Lefteri, Christy: Songbirds

The follow-up to the global bestseller The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Songbirds is a heart-breaking story for our times. She walks unseen through our world. Cares for our children, cleans our homes. Her voice unheard. She has a story to tell. Will you listen? Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra‘s daughter, Aliki; at night she mothers her own in Sri Lanka by the light of a phone. Nisha‘s lover is Yiannis, a poacher, who hunts the tiny songbirds as they migrate to Cyprus on their way to Africa each winter. He dreams of finding a new way of life, of marrying Nisha. When Nisha disappears, little Aliki insists she wouldn‘t simply run away; they must find her. As Petra learns to take care of Aliki herself, she comes to understand the woman she barely knew, and realises only she and Yiannis will bother to look for her. What they uncover will change them all. Set on her native Cyprus, Christy Lefteri has crafted a powerful, redemptive story of loss, of the triumph of the human spirit, and of the enduring love of a mother for her child.