The Bird Woman

The Bird Woman
Kerry Hardie
Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 0-316-07623-6
Fiction, Contemporary Romance
Reviewed by Qetesh

I have never been to Ireland but author Kerry Hardie’s story The Bird Woman made me so immersed in the country and lore that I felt like I took a personal journey overseas. I was swept away by the character Ellen McKinnon who is suffering from a keen inner torment. She cannot accept her gifts of being both clairvoyant and a healer. She walks around feeling like a pariah. Her first marriage ends abruptly when a clairvoyant experience leaves her lost and spinning out of control. She loses her first child and she is in shock because the person she saw in her vision really does die like she foresaw. She tries to find herself and regroup by checking into a mental institution.
Finding no answers she leaves and meets up with an old acquaintance. He is sculptor named Liam who rescues her both mentally and physically. She pulls herself together and runs away with him to Southern Ireland. She lives with him, raises a family and lives in a bubble of bliss and contentment until her world is shaken once again when her healing ability begins to manifest itself unexpectedly. Her mother announces abruptly that she is losing her battle with cancer so Ellen has to journey to face the demons of her past and finds out about a family secret that will change her life forever.
This book is an amazing journey of self that is haunting, beautiful, and mind blowing with its quiet intensity. I thoroughly enjoyed every page and was completely enthralled by the author’s writing style. Her writing flows with a poetic grace that paints visions as pure and crisp those on any artist’s canvas.