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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This novel is set in an isolated town on the North Norfolk coast, and the life of our MC, Fran, is unravelling. She fills her days cleaning the caravan park she owns, but she is preoccupied by worry: about her son; the growing distance between herself and her husband; the chaotic life and relationship of her sister and partner; the vulnerability of her niece. 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 Romany community settles in the field adjoining Fran's caravan park, and a new teacher starts at the local school.
Small-town tension simmers when a Romany community settles in the field adjoining Fran's caravan park, and a new teacher starts at the local school.
Then the teacher and Fran's brother-in-law both go missing on the same night. Accusations fly, and tensions mount. Everything is in freefall. But Fran’s eye isn’t on the ball, and she seems to care only about the birds.
Meanwhile, Tad, a seventy-year-old Romany man, watches the townspeople from the distance of his caravan - and sees everything clearly.
Told from the alternating perspectives of Fran and Tad, this is a literary suspense novel with a really strong sense of place, which perfectly depicts the attitudes and the sense of intensity and claustrophobia that can be found in isolated rural and coastal communities.
Told from the alternating perspectives of Fran and Tad, this is a literary suspense novel with a really strong sense of place, which perfectly depicts the attitudes and the sense of intensity and claustrophobia that can be found in isolated rural and coastal communities.
It is a compulsive read, threaded through with a sinister and unsettling undercurrent. The author beautifully creates the sense of secrets and simmering tensions in the local community, and there is a feeling of inevitability - that something is going to happen at some point – and this atmosphere hooks in the reader.
The novel’s characters are well drawn and developed, and there are numerous hints, mis-directions and red herrings within the narrative which unseat your thoughts and theories about what has happened and who has done what. Events slowly build to a climax, and when all was revealed there were revelations and twists that I just hadn’t seen coming, and, whilst some of them may require a little extra suspension of disbelief, you are left reeling by the denouement.
A good, atmospheric and unsettling read.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is a wonderfully written book, with a lovely writing style and flow that make it incredibly easy to read.
The tone shifts ever so slightly as you work through the book, so gradually that you barely notice it until the big revelations start to come to the surface. Morton-Thomas also peppers through just enough hints of what's happening below the surface that all of the twists seem to fit, even when you're doing a double take at what you've just read.
All of the characters are uniquely understandable, all of them interesting and flawed in a different way. The two POV characters in particular are written so well that you almost kick yourself when the final reveal so clearly highlights all the places in which their perspectives skew what you have been shown.
The best way to describe it is as a sort of anti-thriller. There isn't one big question, but instead the reader is left with more and more questions and it's almost impossible to know what the central mystery is exactly, and yet you're still left on the edge of your seat waiting for the big reveal when everything comes together.
I'll definintely be looking out for more of Morton-Thomas's work, which is high praise given that this novel doesn't fit in with my usual fare.
The tone shifts ever so slightly as you work through the book, so gradually that you barely notice it until the big revelations start to come to the surface. Morton-Thomas also peppers through just enough hints of what's happening below the surface that all of the twists seem to fit, even when you're doing a double take at what you've just read.
All of the characters are uniquely understandable, all of them interesting and flawed in a different way. The two POV characters in particular are written so well that you almost kick yourself when the final reveal so clearly highlights all the places in which their perspectives skew what you have been shown.
The best way to describe it is as a sort of anti-thriller. There isn't one big question, but instead the reader is left with more and more questions and it's almost impossible to know what the central mystery is exactly, and yet you're still left on the edge of your seat waiting for the big reveal when everything comes together.
I'll definintely be looking out for more of Morton-Thomas's work, which is high praise given that this novel doesn't fit in with my usual fare.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.