'Have you got a light hen? I'm totally gaspin.'  Battered and bruised, Elizabeth has taken her daughter and left her abusive husband Patrick. Again.   In the bleak and impersonal Glasgow housing office Elizabeth meets the provocatively intriguing drug addict Sadie, who is desperate to get her own life back on track.   The two women forge a fierce and interdependent relationship as they try to rebuild their shattered lives, but despite their bold, and sometimes illegal attempts it seems impossible to escape from the abuse they have always known, and tragedy strikes.   More than a decade later Elizabeth has started to implement her perfect revenge - until a surreal Glaswegian Virgin Mary steps in with imperfect timing and a less than divine attitude to stick a spoke in the wheel of Elizabeth's retribution.   Tragic, darkly funny and irreverent, The Birds That Never Flew is a new and vibrant voice in Scottish literature.

The Birds That Never Flew

Literature & Fiction

McCuaig, Margot

Humor & Satire

ThunderPoint Publishing Limited

This is Margot McCuaig's second novel. Her acclaimed debut, The Birds That Never Flew, was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize and longlisted for the Polari Prize. This novel is set in Glasgow and Rathlin, and is about roots and belonging, about the importand of home and landscape and about the very close ties that bind and tear apart twins. On their twelfth birthday, twins Rathlin and Breacán Doherty witness an accident that kills their parents in the forest behind their farm in Kintyre, Scotland. Despite their unique bond, sister and brother pull apart as they deal with their loss and grief. Physically separated in their teens, the emotional distance widens and is filled with secrets and lies. As they approach their twenty-seventh birthday, they come back together to fight to save their beloved Ballynoe, the house in which they grew up. Its landscape, rich in folklore, and the ghosts of their parents, binds them and tears them apart. Against the backdrop of vivid childhood memories, the twins eventually reveal their own secrets and uncover those of their family, revelations which are shocking, far-reaching and tragic in their consequences.

Almost Then

Linen Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McCuaig, Margot. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by McCuaig, Margot

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McCuaig, Margot. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Birds That Never Flew

Almost Then