The Fairy Wren

The Fairy Wren is a phenomenal book. It pairs a wonderful literary style with elements of romance, horror, and thriller. Like many literary novels, I really can't tell you the plot quickly, but I'll do my best. 

The story follows Paul, who owns a failing bookstore and is in the aftermath of a nasty divorce. His ex-wife, Rachel, has a restraining order. The book has its first interesting shift when Paul receives a call at his bookstore but is unable to tell who he is talking to. He’s left wondering if it could have been Rachel, but cannot fathom why she would call him.

The mystery deepens when a fairywren appears and helps him find his lost wedding ring. The encounters with this wren escalate. I'll leave the details of this for you to uncover.

Paul has a somewhat impulsive nature, or maybe more accurately a keen sense of justice, one that doesn't follow arbitrary legal lines. In a heated confrontation with his landlord, who was jacking up his rate and being rather unpleasant while doing so, Paul does the thing we all would want to do and decks him. I think this exchange is emblematic of Paul; he does what feels right in the moment without regard to consequences.

I mentioned the writing briefly before, but I wanted to give a specific example of the excellence of the prose: “Numb extremities struggled with clothes that had undergone an awful metamorphosis, turning from cloth to lead.”

One very minor note: the book is set in Australia, so there are a few words that are different from other dialects. For example, "intervention order” instead of “restraining order”. This confused me for just a moment, but I figured it out. 

For the sake of brevity, and so you can just uncover this book for yourself, I omitted quite a few subplots that are equally compelling to those mentioned above. With the exception of the supernatural aspects of the wren, the book is a true-to-life depiction. I loved reading this book and highly recommend it.

Length: 206 pages

Perspective: 3rd-Limited

Tense: Past  

Kindle Unlimited: No

Where to buy: https://link.amazon/B0h4xGb0J