Sadly a book that I couldn’t seem to connect to. I have no doubts others will find it very absorbing

This was a brilliant read. As soon as I started reading this book I just knew I was going to love it. Highly recommended

What an interesting book this was - I do like reading books where we can learn about a time or place, and this gave us both. There were flaws in the book, so nearly four stars, but then I sat back and realised that I had very much enjoyed reading it and the story was quite compelling.

Awful book, trite and rubbishy. Nothing else to say, just horrible. And I still have to fill up 100 characters.

One of the most superb books I have read for a long time, brilliantly written, just perfection really in terms of prose. I was hooked loved it all the descriptions. Made you see and feel what was going on I was sad to finish this book, loved it

During lockdown, book publishers try to entice readers by promising to transport us to another place. Well the audiobook version of Jennifer McVeigh’s brilliant historical, Leopard At The Door, did exactly that. Set in Kenya during 1952, as Princess Elizabeth prepares to ascend the British throne, we feel the heat, see the vibrant colours, taste the dust, sense the danger of a country on the brink of political change. Rachel has spent her teenage years in England and returns to find the home and country she loved being ripped in two, as indigenous Kenyans disagree on how best to overthrow their white rulers. Fear and terror become commonplace, as the savagery of the Mau Mau grows. This is the first novel set in Africa I’ve read in a long while and it was an absolute treat. 5 star fiction that is informative, as well as a gripping read.

Really enjoyable read. Good characters and a Good story. Well worth a read. Think others will enjoy.

I could feel, smell and taste Kenya within the first few pages of this beautifully written book. Jennifer McVeigh writes so evocatively of this turbulent time in its history. The beauty of the Great Rift Valley juxtaposed with the menace of the Mau Mau uprising made me turn the pages well into the night. Thank you, Net Galley, for sending me this memorable book. I eagerly await the next book from this author.

A Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya - for some it is the killing spree against the British settlers who had brought the civilisation there, for some a fight for liberation. The crimes on both sides. And a girl amongst all of this unraveling, who is coming of age and suffering with the realities of life.
A forbidden...love?
Rachel, the heroine, is young girl of 18, returning from the education of 6 years in England to her beloved Kenya of her childhood and to her beloved father. But her father has taken with another woman after the death of her mother, and the idyllic Kenya has been turned into unrest. Rachel finds some stability in the African man Michael - but who Michael really is and to whom his loyalties belong?
This is layered, rich story - like a ripe fruit, ready to burst with all of the flavours in your mouth. The prose is rich and so good that the visuality almost transforms into the „touchability“ - it takes you into Kenya, the looks, smells and movements of all what is alive in Africa - and there is a lot of life!
I also like that the authoress is willing to take the look from more than one side, to see the reasoning behind all of the movements and feels. This makes the novel being very wise, understanding and (almost) forgiving the bad and „bad“ behaviours – because the plot tries to see the both sides of the coin.
I loved most of the book, mainly because of the beautiful storytelling, the effort for understanding and to go deeper and for the tasteful love/desire story with all the passion, but zero depiction of the intimate moments. And there are some! Applaud. I am a big fan of good taste in writing about the very personal but story-related moments of intimacy (and very much NOT a fan of intimacy as a tool to attract readers/shopping traffic).
But the last chapters has ruined the romance for me - without saying too much, the romance went from the surety to the possibility or even the young girl’s dream possibly fueled by Freud. While understanding the improbability - but what about the connection my heart has made to the story?
But as a work about one of the darker periods of British/African history, this novel is very enlightening, while very readable. And it surely has enhanced my interest in Africa!

Rachel at 18 has decided to go back to the home she knows in Kenya.

After spending the last 6 years in England away from her father and still very much grieving for her mother, Rachel simply wants to go home.

But the home she is going to doesn't exist anymore.

It is 1952, the world is changing. Queen Elizabeth has just come to the throne, and the empire is slowly breaking apart and moving away to be independent.

As in Kenya, the Mau Mau are playing a strong role in disturbing the peace and not in a peaceful way. Rachel thinks it is al rumours until she finally reaches her family farm.

Her father warned her not to come, maybe because he knew the risks and the danger ahead and maybe because he had not told her about Sara.

Sara now lives with Rachel's father along with her son Harold. Sara makes no secret of her dislike of the natives and how she wants to return to some sort of civilised world. Nor does she hide her dislike of Rachel.

Rachel is shocked, the people she grew up with, the cook Jim, her childhood friend Michael are now kept on the periphery of the farm. This is not the world she left behind.

This book places you in the centre of the Kenya uprising and shows a small part of what went on with the rise of the Mau Mau. I knew very little about it, the name synonymous with violence and death but little else. This brought to life the magnificence of the African landscape, the desolation, the heat, the vast expanse, peppered with shots of violence, some of it made me want to stop reading the book. But I had to learn more about Rachel's life and more about a turbulent time in British and Kenyan History.

