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.

About the Author
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.

Reviews

Praise for Prickly Company

"[A] lovely and moving book of a neighborhood forming a community around hedgehogs...Recommended for all public-library fiction collections." -Booklist

"Prickly Company has it all: romance, suspense, intrigue, and a community of quirky characters all learning to help each other. As a bonus, there are lots of lovable, prickly hedgehogs that will have you rethinking your landscaping situation. I loved every page of this book!" -Maddie Dawson, bestselling author of Matchmaking for Beginners

"Bursting with witty dialogue and plenty of hilarious moments, Prickly Company will enchant readers from the first page. I adored every quirky character and felt like part of the neighborhood by the end of this smart, funny, and charming novel." -Kerry Lonsdale, Wall Street Journal bestselling author

"Prickly Company is such an absorbing read, featuring a tangle of fascinating characters and a hedgehog's-eye-view of the multitudes of things that can go very wrong-and very right-when they begin to cross each other's paths. Johnson's writing is warm and earthy and the inhabitants of Hilltop Place-human and hedgehog-will stay with me for quite some time." -Suzy Krause, author of Sorry I Missed You

"Prickly Company is a great big warm hug of a book. A lovely story of friendship and community, with characters I was rooting for right from the beginning. Beautifully descriptive writing, with the natural world in general and hedgehogs in particular uniting the residents of Hilltop Place in their quest to provide a safe haven for their prickly neighbors. Lovely summer reading, characters-some of them spiky-with whom to fall in love, this big-hearted book is highly recommended." -Louise Douglas, author of The Secrets Between Us

Book Information
ISBN 9781662518089
Author Kitty Johnson
Format Paperback
Page Count 317
Imprint Lake Union Publishing
Publisher Amazon Publishing
Weight(grams) 340g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 19mm