Inspired by true events, The Red Bird Sings follows Mary-Jane and Lucy in West Virginia, 1987, as their daughter and friend Zona dies, apparently from the hands of her new husband. Determined to prove the man guilty, Lucy gathers evidence to avenge her best friend while Mary-Jane is convinced her daughter is speaking to her beyond the grave.

This book is well written and I think the historical setting is really good. I liked how we got to know Zona a little bit and received glimpses of her real spirit and character before her marriage to Edward Shue, and death. Mary-Jane as a character is probably one of the biggest and loudest in the books due to her eccentricities and her ferociousness in her love for her daughter but Lucy was definitely the stand-out character for me due to her determined nature and her clever way of making things right.

I enjoyed reading this and I think this is an excellent debut novel. I will definitely be reading anything else Aoife Fitzpatrick writes as she definitely has a talent, especially considering she is an Irish author writing an American setting. It felt very authentic to me. However, this story was fine for me. I enjoyed it, it was very good but it wasn't a stand out novel to me, or one I'd be rushing to recommend. And I think it's just a me thing, and not a big problem with the story itself.