‘Bird Spotting in a Small Town’ by Sophie Morton-Thomas

Published by Verve Books,
29^th February 2024.
ISBN: 978-0-85730-853-5 (PBO)

The setting of this novel is as much part of the story as the characters and the plot.  It is an isolated town on the North Norfolk coast with an emphasis on the natural wildlife and especially the local bird population. 

The characters involve Fran the owner of a caravan holiday park and her family and neighbours who include a Romany community who occupy for a season the adjacent field to Fran's park.  There is a deeply tense and rather eerie atmosphere from the beginning of the story and it is clear that Fran is struggling with a family drama which only becomes clear towards the end of the novel. 

When the new schoolteacher at the children's school and Fran's brother-in-law go missing accusations and suppositions multiply in both communities but Fran appears to focus largely on her bird spotting hobby which threatens to take over her sense of family responsibility and her sense of reality.  Her son Bruno is friends with his cousin Sadie, but this is an uneasy relationship, and both children play out a sense of neediness. 

The format of the book comprises of chapters written by Fran from her perspective and Tad an elderly member of the travelling community.  There are some beautiful descriptions of the seascape and the wildlife surrounding this disparate but necessarily connected communities and the author ensures a sense of tension, mystery and  suspicion.  I found the unravelling of the mystery surrounding the families involved fascinating and the book left me wanting to know more of the future of the characters created so thoughtfully by the author.  An unusual and compelling book and I will look out for further stories by this author.
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Reviewer: Toni Russell

Sophie Morton-Thomas set her first novel Travel by Night in the North of England, where she lived for a while. She works as an English teacher, has three children (two grown up) and she is studying for her Master's in writing at Cambridge University.

Toni Russell is a retired teacher who has lived in London all her life and loves the city.  She says, ‘I enjoy museums, galleries and the theatre but probably my favourite pastime is reading.  I found myself reading detective fiction almost for the first time during lockdown and have particularly enjoyed old fashioned detective fiction rather than the Nordic noir variety.  I am a member of a book club at the local library and have previously attended literature classes at our local Adult Education Centre.