Bird Spotting In A Small Town by Sophie Morton-Thomas

 

Bird Spotting in a Small Town by Sophie Morton-Thomas.

Published 29th 2024 by Verve Books.

From the cover of the book:

My feet are itching to walk to the shore, to leave the kids again, to sit with the birds and pretend none of this has happened.

In a small, isolated town on the North Norfolk coast, Fran's life is unravelling.

As she fills her days cleaning the caravan park she owns, she is preoccupied by worry - about the behaviour of her son, the growing absence of her husband and the strained relationship with her sister. Her one source of solace is slipping out to the beach early in the morning, to watch the birds.

Small-town tension simmers when a new teacher starts at the local school and a Romany community settle in the field adjoining Fran's caravan park. From the distance of his caravan, seventy-year-old Tad quietly watches the townspeople - mainly, Fran's family.

When the schoolteacher and Fran's brother-in-law both go missing on the same night, accusations fly. Yet all Fran can seem to care about is the birds.

An eerie and unsettling novel, Bird Spotting in a Small Town perfectly encapsulates the intensity of rural claustrophobia when you don't know who you can trust.

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Fran and her family have settled on the windswept North Norfolk coast, where she spends her days looking after the caravans that make up their small holiday park. Fran loves being close to the birds on the coast, waking early every morning to take a walk on the shoreline in search of rare sightings. It seems to be the only part of her life that she has a grip on given the growing emotional distance between herself and her husband; her worries about her young son's behaviour; and the difficult relationship she has with her unstable sister, who has taken up residence at the site with her daughter and alcoholic partner.

When times in this small, isolated town become unsettled outside Fran's family too, everyone is more on edge than usual. A new teacher at the local school has provoked mixed opinions among the parents of her pupils, and residents are nervous about the Romany camp that has set up in the field beside the caravan park - particularly as the local children seem fascinated by the strangers among them. Unease turns to suspicion when the new teacher goes missing on the same night as Fran's sister's partner. Fran is suddenly forced to confront uncomfortable truths about her family when all she wants to do is lose herself in the birds.

Bird Spotting in a Small Town is a slow-burn, literary chiller that thrums with discomfiting vibes. It is equal parts beautifully written exploration of difficult family relationships twisted by the weight of things unsaid; a claustrophobic portrayal of the undercurrents at play in a tight-knit community; and an off-beat murder mystery. Told through the first person narratives of Fran and Tad, a seventy-year-old member of the Romany camp, the story unfurls over a few months between January and May as shocking events bring fragile relationships to breaking point.

Isolation, alienation, and unreliable narrators are names of the game here, and Morton-Thomas does an excellent job building tension throughout, keeping you guessing about what is really going on between the members of Fran's family, within the Romany encampment, and in the community at large. There is a lovely contrast between Fran's jagged, anxiety-ridden narrative, and the calm, almost lyrical, storytelling of Tad. Fran's part of the tale is a full-on family drama, cutting between agonising scenes of a marriage in trouble, and her obsession with the local bird-life; while Tad's voice provides an outsider's view of the relationships 'over the hedge' in the caravan park, intertwined with enigmatic hints that all is not right in his own family either - and the two halves weave together to immerse you in a novel that gradually gets under your skin.

The fear of spoilers prevents me from revealing too much about the clever twists in this, quite frankly, disturbing tale, but prepare for your perception of the characters to be challenged as Morton-Thomas drops her reveals. There are many secrets at the heart of this story, and what you think you know gets turned on its head more than once as they are uncovered, particularly as she does such a brilliant job leading you into making assumptions alongside the characters.

This is a book to sit and immerse yourself in, letting the deftly wrought threads carry you along on an eerie tide to an ending that packs a powerful punch. I swallowed it whole, impressed with how Morton-Thomas brings all the elements of this mystery together, and the way she uses location and weather to enhance the strained atmosphere. For a book that has birds as a central theme, I was struck by the way that this entire novel carries with it the feeling that everyone is walking on egg shells...

If you are a fan of an unnerving crime novel like those of Greg Buchanan then this is definitely for you. Morton-Thomas incorporates many of the same dark themes as Buchanan and, in my view, her writing certainly deserves the same accolades. Sophie Morton-Thomas is an author to watch.

Bird Spotting in a Small Town is available to buy in ebook and paperback. Buy links and more information HERE.

Thank you to Verve Books for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Sophie Morton-Thomas was born in West Sussex and has always loved reading and writing - she had about ten penfriends as a child. She is now an English teacher as well as a mum to three (two grown-up!) children and two cats. Her first novel, Travel by Night, was published by darkstroke, an imprint of Crooked Cat Books, and was a #1 Bestseller across multiple Amazon Kindle categories.

She is currently a student on the University of Cambridge's Crime and Thriller Writing master's degree and recently moved to the coast for work - but also for inspiration for her stories!