Call the Canaries Home: A Novel

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars | 39,109 ratings

Price: 2.49

Last update: 01-08-2025


About this item

Three estranged sisters reconnect in their Louisiana hometown to face an unresolved past in a heartfelt novel about family, grief, secrets, and forgiveness.

Savannah was four years old when her twin sister, Georgia, went missing from their small Louisiana town, fracturing their family. Twenty-eight years later, Savannah convinces her estranged older sisters, Rayanne and Sue Ellen, to honor the pact they made as children and retrieve the time capsule they buried in their old backyard. But coming home means confronting old ghosts…and their stubborn grandmother, Meemaw.

Sifting through the artifacts, they come across a photograph taken on the day Georgia disappeared and spot a familiar woman lingering in the background. While Sue Ellen and Rayanne want to move on with their lives, Savannah is determined to find the woman—and perhaps a clue to the past.

When old tensions, rivalries, and memories resurface, the sisters must reconsider what they thought they knew about that fateful day, about each other, and about themselves. On their search to uncover what happened to Georgia, each of them will discover what Meemaw has known all along: family is everything.



From the Publisher

Quote from Rochelle B. Weinstein, bestselling author of When We Let Go

Top reviews from the United States

  • JC Boyer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting!
    Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2024
    I chose this Amazon first-read book based solely on the editir's blurb and SO glad I did! How can a writer blend family history with family tragedy with family reconciliation and healing? Laura Barrow has accomplished the blend beautifully with humor, sensitivity, and depth. Her characters all fit neatly, yet honestly, into a riveting tale of mistakes, grit, and tenacity, landing on the solid footing of self-realization and maturity. God isn't directly credited for assisting these sisters, but, yet, I see His unmistakable fingerprints all over this narrative. Well-written! A worthy read!
  • Mary
    4.0 out of 5 stars 4 charming stars for this small town novel.
    Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2023
    It’s impossible not to love a story with a main character grandmother named Meemaw!

    A family mystery is at the center of the story and the plot moves forward with the scattering narrative of the past timeline throughout. It was a bit confusing to keep track of the various POV’s each chapter is being told from. The pace starts slow but picks and stays steady and consistent as it revealed important pieces of the family history, while tying into the present day storyline.

    This story is centered around sisterhood and this aspect was done extremely well. The family dynamics were messy, multilayered and full of heart. I found myself immersed within the sisters relationships and secrets, rooting for them to get the answers they were searching for.

    Much of the family’s story happened before the reader meets the characters and through these past timeline perspectives, the weight of those pieces of history shine through, adding depth to the story and creating an emotional connection to the characters.

    I thought I knew for sure where the mystery at the heart of the story was leading, but I was wrong, and, without adding spoilers, I’ll say that I’m still processing the direction it ended up taking, and the myriad emotions it conjured.

    The perfect read when I needed a break from my police/crime dramas.
  • Bonnye Reed Fry
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Debut Southern novel!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2023
    I received a complimentary electronic copy of this exceptional Southern family drama from Amazon First Reads, author Laura Barrow, and publisher Lake Union Publishing. Thank you all for sharing your very hard work with me. I have read Call the Canaries Home of my own volition and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am pleased to follow Laura Barrow and recommend her to friends and family. She writes a fine novel with inspirational folks and a deep southern setting that will have you breathing that heavily humid air and seeking shade.

    This story is told by alternating sisters, and the timeline also does some switching around from 1969 to the present day, but that is all handled well. We are in Muscadine, Louisiana with the grown surviving Guidry sisters and their Meemaw. Life has been hard on the Guidry and Pritchett family. Beverly and Jack Guidry's youngest daughter Savannah's twin Georgia disappeared at a summer family outing at the river when the twins were 4 in 1994. Their maternal Grandmother Marylynn Pritchett, widowed in the summer of 1979, raised the girls after their mother Beverly died of cancer in the winter of 1994 when Rayanne, the oldest, was just seven. The girls bury a 'time capsule when they move from their mother's home to that of their grandmother, to be retrieved in 25 years. Their father Jack, occasionally working as a long-distance truck driver, disappeared from their lives at that time. That was fine with MeeMaw as she never respected Jack, had always considered him weak and lazy and a skirt-chaser not worthy of her daughter.

    The girls are now grown and spread to the winds, only Savannah still living in Muscadine though Rayanne, married to a lawyer and the mother of two, lives 2 hours away and Sue Anne is a professor in New York City. MeeMaw is still feisty, but she is getting old and frail. This is the summer agreed upon to retrieve the time capsule buried upon their mother's death. It's time to call those Louisiana swamp canaries home.
    pub date July 1, 2023
  • McKenzie Clark
    3.0 out of 5 stars Missed Opportunities
    Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2024
    Although it is a very lovely read, there were too many opportunities to give the story more zest - opportunities the author completely passed by each time. Some characters, scenes, and details were unnecessary and added nothing to the plot. Overall it seems more like a first (well-edited) draft that needs a few more passes to get all the character arcs on track and build to a more satisfying conclusion.

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