I didn't know where this book was going to lead me and although I had worked out one of the outcomes for Rachel, I did not predict the rest and it opened my eyes.

For fans of Dinah Jefferies or Julia Gregson then this book will appeal to you. Well written and taking a rather difficult and political subject and sparking your interest about it all through the wonder of historical fiction. What more can you ask from a book?

Good book. Good author. Loved the characters and the plot. Look forward to reading more of her work.

A beautiful historical fiction book with a likable protagonist. The setting is wonderful, the politic themes are well-depicted and there are some interesting relationships between some of the characters. It is a bit predictable, though, and perhaps could be shorter.

This is not one of my usual reads and I tried really hard to get into the book. There are few parts I liked namely vivid description of Kenya with its culture and wildlife, Rachel's return to Kenya and her coming to grips with the changes in the present time. Her reality is quite different from her memories of Kenya. I liked the way how Rachel looks into herself and discovers her identity, her place in the strong political place like Kenya. She deals with a lot of trials and tribulations.
I didn't like any of the other characters including her father.
The author, Jennifer McVeigh, has done a brilliant job in writing reality about the difficult times of Kenya in a fictional tale. Her research and intelligence is seen in her words, in her understanding of the political climate and in the mind of a young girl who does not know where she belongs. A good read where reality and fiction come together.

Struggling to get into this one. I will put to one side and try again at a later date as I loved this author's first book, so hoping for more success connecting in the future

In 1952, 18-year old Rachel returns from England to live with her father on his farm in Kenya, having not seen him or the country she grew up in for the six years since the death of her mother. She is expecting everything to be as it was when she was a child but, instead, finds that her father is now living with an intolerant, imperialistic woman named Sara who seems to rule the household. As Rachel tries to settle in, the political climate in the country she considers her home becomes tenser and news spreads of the vicious Mau Mau, a secret society intent on violently overthrowing the British settlers and killing all native Kenyans who refuse to take their oath and join them. With the British striking back at those who rebel against their rule in equally ruthless ways, Rachel finds herself struggling to fully support their methods. When she befriends Michael, a Kenyan man who works on their farm, she begins to see more of the other side of the story and must decide where her loyalties lie and how she fits into this place she used to call her home.

I’m a big fan of books set in different countries and time periods, and this story did not disappoint with its accurate and fascinating portrayal of colonial Kenya at a time when the British still believed in their Empire and their superiority over native Kenyan people. The attitudes of English people at the time towards Africans are shocking but the author manages to portray them in a convincing way – some of the assumptions that the characters make about the differences between the two groups are appalling and would never be considered now, but they are unfortunately accurate in the time period and resulted in a horrific and violent conflict that claimed many lives. Quite a lot of the characters that Rachel encounters are well-constructed but extremely unlikeable and I found myself almost rooting for them to get comeuppance for their behaviour as I read through the story.

I particularly enjoyed the parts of Leopard at the Door that described the natural wildlife of Kenya, as the author writes in a very expressive way about a land with which she is clearly familiar. The descriptions of the animals and the landscape are vivid and atmospheric but also set a tense and menacing tone for the novel, with regular references to the literal threat of actual leopard attacks mirroring the threat from the Mau Mau that the characters on Rachel’s isolated farm experience.

However, despite a strong start and engaging storyline, the ending of this book felt a little rushed for me and as such was a little unsatisfactory, with some elements of the plot left unresolved. Whilst her innocence was convincing and appropriate for her age, I also found Rachel to be a little too naïve at times and lost some of my sympathy for her as a result. Additionally, some parts of the book were quite graphic and described violent events in excessive detail, which some readers may find difficult to get through.

Overall, I did enjoy reading this book despite its few flaws and would be keen to explore more stories set in this era or written by this author.

Daenerys

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

I read this book because Dinah Jeffries recommended it - and she was right. Whilst not as enjoyable era or country as her own books, this is a gripping story.
Rebecca thinks she is returning to her childhood home in Kenya after being exiled at a UK boarding school for 12 years. What she finds is a country in turmoil and her home also. Her father has not continued grieving for his wife, but instead has been ensnared by a harpy. Even the beloved house dog has been banished. Meanwhile Africans who fought in the Second World War are expected to go back to being servants of the usurping white colonials, Their fate is to be expected but their cattle and even pets suffer for the white man's greed.,

Because of the extreme brutality it cannot exactly be described as an enjoyable read, but it is a compelling, horrifying tale of what one person is expected t bear. I found the final chapter a bit weak but it was otherwise marvellous

