see the twist coming that was delivered in the final chapters.