I wasn’t quite sure what sort of story I was about to read (yes, I was trying to put  a ‘genre’ tag on it!) when a friend loaned me Songbirds by Cypriot-UK author, Christy Lefteri.

She did so because she thought I might like it, and she was right. I not only liked it a lot, I thought it was a beautiful, moving, but also tragic read.

The story is a fictional one, but set within the framework of (relatively recent) true events in Cyprus.  Five migrant women, all domestic workers, and two of their children disappeared. Although reported missing, the authorities did not investigate or search for them, because they were foreign workers — it was “assumed” that they had simply moved on. Nearly two years later, when tourists discovered the first body, it transpired that all seven had been murdered.

Songbirds charts the similar disappearance of Nissa, a domestic worker employed by Petra, an optician and single parent. Initially, Nissa is only missed by her lover, Yiannis, and by Petra and her daughter Aliki. Gradually, a wider community connection and concern emerges, but although both Petra and Yiannis report Nissa’s disappearance to the police, they are met by the same official indifference and dismissal as in the real-life circumstances.

The unfolding story is not only about Nissa, her disappearance, and the treatment of migrant workers, although that is a significant part of the story. The secondary, and closely interwoven, narrative centres on how Yiannis has become sucked into the illegal trapping of migratory songbirds and their traffic as culinary delicacies. Songbirds also focuses on Petra’s situation, and reliance on Nissa, following the loss of her husband to cancer.

In other words, there is a lot going on in the story, although it doesn’t weigh the beautifully written narrative down. All the central characters—Nissa, Petra, Yiannis, and to an extent, Aliki—are absorbing and well drawn. The situation of the migrant workers, along with the environmental themes, both underlain by cultural change and the loss of traditional ways of life, together make a story that drew me in and kept me reading.

I not only enjoyed Songbirds, but believe I will reread it again in future. I am also keen to read other books by Christy Lefteri now I’ve discovered her. If you have liked books such as Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, Akin by Emma Donoghue, or Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth, I suspect you may like Songbirds, too.

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I read a paperback edition of Songbirds, 358 pp, published in 2021 by Manilla Press — and as mentioned above, it was loaned to me by a friend.