You know that it is fiction but you can feel how real it was. When I started reading I expected something more romanticized like Out of Africa. Good for me it was not. I would say closer to Circling the Sun (which I have read recently) but in a different way. Brutal, upsetting and shocking 1950s when postcolonial Kenya was facing the political changes. And in the middle of it we have British girl who, after finishing school, does not want to stay with her grandparents in UK and returns to childhood country. Only nothing is as it used to be. Not her father and his farm, not her childhood friends. The country is going through revolution, Mau Mau movement is ruling and the white settlers are not welcome to stay. This new Kenya is completely different from Kenya Rachel remembers. The deeper the story goes, the more we see how naïve Rachel was. How she does not understands the changes coming. How she has to grow up very quickly if she wants to survive.
I don’t know Kenya history, especially after WWII. So I cannot vouch for the details accuracy but all basics seems good to me. I think in a way it is interesting to read it now when there is still so much going on on the African continent.
All characters are somehow acceptable. Even those, which we hate like Sarah (Rachel’s father new girlfriend), Rachel’s father and local police authority Steven Lockhart, who made Rachel to suffer so much.
It is not easy book, certainly not a “summer beach read” but I would recommend it to anyone who likes something different. It could be written a little better to get more sparks. It has some short but dull moments when you wonder why I am still reading about this. But generally it is a great story in the world of the over sugared fairy tales.
One thing more: I located the book in my local library on a “romance shelf”. No idea why. It has nothing to do with a typical romance.

A fascinating glimpse into a period of history of which I was vaguely aware. It gives a interesting insight into the problems of colonialism. The descriptive writing enabled me to create a picture of the setting - I was completely transported to Africa and also into the mind of Rachel, the main character, who was returning to country where she had spent an idyllic early childhood and which had changed considerably in her absence.

There is a lot of violence in the book but it is necessary for the story and it happens to adults, children and animals. There is an interesting little twist at the end. Not an easy read but well worth persevering with.

This is a disturbing tale of innocence under fire. When the colonialists lived their privileged life in Kenya, to their children the life seemed idyllic. The land was fertile. Their parents were rich and lived a life where there was plenty of leisure activities. They had servants and lived in an exotic country where they had freedom and the opportunity to see animals that were normally in zoos, living wild.

They were protected from politics and the harsh realities of life for the non-white population. They truly believed that the land had been empty before they arrived and that they were civilising the 'natives' and anyway, the natives loved them.

They were unaware that Kenya had had a flourishing civilisation in the 13th century which had traded across the world including China and Italy. They only saw the current nomads and disparate tribes and languages and made assumptions.

But by the 1950s  the Kikuyu people of central Kenya, wanted their land back. And the Mau Mau was born, its rallying cry the cough of the leopard.

This book takes through this disturbing era of history through the eyes of Rachel, who is 18 when the book starts, and who is returning from a very cold and unlovely schooling in the UK to her home as she believes. We learn of the strikes and the behaviour of the British officials as she discovers them and through her friendship with native Kenyans learns about the Mau Mau and what they have done and why.

Well written and graphic though it is, we need to read about the reality of our legacy and history as Britain began to lose control of its colonies, and the men who were in charge of them.

Leopard at the Door is a Bildungsroman about Rachel who returns to the Kenya in the early 1950s after spending six years in England. She is excited to reunite with her widowed father, her old friends on their farm and revive her childhood memories but finds that everything has completely changed. The situation is further exacerbated with rumours of the Mau Mau guerilla warriors moving closer to their area.

The story is well paced and McVeigh does a good job of weaving in historical facts with the plot line. I did get emotional in some parts of the book when the settlers referred to the Africans as savages. Well, at least some characters like Nate Logan are the plight of Kenyans who recognised how the settlers disrupted their previous organisational and cultural systems.

Relatedly, there is a scene where Rachel's love interest Michael, shows her textbook and informs her that there are efforts to whitewash the material that was being taught in the African schools. In particular, he highlights the fact that they were writing the various explorers were the first to 'discover' various landmarks such as Lake Victoria insinuating that there were no people living in that area and a basis for the White colonialists to take Africans' land which is quite false. To be quite honest, while I was rote learning my historical facts, I had not given much thought to the implications of using simple words such as " discover".

Leopard at the Door has given me a lot to mull over. For instance, I am still trying to figure out the various metaphors like the title, the Hansel and Gretel reference and the radio transmission of Queen Elizabeth's coronation. But more importantly, the World War II and Kenyan Independence legacies whose repercussions are still being felt in the country to date. I would love to discuss it but I am a bit apprehensive about spoilers for other readers. So this would definitely be a great book club recommendation.

Overall, I think that this is a good for anyone who would like to be eased into colonial Kenya history and might not know where to begin. This book definitely brought to life the many history lessons that I had ages ago