Leopard At The Door: A Novel

"A few times while reading Jennifer McVeigh’s page turner, I wondered whether this was what might happen if you mashed up Karen Blixen’s memoir Out of Africa with Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and turned them into fiction. Set in pre-independence Kenya in the 1950s, Leopard at the Door tells the story of a teenage girl who returns to her family’s rural farm after four years in England, amid major upheaval both personal and political. McVeigh gracefully captures the era’s turmoil with well-researched, vivid accounts of land fights and systemic racism. Her characters are equally complex and conflicted (though some are just downright awful). This is one of those books you’ll almost hate to see end – but you’ll feel kind of relieved when it does."