Little Bird

Wendy James is Australia’s queen of the domestic thriller. She is the author of nine novels, including An Accusation, The Golden Child—short-listed for the 2017 Ned Kelly Award—and the bestselling The Mistake. Her debut novel, Out of the Silence, won the 2006 Ned Kelly Award for first crime novel and was short-listed for the Nita May Dobbie Award for women’s writing. Wendy has a PhD from the University of New England, and she works as an editor, teacher, and researcher. She writes some of the sharpest, most topical domestic noir in the country.

“A solid mystery with interesting characters.” —Booklist“A Little Bird is a true feast for lovers of domestic suspense and atmospheric family dramas. Using multiple narrations, Wendy James propels the story forward as a woman seeks to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of her mother and baby sister two decades before. Then she takes us back in time to the unfolding of that mystery. The suspense builds as the secrets unravel, with an ending that is both surprising and deeply satisfying. A compelling, page-turning read!” —Wendy Walker, bestselling author of Don’t Look for Me“Wendy James’s newest novel, A Little Bird, fully immersed me in the modern Australian outback and made me never want to leave. When Jo Sharpe returns home after a tough breakup, she finds herself working at a small-town ‘good news only’ newspaper, covering the ups and downs (but mostly ups) of her hometown. But there is more than good news in Arthurville. As Jo seeks to uncover the reality behind the stories she’s woven over the years about her mother and infant sister’s disappearance, she soon discovers that there is a heart-pounding reason she never knew the truth about her mother’s flight from their family nest. In this beautifully written story of family secrets and the search for the truth, James’s tight prose and brilliant plot twists will have you frantically turning pages till the touching conclusion.” —Emily Bleeker, Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author“James’s descriptions of the drought-stricken town crackle with life…Behind every façade, however, James reveals surprising interiors, shadows that shift and deepen as the chapters unfold. As with all good mysteries, people are never quite what they seem…This novel begins as a slow burn, with the dual narrative strands of Jo’s present and her mother’s history winding around each other like parched summer breezes, but at the halfway mark a tantalising clue is dropped and it’s time to strap in for an all-nighter. A Little Bird is the perfect holiday read…” —Kim Kelly, author of The Blue Mile, for The Newtown Review of Books