Many, many moons ago I attended a creative writing class with Kitty Johnson’s alter ego Margaret Johnson but I never got round to reading one of her books. I’m delighted to rectify that today by sharing my review of Kitty Johnson’s Prickly Company. My enormous thanks to Sophie Goodfellow at FMcM Associates for sending me a copy.

Prickly Company is published by Lake Union today, 28th May 2024, and is available for purchase here.

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.

 My Review of Prickly Company

There’s a campaign to save hedgehogs in Hilltop Place

I confess that I wasn’t initially sure I would enjoy Prickly Company because before I read it, I feared it might be too anthropomorphically twee, but I was wrong and ended up thoroughly enjoying it and fully appreciating the parallels between the trials and tribulations of hedgehog and human life, and the impact one can have on the other. Kitty Johnson slips in hedgehog facts effortlessly so that the reader is educated as well as entertained. I really appreciated the information about hedgehogs included at the end of the book and the author questions too as they added depth and colour and are inspiring for those interested in wildlife

There’s a smashing plot in Prickly Company as Frances mounts her campaign for a hedgehog highway between her neighbours’ gardens. Looking like a middle aged has-been, Frances has hidden depths, some of which are revealed to be more surprising than others so that Kitty Johnson inverts the concept that such women are bland and easily ignored. 

Although a brief novel, Kitty Johnson packs Prickly Company with super interest. She considers different kinds of marriage, with the trials of real family life feeling very authentic. Jess’s difficulties in blending adopted Toby into her family work really well in making sure readers realise there isn’t always an immediate panacea for all ills. 

Because the action and characters are confined almost entirely to Hilltop Place, there’s a real sense of cohesion. I thought the theme of Ryan’s PTSD was maturely and sensitively handled, making the reader care about him completely. Indeed, I loved meeting all the folk in Hilltop Place as they are varied, interesting and engaging. I think there’s someone here for any reader to relate to.

From being uncertain at the start of Prickly Company, I ended up feeling I had enjoyed a highly entertaining read, that is sensitively and humorously written with mature themes that thoroughly appealed. And with hedgehogs woven throughout, what more could a reader desire? Great stuff.  

About Kitty Johnson

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 with her dog 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 further information, visit Kitty’s website. Kitty can also be found on Facebook, and Instagram and you can follow Kitty on Twitter/X @kittyjohnsonbks.