Will I love The Axeman's Carnival?

This award-winning novel is brilliantly human, witty and original.

The star of the novel and its narrator is Tama, a young magpie who is rescued as a chick by Marnie, a kind-hearted farmer’s wife. Tama doesn’t know what to make of his new human carer and her husband Rob, a sheep farmer facing hard times, but he settles in and observes the couple’s relationship. He feels deeply protective of Marnie who is abused by her husband and very much alone in the isolated location. Tama can speak and the couple end up putting him on social media, reviving their finances… show more.

Tama is a helpless magpie chick when he’s rescued by Marnie and taken into her home that she shares with her husband Rob.

As Tama thrives and grows under Marnie’s care he begins to talk, and so begins The Axeman’s Carnival, a story told through the eyes of a magpie. I think the best thing about this book (apart from a very entertaining Tama) is the huge disparity between Tama and Marnie’s social media fame and the physical and emotional isolation Marnie experiences.

The book is set on a sheep station in the South Island of New Zealand. And while… show more.