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?
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[The steward has said we will dock at 9am, but I am too excited to sleep, and I walk on deck in the dark, long before the sun comes up, watching for the first sight of land]***
(Penguin, 19 May 2017, review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed)
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I absolutely adored Leopard at the Door. I devoured it in one sitting because I couldn't stop reading.
This normally isn't the kind of book I'd read but the blurb intrigued me so I decided to give it a shot. I'm glad I did.
The setting is amazing. The author really brings Africa to vivid, unforgettable life. I felt like I was really there experiencing Rachel's life.
The characters are great, well written, fleshed out and painfully real at times. Rachel is telling the story and I loved her voice. The other characters, especially her father and his new partner are wonderfully complex. At times, I disliked her father and his partner and some of the choices they made but I understand their rationale for their actions.
Leopard at the Door is quite a dark novel, especially in the latter chunk, when the violence affecting the rest of Africa reaches Rachel and her family. I was moved to tears at times, especially by what happens to Rachel in the final few chapters.
Leopard at the Door is riveting.
