Alice Greenway creates intensely believable characters who come from other places and other times. The Solomon Islands become characters as rich and three-dimensional as any other. She captures so well the unsleeping tragedies of the past, and how these bear in upon the present. --Helen Dunmore Enriching and engrossing... The book is bursting with fascinating, detailed knowledge, worn lightly. The narrative, beautifully crafted and plotted, navigates ingeniously through layers of past and present and the intertwining echoes of each. --Scotland on Sunday Greenway avoids the cliches of an unlikely friendship by writing with sensitivity about loss, nature and war, as Jim confronts his past. --The Independent Greenway deals with her characters with such sensitivity and understanding that the emotional payoff, which there is, feels justly earned. --Sunday Herald The Bird Skinner is a dark and moving tale of war, loss, corruption and violence. --Guardian (A) thrilling, evocation of young love... as fresh as it is heartbreaking. With an attention to detail that's both poetic and precise. --New York Times