Book Review: Fierce Kingdom

By Marcia Divack

In Fierce Kingdom by author Gin Phillips, a routine mother-son trip to the local zoo turns into a terrifying struggle for survival. As Joan and her four-year-old son Lincoln play in their favorite part of the zoo, Joan begins to hear a sound she thinks might be gunshots, and to her horror, she quickly realizes that gunmen have invaded the zoo. She soon discovers that there is no way out, and that she and Lincoln need to find a place to hide. Joan is confronted by choices, and none of them are good. Should they stay where they are? Should she try to explain to Lincoln what is happening? Should they risk a walk to another part of the zoo?

In Fierce Kingdom, Phillips has written a novel that captures the readers attention until the very end. The pace is unrelenting, and the writing is beautiful including heart-stopping passages such as when Joan and Lincoln end up separated: She has followed some pale thread from her brain to his. There are a million of these threads between them, brain to brain, and the threads tell her when he is getting hungry and when he is about to cry, and they tell her he will like the idea of using marshmallows for a tiny astronauts boot this is a perfect thread and the thread leads her to him.

While this book is a thriller, it is also a story about motherhood and the choices and sacrifices mothers often need to make. But even more so, it explores how violence has become so intricately woven into our daily lives that no matter where we are and no matter what we are doing, we are at risk, and that we need to be prepared to make extremely difficult choices in incredibly difficult circumstances.