Fierce Kingdom (Phillips)

Fierce Kingdom 
Gin Phillips, 2017
Penguin Publishing
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780735224278


Summary
An electrifying novel about the primal and unyielding bond between a mother and her son, and the lengths she’ll go to protect him.

The zoo is nearly empty as Joan and her four-year-old son soak up the last few moments of playtime. They are happy, and the day has been close to perfect.

But what Joan sees as she hustles her son toward the exit gate minutes before closing time sends her sprinting back into the zoo, her child in her arms. And for the next three hours—the entire scope of the novel—she keeps on running.
 
Joan’s intimate knowledge of her son and of the zoo itself — the hidden pathways and under-renovation exhibits, the best spots on the carousel and overstocked snack machines — is all that keeps them a step ahead of danger.

A masterful thrill ride and an exploration of motherhood itself — from its tender moments of grace to its savage power — Fierce Kingdom asks where the boundary is between our animal instinct to survive and our human duty to protect one another. For whom should a mother risk her life? (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1974-75
• Raised—Montgomery, Alabama, USA
• Education—B.A., Birmingham-Southern College
• Currently—lives in Birmingham, Alabama


Gin Phillips is an American author of adult novels and children's books. She was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and attended Birmingham-Southern College, graduating with a degree in political journalism. Following college, she spent more than 10 years as a journalist, living in Ireland, New York City, and Washington, D.C., before moving back to Alabama. She now lives in Birmingham with her husband, children, and dog.

Philips wrote her first two novels for the adult market. The Well and the Mine, published in 2009, was awarded the Barnes & Noble Discover Award, along with $10,000. Her second, Come in and Cover Me, was released in 2012.

For her next two books, Phillips turned to children's literature with The Hidden Summer in 2013 and A Little Bit of Spectacular in 2015. Her fifth book, Fierce Kingdom, this one for adults, came out in 2017.  (Adapted from Wikipedia and from the author's website. Retrieved 10/28/2017.)

Book Reviews
Every choice the protagonist makes in Fierce Kingdom, the expertly made new thriller by Gin Phillips, is another precarious step up a gnarled decision tree. If she reaches for the wrong branch—snap! Darkness. Part of the book's great allure is that the reader feels as if this character, Joan, is working out each of her dilemmas in real time.… Our full visibility into Joan's moment-to-moment reasoning is also what makes this novel so clever and irresistible. Fierce Kingdom is a portrait of a mind at work under macabre duress. We feel almost as cornered and overwhelmed as Joan does.… Any more tension would be unbearable.… Seldom are the banal logistics of child rearing — Does Joan risk a trip to the vending machines to avert a hunger meltdown? How does she keep Lincoln occupied? — as riveting as they are in this book.
Jennifer Senior - New York Times


Of all the places where you really do not want to come across a couple of nut cases with guns, a zoo full of wild animals would be high on the list. Gin Phillips taps into that primal fear with Fierce Kingdom, a heart-thumping thriller about a mother who finds herself and her 4-year-old son trapped when two marksmen start hunting down visitors.… [Joan] gives new meaning to the term "tiger mom." Compressed into a little over three hours, the story flies by like a gazelle being chased by a lion and is easily consumed in a single sitting.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review


A page-turning, adrenaline-soaked read.
Guardian (UK)


The premise of this novel will send chills down the spine of any parent — and keep them turning pages into the wee hours.
Newsday


Fierce Kingdom is gripping and almost impossible to put down.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution


Because we make fun of helicopter parents for the lengths they go to to keep perfectly safe children even safer, we can can forget that, for children, safety is a kind of love — and that makes Fierce Kingdom a terrifying book, but more importantly, a beautiful one.
NPR


By introducing the threat of violence, the book amplifies everyday domestic concerns, producing a kind of crystallization of the experience of parenthood.
New Yorker


A shot of pure adrenaline. But it’s not just the action that will keep you turning pages: Fierce Kingdom is a moving story too.
Entertainment Weekly


Gin Phillips’s heartpounding novel will have readers questioning what lengths a mother would go to in order to save her child …or someone else’s.
Real Simple


A powerhouse of a read that balances empathy and fear as it poses complex questions about human nature.
Washington Independent Review of Books


Fierce Kingdom is a novel that crackles with tension and danger.… Do yourself a favor and devour this book before the inevitable movie premiere.
New York Journal of Books


(Starred review.) [H]arrowing.… A searing exploration of motherhood at its most basic, this all-too-plausible horror story may haunt even readers with steely nerves and strong stomachs.
Publishers Weekly


Phillips skillfully captures the terror of the situation…. This literary thriller encompasses three terrifying hours in the lives of some zoo visitors and the gunmen hunting them, movingly conveying much of the action through the viewpoint of a mother and her young son. —Melissa DeWild, BookOps, New York P.L.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Phillips manages to combine beautiful imagery with heart-pounding, nerve-fraying intensity. . . . Fans of literary page-turners, like Sunil Yapa’s Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, won’t want to miss this.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Phillips’ characters are exquisitely rendered, her prose is artful and evocative.… Poignant and profound, this adrenaline-fueled thriller will shatter readers like a bullet through bone.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Fierce Kingdom … and then take off on your own:

1. Consider the fact that Fierce Kingdom is set in a zoo — an environment we normally think of as safe and where animals, not humans, are in captivity. How has the author turned that conception on its head? Why might Gin Phillips have used a zoo? What darker currents might she be exploring?

2. Follow-up to Question 1: Consider, too, that motherhood is a form of instinctive animal behavior.

3. Describe Joan as a mother. Is she normally overly protective of Lincoln (to wit: watching her sister-in-law strap him into the car)? Or are her concerns typical of most mothers?

4. Once under fire at the zoo, how does Joan go about protecting Lincoln? What kind of traits emerge that enable her to keep him safe? How does her knowledge of her son help her make the choices she does? How might you fare under such circumstances?

5. Talk about Lincoln. How does he respond to the danger he and his mother are both exposed to? Did you find some of his chatter and cleverness grating … or endearing?

6. What do you make of Joan's observation about Lincoln — that "He is a whole separate being, as real as she is"? If you are a parent of a young child (or if you once were), does this statement resonate with you? Have you ever had that epiphany?

7. What do you make of the fact that we are privy to the inner thoughts of one of the shooters — an unusual perspective, to say the least? Why might Phillips have decided to give us access to Robbie's point of view? What do we learn about him?

8. The action takes place in real time: we read as events transpire from moment to moment. What effect does the tick-tock time-keeping have on your reading?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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