Women’s fiction author, Kitty Johnson, joins the Spotlight to discuss her latest book, Prickly Company
Author Name: Kitty Johnson
Book Title: Prickly Company
Book Genre: Women’s Fiction
Release Date: 28th May 2024
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Welcome, Kitty! How would you describe Prickly Company ?
Friendships, feuds, romance, and unexpected secrets shake up a small community when a wildlife supporter encourages her neighbours to work together to make life easier for endangered hedgehogs.
What sparked the idea for this book?
I learned about hedgehog highways – where a community joins together to make life easier for hedgehogs by making holes at the bottom of gates and fences and leaving parts of their garden wild to provide food and habitat – and combined this idea with my long-held fascination about what happens when disparate individuals are put into a situation when they have to work together as a group to achieve something.
How long did it take for you to write the book? Did you do any research?
In some ways it didn’t take long at all – less than six months, and in other ways it took years! This is because I’ve included a character – Jess, who adopts a one-year- old at the start of the novel – I initially intended for another novel. That particular novel didn’t work out, but I couldn’t forget about Jess and her dilemma and realised she was perfect for Hilltop Place.
I visited someone who’d established a hedgehog highway in her local area, had a tour of her garden, saw her hedgehog feeders and hedgehog hotels, and grilled her about wildlife cameras and details of the footage she got of her prickly visitors. She also introduced me to a hedgehog which was rehabilitating at her house. Since then I’ve increased my knowledge by becoming a volunteer driver for Hodmedods, a hedgehog support charity, and have encountered many individuals and wildlife rescue centres who care for ill and injured hedgehogs. I also drew on a book called The Hedgehog Handbook by Sally Coulthard.
If you were speaking to someone who hasn’t read your writing before, why should they want to read Prickly Company?
As a reader, the books I enjoy the most make me laugh and cry. I like a roller-coaster of a read, and this is always what I set out to write. Even when a character – or life – is at its lowest ebb, there is laughter to be found. I love these moments. My writing is for those who feel the same way I do about what makes a good read.
Fill in the blank: Readers who liked Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt or early Liane Moriarty novels will also like Prickly Company.
What do you hope readers will take away from this story?
I hope readers will have a sense of satisfaction that my characters have been through the mill but been able to grow and to bond together to make a difference to each other and to the world.
Any words of wisdom you give your pre-published writer self (or to a new writer)?
Recognise the part that writing plays in your life. It isn’t easy, it does take a long time to get anywhere, and there are no guarantees of success. But if you gave it up, how would you feel? I did give up writing fiction for a couple of years, and I wasn’t at all happy. I returned to it because I recognised it’s a huge part of who I am.
What are your interests outside of writing and reading?
I love walking and being outdoors. Owning an energetic dog means I feel I can do this on my own if companions aren’t available. Trees and the ocean, in particular, are really important to me.
Are you working on a new project? Please tell us about it.
Closest Kept is due to be published by Lake Union Publishing in 2025, although it’s unlikely to have that title! I’m currently working on edits. My agent describes it as being about, “being in love with the right person at the wrong time.” It’s a sort of dance of love and complications between two couples. It’s also about power and lack of power in friendships and one character in particular coming to terms with her past so she can move on and be clear to herself and others about what she wants and doesn’t want.
Where can readers find you?
Website: https://www.kittyjohnsonbooks.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kittyjohnsonbooks/?hl=en, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kittyjohnsonbooks
Thank you, Kitty! Prickly Company is out today.
Prickly Company
Friendships, feuds, romance, and unexpected secrets shake up a small community in this sharply funny and compassionate novel by the author of Five Winters.
Frances Mathews doesn’t get out much since her husband died, but that doesn’t stop her from jump-starting a campaign to create a hedgehog highway in Hilltop Place–feeding stations, holes at the bottoms of gates and fences, and wild garden areas for hibernation. To Frances’s delight, her neighbours are on board. Mostly.
There are Jess and Michael, whose marriage is cracking under the unanticipated strain of a recent adoption. And Ryan, a wounded war reporter struggling to connect with his son after a divorce and forced to return to an exasperating parental fold. Plus, a very forthright single mum new to the neighbourhood and an exceedingly proper couple not about to upend their picture-perfect garden for prickly nuisances.
As relationships–from the romantic to the nerve-racking–form and secrets are unearthed, Hilltop Place is threatened in ways that affect them all…unaware hedgehogs included. What Frances and her charitable neighbours soon discover about themselves and each other is hardly what any of them expected.
Author bio:
Kitty Johnson is the author of Five Winters. She has an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia and teaches occasional creative writing classes. A nature lover and artist, Kitty enjoys walking in woodland and on the coast and makes collages and paintings from the landscape. She loves a challenge and once performed stand-up comedy as research for a book–an experience she found very scary but hugely empowering. Kitty lives in Norwich, Norfolk, in the UK with her partner and teenage son. For more information, visit www.kittyjohnsonbooks.com.