Leopard at the Door

Leopard at the Door

Summary

*The perfect summer read, the novel that Dinah Jefferies has called 'A simply stunning novel that will stay with me: magnificent'*

Stepping off the boat in Mombasa, eighteen-year-old Rachel Fullsmith stands on Kenyan soil for the first time in six years. She has come home.

But when Rachel reaches the family farm at the end of the dusty Rift Valley road, she finds so much has changed. Her beloved father has moved his new partner and her son into the family home. She hears menacing rumours of Mau Mau violence, and witnesses cruel reprisals by British soldiers. Even Michael, the handsome Kikuyu boy from her childhood, has started to look at her differently.

Isolated and conflicted, Rachel fears for her future. But when home is no longer a place of safety and belonging, where do you go, and who do you turn to?

Reviews

  • The beating heart of Africa springs into dazzling heat-drenched life. I could taste the sun soaked sweetness of bananas, see the shimmering plains and smell the rippling grasslands. I could feel the ever present sense of threat and menace. And within this landscape populated by elephants, baboons and antelope a powerful human story plays out. A simply stunning novel that will stay with me: a magnificent book.
    Dinah Jefferies

About the author

Jennifer McVeigh

Jennifer McVeigh graduated from Oxford University in 2002. She went on to work in film, radio and publishing before giving up her day job to study for an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. She has travelled in wilderness areas of East Africa and southern Africa, driving and camping along the way. Her first novel, The Fever Tree (Penguin, 2012), was a Richard and Judy Book Club Pick and received widespread critical acclaim.
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