All the Birds, Singing

Who or what is watching Jake Whyte from the woods?Jake Whyte is the sole resident of an old farmhouse on an unnamed island, a place of ceaseless rains and battering winds. It's just her, her untamed companion, Dog, and a flock of sheep. Which is how she wanted it to be. But something is coming for the sheep – every few nights it picks one off, leaves it in rags.It could be anything. There are foxes in the woods, a strange boy and a strange man, rumours of an obscure, formidable beast. And there is Jake's unknown past, perhaps breaking into the present, a story hidden thousands of miles away and years ago, in a landscape of different colour and sound, a story held in the scars that stripe her back.Set between Australia and a remote English island, All the Birds, Singing is the story of how one woman's present comes from a terrible past. It is the second novel from the award-winning author of After the Fire, A Still Small Voice. "Evie Wyld is the real thing… this one is terrific. [Her] two books are quite as good as Ian McEwan’s early fiction. Expect to hear her name often from now on."   The Spectator"There’s a precision and power to her sentences that feels like the work of a much older writer. Her new book reminds me of Peter Carey: the language becomes part of the landscape and you don’t feel an authorial self pressing down on the novel, but a deep authorial intelligence behind it."   The Sydney Morning Herald"Swift and assured and emotionally wrenching. You won’t only root for Jake, you’ll see the world, hard facts and all, more clearly through her telling."   The New York Times"Extraordinarily accomplished, one of those books that tears around in your cerebellum like a dark firework, and which, upon finishing, you immediately want to pick up again."   The Financial Times"Wyld is shaping up into a name to watch … her second novel is unsettling, dark and extraordinarily fresh. Can’t wait to read more."   The Times