A riff on Jane Eyre written by one of the co-founders of The Bangles… Susanna Hoffs’s This Bird Has Flown is an utterly original novel filled with music, humor, and passion. The novel takes place between London and Oxford, but it all begins with American singer-songwriter Jane Start hitting rock bottom in Las Vegas. Her agent Pippa has booked her for a private party, and she finds herself singing her one hit from ten years ago to a karaoke track for a bunch of inebriated bachelors. Jane used to be a rising talent, a protégé of the world-renowned Jonesy, and now gigs like this barely keep her afloat. So, when Pippa invites her to visit London for few weeks to regroup and write some new music, Jane jumps at the opportunity. And luckily, she happens to hit it off with her seat mate, a brooding English professor named Tom Hardy, during her flight across the pond. Everything seems to be looking up—Tom invites her to stay in Oxford, Jonesy contacts Pippa about a reunion performance, and a new song starts percolating—but it’s hard to trust all this good fortune when things have gone so wrong for Jane in the past. Now she has to decide whether to jump into her new British life wholeheartedly, or to heed the signs warning her that Tom might be hiding something…
Lively, charming, and laced with tension, This Bird Has Flown is an interesting mix of romantic comedy and psychological thriller (leaning heavily towards the former). There’s cheeky humor and a heroine who gets herself into romantic blunders, but there’s also this darker undercurrent that pulls Jane in every so often and propels the story forward. Though the novel takes heavy inspiration from Jane Eyre, Hoffs manages to make the story feel fresh and surprising; she draws beautiful parallels to the classic that enhance Jane Start’s story, but she changes the plot enough to keep us on our toes. And I loved following Jane’s trajectory from down-on-her-luck musician to confident artist. As a musician herself, Hoffs knows her way around the psyche of a performer, and her depiction of Jane’s artistic growth is fascinating. This Bird Has Flown is an absolute delight, and I can’t wait to see what Hoffs writes next.
I’d recommend this book to…
- Anyone interested in a modern retelling that feels playful yet respectful… it’s similar in style to Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
- Anyone in the mood for a love story filled with red flags… it’s similar in theme to The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty
- Anyone who loves a witty and tender romantic comedy… it’s similar in tone to Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
