BCC EP:126 Kent Cat Fight, Surrey double take

Cat Fight is the new novel from author Kit Conway which centres
around big cat encounters in Kent, published in the UK in May and
the US in June 2025. We speak to Kit about how Big Cat
Conversations helped shape her ideas for the big cat aspects of
the plot. The book has already been optioned as a future TV
screenplay, and Kit discusses how she weaved big cat sightings
into a novel about the developing frictions across a close
community in south-east England. It is a rollercoaster of a story
which explores people’s switch to wild behaviour on different
levels.


Our second guest Gary describes some big cat incidents in Surrey,
just 50 miles west of where Cat Fight is set. He himself has
twice observed a black panther in a neighbouring agricultural
field, viewed from the same spot in his parents’ house. Believed
by Gary to be a black leopard on each occasion, the sightings
were 20 years apart in 2003 and 2023.   


Word of the week:   rosette


Cat Fight book availability in UK:


https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/463613/cat-fight-by-conway-kit/9780857506597 


Cat Fight book availability in North America:  


https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Cat-Fight/Kit-Conway/9781668066348


Copies of Cat Fight are available for UK and for North America
listeners to win by emailing ‘word of the week’ suggestions –
details in the podcast.


Kit Conway, Cat Fight author’s website:
https://www.kitconway.com/ 


1st June 2025