Published By: Bantam
Pages: 320
Released On: 15/05/2025
When the peace shatters in suburbia, the claws come out . . .
Coralie King, Emma Brooks and Twig Dorsett are friends. Sort of. They’re neighbours on an exclusive Sevenoaks estate who get along. It’s convenient.
But one May bank holiday, Coralie’s husband insists he saw a panther on the bonnet of his car. And cracks between the elite of the Briar Heart Estate begin to emerge.
As the summer wears on and there are more sightings, the big cat frenzy reaches a fever pitch. Tensions between neighbours threaten to boil over. Everyone is watching their back. But is the real predator a seventy-kilo cat with razor-sharp claws? Or is the actual danger of a much more domestic variety?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Bantam for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
**Contains Slight Thematic Spoilers**
I had heard soooooo much good about this book so I had major hopes. Especially as I’d been in a reading slump beforehand.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about the characters. They immediately had this sense of entitlement and being above everyone else, which jarred with me slightly. I won’t say too much about the main characters because I think it’s best you go in with a clear mind. But we have three couples: Coralie and Adam, Emma and Matt with their kids Henry and Daisy, and Twig and Blake with their kids Elwood and Skylar. I did get a little confused sometimes about who was married to whom, who was related etc. so I did have to make notes. If I’m being honest, I didn’t really care about any of them. Not because they’re badly written or anything, but just their character, I didn’t feel for any of them particularly, other than the children. The adults were very hard to like.
It does make you think; is it happening now, or has it already happened and we’re looking back at it? There appears to be an investigation going on at the same time but you’re unsure what that’s about. But this gives the reader the chance to work it out at the same time as the characters, which was interesting.
Yes it is about a big cat in an urban environment, but it’s bigger than that. You begin to question if there ever was a cat in the first place. It’s more of an analogy of the toxic relationships between the neighbours.
It was a little slower than I’d have liked. It was good and I really liked it, but from the synopsis I was expecting all guns blazing quite early on but it’s more subtle than that. And nothing really happens until probably the last third, which isn’t inherently bad, but I can see people being divided on that matter. But it definitely picked up around 70% or so, where everything started happening which I enjoyed, but whilst I understand you need to build the tension and the story, I wish things had started to happen just a little sooner.
This was definitely the book to get me out of the reading slump. It was interesting and entertaining, thrilling and sometimes a little scary. Well developed characters – if not always likeable – and an intriguing storyline. It is a promising debut and I look forward to what Kit produces next.
Books By Your Bedside 