THE BIRD'S CHILD

THE BIRD'S CHILD is a vivid debut, a rich tale of nature and the city, of war, faith and identity. But most of all it is a tender and magical love story.

It's 1920s Sydney, Australia, and three unusual young people who share a fascination with Houdini find themselves washed up on the steps of Miss du Maurier's bohemian boarding house. Ari is a young Jewish man, a pogrom orphan who lives under the stern rule of his Orthodox rabbi uncle. Upon his hand he bears a mysterious mark, a forbidden tattoo spelling out the word abracadabra, and in his heart he aches to be a magician and dreams that his father was really Houdini. Lily is beautiful, but unnaturally pale, afflicted with albinism. Having fled her home town for the city, she longs to make contact with her father on the other side, just as Bess Houdini tried to speak to the dead. And Billy is a dangerous trickster, raised in an opium den by his no-good father. Returning from the Great War, he falls in with quack and conman Doctor Cuthbert Crisp, who he believes can teach him to control the minds of others. Powers he fervently wishes to use to lure Lily, ‘the purest woman in God's creation' Together with an array of wild birds, Ari and Lily devise a daring magical act for the local theatre, but then Ari receives word that his uncle has gone missing, on a crazed search for the Promised Land. As Ari sets off into the Blue Mountains to find him, Billy seizes the chance to get close to the woman he so desires. Will Ari be able to find his uncle, and his own path, and return in time to rescue the woman he truly loves? Sandra Leigh Price is an Australian of British and Irish descent, and lives in Sydney. She has a background in theatre and was inspired to write THE BIRD'S CHILD by reading Trilby and tracing Jewish heritage in her own family tree.