Jane Start is thirty-three, broke, and recently single. Ten years prior, she had a hit song—written by world-famous superstar Jonesy—but Jane hasn't had a breakout since. Now she's living out of four garbage bags at her parents' house, reduced to performing to Karaoke tracks in Las Vegas. Rock bottom. But when her longtime manager Pippa sends Jane to London to regroup, she's seated next to an intriguing stranger on the flight—the other Tom Hardy, an elegantly handsome Oxford professor of literature. Jane is instantly smitten by Tom, and soon, truly inspired. But it's not Jane's past alone that haunts her second chance at stardom, and at love. Is Tom all that he seems? And can Jane emerge from the shadow of Jonesy's earlier hit, and into the light of her own?
A total knockout ... Hoffs hits the familiar beats of romantic comedy with such panache and gusto, every note feels fresh. Preposterous plot twists are child’s play in the impulsive hands of Jane, whose fertile, febrile curiosity and pixie exuberance propel her into decisions ranging from the questionable to the catastrophic ... There is not a spare, bare sentence to be found. Instead, the pages are packed with wit and sly allusion and dialogue that strikes the ear just so, with song references that tended to skim pleasantly over my head, though I got the gist ... I had a literary quibble or two at the beginning, but by the time I’d torn through to the gratifying end — sucked into Jane’s world by force of storytelling, to say nothing of the pitch-perfect delivery of contemporary British idiom — I’d forgotten what they were. The odd cliché here, an extraneous adverb there. Who cares, when you’re having this much fun? This Bird Has Flown is the smart, ferocious rock-chick redemption romance you didn’t know you needed. My husband is devouring it now.
Clever and entertaining ... The slow burn of this relationship — how the intense curiosity of their infatuation blooms into the wonder of affection — is one of the pleasures of Hoffs’ novel ... Rings so true.
Jane is an appealing character whose creative and emotional journeys are relatable and entertaining, and readers will enjoy watching her come into her own after years of struggle and self-doubt.
