Leopard at the Door

January 9, 2017
McVeigh (The Fever Tree) explores the beauty of Kenya’s culture and landscape while simultaneously keeping the tension of impending conflict immediate and pressing in this captivating and thought-provoking story. When 18-year-old Rachel returns to Kenya during the 1950s, she expects to find her home unchanged. After her mother’s death, she spent six years in an English boarding school, dreaming of the peaceful African plains; however, the Kenya she returns to is a place of great political turmoil. The society of the Mau Mau want to take back their land from the white settlers with methods that are growing increasingly violent. Rachel feels the friction at home as well, with her father’s new English girlfriend running the household under tight control by ensuring the Kenyan servants fear her. Unwilling to succumb to prejudice, Rachel must face constant disapproval for the time she spends in the servants’ quarters. Her only confidant is her former tutor, a Kenyan man named Michael, who now works as a mechanic on the farm. McVeigh’s beautiful prose and harrowing plot will quickly absorb readers, particularly those interested in 1950s Africa, by sensitively approaching themes of race, cultural evolution, and the humanness that unites us all. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Gernert Company.

October 15, 2016
During the waning years of the British Empire, a young woman returns to her father's Kenyan farm after boarding school in England only to find home is no longer the safe, happy place she recalls.Rachel Fullsmith lost her mother when she was only 12, on the same day she witnessed violence at her uncle's factory during a strike. Having grown up on her parents' farm in the African bush, she never felt at home in England, where her bereaved father sent her after her mother's death. As soon as she finishes school, she returns to Kenya but finds another woman living in her father's home and all the familiar routines of the farm upended both by her pseudo-stepmother's rigid--and racist--views and by the terror of the nascent Mau Mau rebellion. Torn between the memory of her once-loving home and the trauma and loss she and the people she knew as a child have experienced, Rachel tries to understand the political and social circumstances that have altered her world. McVeigh (The Fever Tree, 2013) creates real emotional tension as Rachel tries to hang on to all that reminds her of her mother. Will she reconnect with her father? Can she grow to accept, if not love, his new family? Will treating black Kenyans with the kindness her mother taught her put Rachel in harm's way? Will the man she saw murder a striker on the day she learned of her mother's death become as great a threat to Rachel as the Mau Mau? All of this is set against Rachel's growing attraction to Michael, her former tutor and her father's employee, and the danger of their forbidden relationship. Readers who want a story that keeps them on edge will enjoy this historical novel rich with emotional and sociopolitical drama.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2016

Returning to her father's farm in Kenya after six years in England, Rachel finds her childhood home vastly transformed. Everything, from her father's new girlfriend to the shifting political climate in Kenya, marks changes that make Rachel feel she no longer fits into the life she remembered. As the Mau Mau, a secret African society intent on overthrowing the British colonial rulers, gain power, Rachel's family is thrown into danger. When her father goes to defend his land, he leaves Rachel in the care of the deceitful and lecherous Steven. But Rachel carries a childhood secret that may protect her from Steven. With the Mau Mau getting closer, however, she will need something stronger to save her from such a deadly threat. The historical African setting plays a central role in this coming-of-age story and offers a sensory tour of the Kenyan savannah in the 1950s. Though the plot keeps the pages turning, the characters are unlikable and underdeveloped. VERDICT McVeigh's second novel (after The Fever Tree) may disappoint that book's admirers as this tale is far from heartwarming and not for those who want a happy ending. But fans of historicals in which setting is key, as in Frank Delaney's Irish epics, might appreciate. [See Prepub Alert, 8/1/16.]--Kristen Calvert Nelson, Marion Cty. P.L. Syst., Ocala, FL

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2016
When her mother died, 12-year-old Rachel was sent from Kenya to live with her grandparents in England. Six years later, she returns, eager to resume what she remembers as an idyllic life on the remote farm her parents settled. But things have changed. Her father's new love interest, Sara, has taken Rachel's mother's place in the house. Relations with the Kikuyu who live and work on the farm have shifted. And there are disturbing stories about Mau Mau attacks against Europeans. As Rachel tries to come to terms with her new sense of unbelonging, she crosses paths again with two men from the past, one a predatory district officer and the other a young African who once served as her tutor. With violence edging ever closer to the farm, Rachel's naivete gives way to a growing awareness that nothing is as simple as she once believed. Though the ending tips into melodrama, McVeigh (The Fever Tree, 2013) does a good job of charting Rachel's growth amidst political and personal turmoil, set against a backdrop of Kenya's wild beauty.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)