Magpie’s descriptions are often disturbingly memorable. Indeed, it could almost have been a book in itself: Jake’s domineering mother, Annabelle, comes to the fore as the reader is invited to consider what makes a woman a mother.

The final third, by comparison, is less taut, although no less fascinating. Indeed, so compulsive is this book that there were times when, however quickly I read, it wasn’t fast enough. There is much talk on the book’s jacket about the twist, which is indeed electric, so much so that I had to go back and re-read the central section once my desire for plot had been sated. As her hormones pitch and surge, she sees Kate everywhere, not just at home, but skulking at the back of her yoga class, and in Jake’s arms.Įlizabeth Day is the author of four novels, including The Party, and her handling of narrative is pacy and assured. The opening of Magpie is decidedly creepy, as Marisa settles into the couple’s not-quite-right house, trying to make sense of both her past and a future filled with unknowns.

Sometimes, as Marisa tells us, “When you know, you just know.” Then a lodger moves in, too: Kate, with her dungarees, her PR job and her increasingly proprietorial manner towards the house, its contents… and Jake. Marisa and Jake have not long been a couple when they move in together and decide to start trying for a baby.

Magpie by elizabeth day review