★小說《候鳥的女兒》書迷的必讀新作

A woman who finds purpose in saving nestlings destined to die；a boy whose overwhelming emotions are only kept at bay by his passion for birds；a father looking for a second chance at love.

It is the warmest spring anyone can remember. Anna lives with her father near the ocean in Scotland. She spends her time hand-rearing nestlings from the wild and has never felt more at peace than in Invergrian, with her birds and her woods and her work.

Rory, eleven years old, has not spoken a word since his mother Pip walked out on the family five years ago. He can't believe his luck when he stumbles upon Anna's house of birds. He's long believed birds to be magic, and Anna seems happy to teach him how to help them, not questioning his silence.

Rory's father, Angus, has been struggling since Pip left, but seeing his son so happy with the birds and with the beautiful and enigmatic Anna, he finds the fog he has been mired in finally start to lift.

But as the spring burns on, amid the quiet work of saving the nestlings, alarm bells start ringing. Water becomes scarce. The elderly in the town become fearful. Exhausted birds start falling out of the sky. And then, Anna discovers a body washed up on the shore.

Tender and exquisitely crafted, These Glass Bodies is an absorbing, unsettling novel of love, disconnected people and our fragile relationship with the natural world.

 

Rebecca Hooper is an evolutionary biologist based in the Orkney Islands, with a PhD in corvid cognition and sociality. She writes about wildlife science for BBC Wildlife, as well as in her weekly newsletter about biology, climate action and philosophy, between two seas, with an engaged readership of nearly 4,000. Like Rory she is austistic and has experienced periods of selective mutism. She also writes poetry, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. These Glass Bodies is her debut novel.