THE BOBCAT

Prominent reviewer Bethanne Patrick includes the book in a round-up of June highlights: "Many novels feature wild animals as central metaphors, but not many novels achieve the congruity of The Bobcat ...While the novel does deal with what it means to suffer from PTSD, its tendency towards recovery, towards the natural world's processes, makes it different from other fiction about survivors. It's a slight volume, but a rich read." Read more...

You'll want to savor this read. [...] Riley's prose is engaging and evocative. I absolutely loved her gift for description and imagery. I can't wait to read more from this talented author.

Katherine Forbes Riley's tender artistry and elegant prose exalt one woman's painful tale of violence in a violent world to a memorable novel where people's capacity for humaneness and love pulsate from the center. The Bobcat is graceful, profound assurance of man's perpetual instincts to refuge in nature and commune with the beasts every time our own humanity or our fellowman fails us.

I read this beautiful book with my heart in my throat. The world of The Bobcat is immersive, fully saturated, and deeply interior in the best possible way. A visceral and authentic depiction of the aftermath of trauma, the novel is also a moving exploration of the power of artistic creation and its capacity to make sense of both the light and dark sides of human experience.

A mesmerizing novel, [...] Riley uses language, both precise and lushly descriptive, to show how true connection does not depend on words. In an age of tell-all stories and healing through talk therapy, it's a radical act. Though there is plot and mystery enough to drive this novel, what really powers it is Riley's profound sense of empathy and her gorgeous writing - about people, animals, the natural world, fear, love and hope. This is the kind of novel that makes you turn the pages to discover what becomes of the hiker, Laurelie, the bobcat and the toddler - and then makes you slow down to savor the telling itself.

What a beautiful, thoughtful, touching debut. [...] The Bobcat had me at turns flipping pages to find out what happens, and re-reading pages to soak in the expansive and lovely prose. Katherine Forbes Riley steps onto the scene like a master storyteller, comfortable in her craft and precise in her presentation. This hauntingly lovely book will be a favorite of book clubs, and people in search of a novel with genuine heart and wonder.

This inherently compelling, deftly scripted, and thoroughly entertaining page turner of a read is .unique and unreservedly recommended Read more...

An unpredictable yet lovely exploration into healing trauma and building trust... Artists, nature lovers and survivors will find something here to inspire hope and healing. Read more...

The Bobcat is an intensely lyrical, deeply involving novel about what it means to be a human animal. Blending gorgeous nature imagery, philosophical curiosity, and a story as insistent as a heartbeat, this book will grab you by the scruff of the neck and won't let go.

Poignant and evocative, lyrical and intimateand above all startlingly originalKatherine Forbes Riley's mesmerizing debut The Bobcat is one of those rare novels that fully embraces the interiority of its characters while never sacrificing in story or pacing.

Riley's riveting novel, The Bobcat, inexorably pulls readers into a strange world full of possible dangers in which the physical and the psychological are rendered in stunning detail. But she reveals, too, the beauty inherent in this world--if you can bear to let it in, if you can learn to trust again. Intense, surprising and thought-provoking, this story ultimately allows that souls and bodies can in fact heal, and that meaningful human connection is both possible and valuable.

"Riley is newly arrived, but shows every sign she will join Vermont's outstanding contemporary authors." Read more...

Saturated with emotion, vivid and sensual, The Bobcat tells the gripping story of a young woman rebuilding her life and self after trauma. Katherine Forbes Riley takes us deep into the Vermont woods to show the power of nature, art, animal companionship, and human connection. An exquisite debut.

This novel is mesmerizing! Completely unpredictable and engaging. I loved the sentences and the descriptions and the characters.

The Bobcat is a masterpiece of understated grace, an insightful study of trauma and healing, and a work whose narrative power shines with the strength of its skillful prose. [...] This realistic portrayal of recovery is light years from the superficial takes we often see in stories, and it makes the narrative that much stronger and more engaging. An extremely impressive debut, The Bobcat is a compelling and rewarding read.

With its atmospherically picturesque prose and its delicious slow burn of a plot, The Bobcat was a delightful read. Told in gorgeous, crystalline images, etched deeply with detail, the story emerges slowly and satisfyingly. The Bobcat is true literature, and a work of high art.

The Bobcat is a mesmerizing lyrical novel that you don't want to rush through. I savored every beautiful sentence and description of the natural world, the people and animals. Full of empathy and compassion, this is a story about how we heal from trauma and what it takes to begin trusting again.

Equally intimate and expansive, The Bobcat is one of the most unique books I've ever read. Riley's prose works equally as exquisite storytelling and its own thematic device to capture the isolating nature of trauma -- and the path out. All of this is wrapped in very human relationships and lush descriptions of the wilderness for a fast, distinctive read that will haunt you long after the final page.

It would be easy - and true - to say that Katharine Forbes Riley's The Bobcat moves the way that beautiful feline does: with sinuous grace, coiled wildness, and ferocious independence. Yet this novel braves more than that. It probes and tests the lines between the animal and the human, safety and threat, art and daily life, health and illness through characters and language of luminous intensity and rare, real power. Haunting, haunted, truly elegant, this novel will stalk your dreams and days in equal measure.

By turns raw, hallucinogenic, redemptive, and always deeply intelligent, it's a novel of the moment and one that deserves a wide audience.