Review: The Cat Bride, by Charlotte Tierney

PUBLICATION DATE: 7 APRIL 2025 | SALT PUBLISHING | £10.99 | PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

The heatwave of 1995.

Sixteen years since an infamous tiger-lynx hybrid escaped a small moorland zoo and killed a man.

Sixteen years since the animal was euthanised.

Sixteen years for the zoo to fall into disrepair.

Lowdy’s Mumma grew up in the zoo and when Lowdy falls ill, they’re forced to move to the old zoo for her to recover, still inhabited by her dying grandmother. As soon as they arrive, rumours surface of a big cat stalking the moors again.

Vengeful locals blame the three women for an apex predator on the loose and invade the estate, searching for proof.

Mumma insists all the cats are dead. Grandma whispers that the ‘tynx’ needs to be fed. Lowdy, still recovering from her own mysterious illness, has no idea what to believe. Can she even trust herself when she wakes up covered in ticks with no recollection of the night before?

As Lowdy searches for the truth – the truth of her childhood, what it means
to be a woman, and the truth about the cats – she realizes something catlike runs in the blood, something she cannot ignore.

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