A cracking debut from Kit Conway. The characters will stay with me for a very long time. They all felt like individual people, I could imagine them all living in a place like the estate. The premise is witty and different but very believable. The scenes in the wood with the boy scout trip felt very real! I'm really excited to read more by this author.

I loved the unusual premise for the book, and the mechanism to bring these characters together. I took a while to get into it as we moved between the different families, heir children etc, however it would make a great holiday read, where you can read longer chunks at a time. It explored the effect of a big bang on a community, I wasn't sure where it was going, but I definitely wanted to find out!

Cat Fight is a tremendously clever debut, an engaging combination of suburban drama, suspense and some delightfully dark humour.

Coralie, Emma and Twig all live in surburban Kent on the Briar Heart Estate. All very different - failed pop star, Disney princess, slightly off the wall zoologist - but the three families are all friends - or are they …..?

When a big cat is allegedly spotted in the neighbourhood, it sends all the residents into a bit of a spin - and exposes the tension between the three women who are all harbouring their own secrets. Suddenly their rivalry takes on a whole new dimension.

As the story progresses, you realise that it’s not just big cat that have claws - and the real danger lies indoors rather than out! All three women are wonderfully drawn and quite something, not afraid to manipulate the situation to their own advantage - and yet somehow you feel invested in their stories.

This is a book that keeps you on your toes, with no shortage of twists and turns and plenty of surprises! There’s genuine tension, there’s very real humour, there’s social commentary, underpinned by great characterisation. It’s a lot - but it somehow works, and it is so much fun!

When a big cat is sighted in the exclusive Briar Heart estate it adds an element of danger to the already simmering tensions between the neighbours and sometimes friends.

The evidence for a big cat being on the loose in the surrounding woods mounts and for some this is a useful distraction from other events.

Told from the POV of Coralie, Emma and Twigg, each one half of the main couples the story delves into their private lives as well as how there lives are impacted by the rumours of the Parkland Panther.

Great premise and really well executed.

Cat Fight by Kit Conway

On an exclusive housing estate in Kent, neighbours and sort-of friends Coralie, Emma and Twig are at one of Coralie's many get-togethers when Coralie's husband Adam sees a panther on his car.... or does he?! A whole train of events is set in motion over the course of a suffocating heatwave before a shocking finale to the wild cat hysteria.

Wow, what a concept and so brilliantly executed - I really enjoyed this novel! The 'Desperate Housewives' type suburban setting and characters are brilliantly evoked, and this is mixed with such an original story about wild cats. Lots of twists and turns add to the compelling nature of the novel and I raced through it. Very VERY highly recommended.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Set in the leafy suburbs of Kent, Cat Fight tells the story of a group of neighbours who already have issues with one another when Adam King (husband to zoologist, Coralie) sees a big cat on the bonnet of his car. Unfortunately, nobody else did, although there have been some pets go missing.

The mystery only deepens as more signs of a big cat are discovered and the neighbourhood begins to split. Coralie is delighted, being a fan of big cats; Adam is terrified; Emma just hopes it takes people's minds off her hated planning application; Twig hasn't time for it as she's raising money to send her sick daughter to America. And under it all, resentment is simmering over the shared histories of some of the neighbours.

Kit Conway's debut novel is an easy read with quite a lot of shocking twists. It's well written, trots along at a good pace and certainly kept my interest throughout. A lot of her characters may not be particularly likeable but they are sympathetic with their various flaws.

Definitely recommended. Would make a great holiday read.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Transworld for the advance review copy.

thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review! <3

’We are all wild things’

Cat Fight is Kit Conway’s debut novel, and a story revolving around the suburban hell that is Briar Heart Estate. Following Disney-millenial Emma, former pop-star Twig, ex-rich girl turned cat-whisperer Coralie, and their partners and children, this story covers their tumultuous relationships with one another, their sordid pasts, and their deepest secrets and strangest behaviours, all while their lives are plagued by the appearance of a panther on their street (and yes I mean an actual big-cat panther).

The main thing I have to say about Cat Fight is that it will take you by surprise. Without getting into any spoilers, let me tell you right now that this isn’t what you’re expecting it to be. Yes it is a literary fiction covering the ‘complicated’ lives of the middle-class, aka Big Little Lies, but it also explores the darker parts of a particular characters psyche, and the dangers that come with obsession. However, other than the initial revelation that this book is a little whackier than other lit-fics, the other twists or reveals fell a little flat, mostly because I already guessed them beforehand, and they felt a little cliche.

I wasn’t especially taken with any of the characters either, all of which were fine enough but not exceptional. The ones that did somewhat stand-out were Coralie, due to her dark past and the role she came to play in the lives of her neighbours, and Emma, who really defied the stereotype she was presented as being at the start of the book.

The writing-style was engaging and enjoyable, but the pacing was a little off. I felt that this book could have been shorter, perhaps by 50-100 pages, as I felt that the final third was dragged out to the point that the tension the rest of the book had been building ended up fizzling out.

Overall, Cat Fight gets 3/5 stars. A unique and pretty fun book, that I had a reasonably good time with. I’d be happy to check out more of Conway’s work in the future!

