The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti

The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Nate Winters is the teacher at the local high school that everyone loves, he coaches baseball and is always in there for his students. Alicia, Nate’s wife, wishes that her husband would put a little more into their family than he does his students as she struggles to raise their autistic son. One day in their quite Pennsylvania town a thousand dead starlings fall onto a high school baseball field which in turn unleashes an unexpected chain of events.

As one of the reporters sent to investigate the phenomenon catches Nate embracing a student the story in town quickly changes. Lucia Hamm, the student Nate was seen with quickly jumps on the story making the claim that she is having an affair with the coach. As the town divides between those who believe Nate’s innocence or guilt things take an even worse turn when Lucia disappears.

The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti is a psychological thriller that is told from multiple points of view of the four main characters in the story of Alicia, Nate, Lucia, and Bridget. Alicia is the struggling wife of Nate who is accused of an inappropriate relationship with a student, Lucia, and Bridget is a co-worker of Nate’s that knows Lucia and doesn’t believe that Nate could possibly be guilty of the crime. The story is also told with flashing back to build up to the events in the current but was still easy to follow along.

Picking up this book I had noticed plenty of good reviews on it so I had some high expectations going into the story. For me I’d say this one could be a bit on the wordy side though which at times could slow down the pace of the story being a bit over descriptive or seeming to cover some of the same things as the point of view changed. Also, I tend to have my guesses in this type of read and didn’t find the ending to be too shocking as it was an early guess of mine. In the end I’d give The Blackbird Season 3.5 stars and thought this one was a solid thriller that many will enjoy.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.