Blackbird Fly [Versión Kindle]

A house in France connects three women together -- the woman who owns the house, the woman who lives in the house, and the woman who died in the house sixty years before. Merle Bennett inherits the house of her late husband, in a small village in the Dordogne. But when she arrives a deranged squatter won't let her inside.
Secrets from the post-war period, when southwest France was left to wither by Nazi occupation, and secrets of a newer kind, occupy what should be a fine French summer for Merle. With her teenage son in tow, a sexy roofer in her kitchen, and a nasty discovery in the pissoir, there is plenty to keep her mind off her endless to-do list. A story of murder, self-discovery, and family, deep in the heart of France.

In her first stand-alone suspense novel, Lise McClendon reaches deep into the past to find a France untouched by the outside world of tourism and fashion. Writing in a "lyrical, often humorous style," she brings both the pain and rewards of rebirth and the rich French countryside to life.

Want more Lise McClendon? Read her new novel, a twist on Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice, called All Your Pretty Dreams. On sale now here on Amazon.

“This book brought me back to wanting to keep reading until the very end. Pour yourself a nice Merlot and keep turning the pages.”

“An intriguing story, a mystery with heart.”

“The characters were real and completely developed. All loose ends were tied up very nicely. This book climbed inside the main characters, flaws and all.”

“A very well written story, with characters that are interesting, likeable, and you care about them. There are dead bodies, suspense, and mystery. It's just a great story!”

“It would be a great chick flick!”

"A heartbreakingly beautiful story of love, loss, sisterhood, and the ties that bind us together," says novelist Jenny Siler.

A lifelong Francophile, Lise McClendon had always wanted to write a book set in France. When a passing comment from a friend about a bicycle trip to the Dordogne sparked an interest in that region in southwest France, a mission began. Research is often the most fun part of writing a book, and when the research absolutely must be done on the ground in the wine-soaked, truffle-growing, backwoodsy province of Dordogne, fun is the word. But still there is the writing. How to take such a setting and make it come alive through the eyes of an American woman? The quest for the story through Merle Bennett, middle sister of five girls, was a delightful trip. Not all fun and games because writing, making the story work for the reader, is often fraught with landmines. Lise wanted to incorporate past stories of women who lived in the region, especially the woman who had lived in Merle's house right after World War II. A lover of family secrets, of peeling back the onion layer by layer, Lise goes deep into the past, to the desolation of the post-war era, to desperate actors, to men with nothing to lose, and women with next to nothing. The book becomes a journey of self-discovery for Merle, a driven lawyer and human rights advocate who works on housing issues for the poor. She leaves her big city life behind for the summer and finds much more than she expected: a world reborn inside her. Hope. A future without fear. Lise McClendon writes fiction from her home in Montana when not researching novels around the world.