Bizarre, funny: a dark humorous satire of the live of three women in a high class estate. Well plotted, intriguing.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This was definitely a unique read for me, as it dealt with social commentary in a new way. I loved the intensity and complexity of the female characters.

Cat Fight by Kit Conway is a sharp, suspenseful debut that delves into the complexities of suburban life, ambition, and the lengths people will go to protect their interests. Set in the exclusive Briar Heart Estate in Sevenoaks, the novel follows three women whose lives intertwine amidst a growing hysteria over reported big cat sightings, The novel explores themes of power, perception, and the facades people maintain, this made it a gripping read, i couldn't put it down.

This book is pitched as Big Little Lies meets Tiger King, and I would say that's sums it up purrfectly. This book is a lot of fun.

Through the eyes of three women, we follow the lives of those living on an estate in Sevenoaks, UK.

There's Twig, a failed pop star from the nineties who has now moved back home with her dad along with her wife and two kids.

There's Emma, a middle-aged frumpy mum who's a bit obsessed with Disney, who is married to the local Cub Scout leader.

And Coralie. A zoologist, a slightly mad salt of the earth kind of person.

Like is fairly uneventful on the estate, just the usual neighbourly gossip. Until a big cat shows up.

I was really into this. It's a fabulous page turner. The characters felt alive, and I genuinely felt I knew them. It's a very entertaining read.

My only complaint would be that the ending felt too drawn out and could have been a lot tighter, but it's a debut, and that aside, I really enjoyed this book.

Four stars.

just look at the title and take it any which way and any which way you like. because its about a panther seen on bonnet of a car in a well to do community, but its about the cats among the pigeons. its about the "cat fights" and no, not just among the woman but they are definitely there.
this book is a dark but comic toned look at tone set of people who live amongst eachother. are they friends. do they even like eachother, and this includes the people in relationships?
i loved the look into this groups lives. no they arent always likeable. but noone ever really is. and amongst us all i wreckon a fair few of us are only loved by those who loves us, ha. but actually maybe we arent as bad as some of these lot. not by half. the jibes. the scheming, the judging. oh its delicious.
i dont know why a spotting of a wild cat on the car gives play to such chaos but it does. and its brilliantly told. each characters has their own stuff going on. they all have their own reasons here and they are playing the games accordingly.
the well used term "who needs enemies when you have friends like these" comes to mind.
it was over the top but in the best way and was written in the ways that make it witty and sharp so never feels to much.
i liked this book. it was unusual and sparky and a great dive into a new style of read for me.

Rumours of a big cat - a panther? - roaming their suburban neighbourhood (Sevenoaks in Kent) impact the local residents in various ways. For Emma, determined to remodel her home into something akin to a Disney castle, to the dismay of many of the neighbours, it sparks a welcome distraction to their campaign against her plans. Twig (no, me neither) is more taken up with worry about daughter Skylar's ill-health and fundraising for a cure, to the detriment of sensitive son Elwood who is fascinated by the big cat stories and devoted to neighbour Coralie. Twig's music producer wife, Blake, is rarely around, it seems. Meanwhile, environmentalist and big cat defender Coralie considers herself an expert on the subject; her handsome, younger husband, Adam, is just terrified after seeing the creature on the bonnet of his car one night, even though nobody really believes him. Coralie is keen to assure everyone the cat (if it even exists) is no danger to humans, but is that really the case?

This was quite an unusual read which took a while to get going for me. It took time to get my head around all the characters, although there aren't really that many - three couples with their various children. People act in strange and occasionally monstrous ways, there's sexual tension of various kinds between various people, and past transgressions are coming uncomfortably to light. I'm not sure I entirely kept up with everything that happened and did get confused at times, especially towards the end, but that's probably down to a lack of attention on my part. I'd probably feel differently if I read it again.

Thanks for the opportunity to read and review!

Unique, Compelling..
Unique and compelling domestic suspense where claws are out and nothing is sacred. When unusual events in a seemingly peaceful corner of suburbia combine, it’s not too long before matters escalate and come to a head. With a keenly observed cast, a wry glimpse into suburbia and astute social commentary, this is a compelling and often surprising read.

I was recommended this book by another award winning author, so I had a good feeling about this one. I wasn't left disappointed. Absolutely fantastic read!

At the beginning I found it super difficult to emerge myself in the story. So many characters, such a slow burn, but as soon as you start getting the hang of the novel structure you get sucked ino this bizzare Carnage-like world.
Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I was excited to read this from the Blurb. I found the storyline quite mad but a unique tale. But, for me personally struggled through this. I couldn’t engage to the storyline, and I didn’t like any of the characters and just thought that they where all out for themselves. This wasn’t a bad book but not my cup of tea. 2.5 stars from me.

This was one of those books where I initially found it difficult to keep everyone straight. There were lots of characters introduced in the initial chapters however once the story settled, this was a really enjoyable novel

I really enjoyed this book. A very niche storyline involving sightings of a wild cat in a nice neighbourhood.

However, whilst everyone is caught in a cat frenzy, a group of close neighbours begin to turn on each other and people’s true colours begin to show….

A fun, yet serious at times read which will keep you wanting to read. Highly recommend

A great book with lots of twists and turns. Well written characters and a brilliant story line. Highly recommended.