I found this story very easy to relate to, tugging at the heart strings many times throughout. However, I felt the ending was a bit flat which is why I only gave 4 stars. Otherwise, a really great book.

“For the last few years he has dabbled with descriptive writing, surprised by what he can create with only lead and paper. He is slightly embarrassed by how much he enjoys weeding words, or pruning back an ellipsis; a poet trapped inside a gardener’s body. Plant one word, watch it grow – but first, turn over the soil, start with the basics”

A Thousand Paper Birds is the first novel by British theatre director, choreographer, editor and author, Tor Udall. Among the many people who frequent the Botanic Gardens at Kew in the late spring of 2004 are four whose lives will be inextricably entwined. Harry Barclay has devoted his life to looking after the gardens. He watches as musician Jonah Wilson grieves for his wife, Audrey. Jonah first met Audrey in these gardens and before her untimely (and inexplicable) death in a car crash, she had visited regularly and often. Now Jonah seeks answers and connection.

Eight-year-old Milly is a quirky child who roams the gardens at will. Jonah registers some concern for this unaccompanied youngster, but is too swamped by grief to act. Harry keeps a watchful eye over her, involving her in his daily chores. A tragic incident in the gardens haunts visual artist Chloe Adams, who finds respite in the origami figures she creates. Jonah is eventually rather captivated: “Her physicality is fluid one moment, self-conscious the next; a constant changing that pulls his eye, makes him want to describe it. It’s a run of quavers, unexpected rests, a shift in time signature; but then she returns to the cool of the house and Jonah is left staring at some trampled daisies.”

Udall gives the reader a plot which sounds somewhat predictable in summary but then does not go quite where expected. It’s a love story or, more correctly, several of them. Udall’s characters are complex, flawed and full of emotion. They are keeping secrets, not telling everything, although some of them just don’t remember. The gardens themselves are as much a character as their vsitors: Udall’s research into the gardens at Kew is apparent on every page and her love for them shines through in her descriptive prose, which is luminous and evocative.

Udall’s story is carefully crafted, slowly developing, taking twists and turns, and patience is rewarded with little reveals before the mysteries are solved. The narrative is carried by the four main characters, but Audrey is given a voice in a diary that is eventually discovered. Describing Harry: “He was perhaps in his early fifties. The sparkle in his eyes, his grey stubble, reminded me of that guy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But on closer inspection, his jacket had lost several buttons. He looked like a painting in need of restoration – that at some point in his life he had been beautiful.”

With prose like this:“… her family and friends, overheating in their Sunday best. The afternoon reeks of honeysuckle and sweat. Men, sutured up in suits, are restless. The headstones seem to be the only ones relaxed, leaning into the sunshine like drunkards”, A Thousand Paper Birds is a joy to read. A sparkling debut that will have fans keen for more from this talented author.