Title: Panic
Author: Catherine Jinks
Publisher: Text Publishing
Genre: General Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
Release Date: 7th January 2025
BLURB
After posting a drunken rant that goes horrifically viral, Bronte needs a place to lie low. Jobless, friendless, broke, she volunteers as a carer on an isolated rural property. She won’t be paid for looking after dementia sufferer Nell, but at least she’ll have a place to stay. Bronte’s host is Nell’s daughter Veda, who runs spiritual rebirthing retreats. She also claims the rights of a sovereign citizen and rejects the authority of the state, refusing even to register her car. She has acquired a small but devoted following of the like-minded.
Are they harmless cranks, with their conspiracy theories and outrage at government overreach? Or dangerously paranoid domestic terrorists? And what is the dark secret that Nell, in her confused state, keeps harking back to? Bronte, increasingly uneasy, would be getting far away from the whole place—if she had anywhere else to go.
In Panic, master storyteller Catherine Jinks delivers a tense, claustrophobic thriller of isolation and fear that will have you on the edge of your seat.
Goodreads Link
REVIEW
The cover shows the rather desolate looking, isolated farm that is called Gwendolynn, it is in Australia and is the central setting in the book.
Bronte finds out that her boyfriend Callum has been cheating on her with her best friend and housemate Harper. Not only has she lost her boyfriend but her home too as Harper wants her out! Bronte is naturally upset so she gets drunk and goes on social media making a drunken Tik Tok rant about her ex-boyfriend Callum! Bronte can’t prove which one of her friends leaked the video she made but it had to be someone that she knew that had access to her accounts. Due to the content of this video, she earns herself the name and hashtag “pussybugs.” Later Bronte has her hot drink drugged and is filmed totally “out of it” on a train, further fuelling the context that is a some “drunken idiot who sleeps around.” Despite reporting the incident of her drink being drugged the Police don’t take her seriously because of her reputation of being “pussybugs.” Bronte is convinced that Callum, his cousin Jesse and their Tik Tok followers are hounding her so, decides she needs to “disappear” for a while. Bronte answers an advert on HelpX a site that matches volunteers with jobs. Bronte ends up answering an advert from a woman called Veda who needs someone to be a companion to her mother Nell who has dementia. The job sounds too good to be true, Nell can wash, and dress herself she just needs a companion and someone to keep an eye on her so she doesn’t wander off. In exchange for being this “companion” Bronte is told she will get free bed and board, though there are no wages.
Bronte soon begins to regret her decision to take the volunteer job when on the way from the train station, the Police attempt to get her new employer Veda to pull over and she refuses!! It literally takes another Police vehicle coming in the other direction to force Veda to stop. The Police want to talk to Veda about her lack of registration plates. It turns out Veda does not believe in our government, police and laws and will only recognise the common assembly that she is part of with some other like-minded members. Theres complete chaos with both Veda’s husband Troy and other farm tenant/Veda follower, Prish blaming Bronte for the current situation of Veda being held at the Police Station.
Once Veda is finally back at the old farmhouse, Bronte learns a little more about Gwendolynn, though it is a farm there is no livestock, but Veda’s husband, Troy has beehives and sells honey. Veda explains they are vegetarian and that there will be lots of fresh organic produce & home baked bread. Bronte will not be staying in the main house she will have her own vintage caravan with kitchenette & composting toilet. She will be able to use one of the bathrooms in the main house to shower etc. The main house is used for Veda’s business which is a wellness retreat. The retreat is called YouBorn. Later when Bronte explores the house alone, she discovers there were 3 ‘womb rooms’ all freshly decorated all in pink, called Rose, Aster & Olive. These bedrooms only have a kingsized be with pink plush headboard.
A 4th bedroom is called Daisy and was Prish’s room, it is all white & Victoriana in style. When Bronte asks Prish is she can use the upstairs bathroom she is abruptly told, no she should use the downstairs one. Bronte puts her washbasin in the downstairs bathroom where she will shower etc.
We discover that reason Bronte has been employed later in the book. Nell tends to wander if she can get out alone. Her last adventure took her to the neighbouring property which used to belong to the farm but was sold off to a nurse called Iris. The Munro don’t like Iris, as they see her as always complaining and blame her for bringing Nell to the attention of social services. As when Iris found Nell on her property, she called the Police who in turn called the paramedics to check over the confused Nell.
Nell occupies the entire top floor of the rear wing of Gwendolynne and it’s whilst exploring that area that Bronte discovers a panic room containing a single bed, toilet & lots of food supplies behind a piece of the wall in Nells bathroom upstairs, when she talks to Nell about it Nell reveals there’s one underneath it too downstairs, she explains that they were for herself and Joanne/Veda to hide in away from Ezra. The rules of “the house” that apply to Bronte even though she isn’t staying in the house are that all phones & devices are locked away, except for a short period after dinner and for work use, which she is happy to go along with due to her recent social media notoriety.
Bronte finds the job easy enough with Nell already having her own routine, the only issues she seems to have become somewhat obsessed on checking on the dam that is on the property and the fact she is terribly afraid of the Police. Veda/Joanne explain the fear of the Police as being a result of Nells latest encounter with them when she wandered onto Iris’s property.
Bronte goes along with a lot of things that should have given her “off vibes” because she feels has nowhere else to go. She comes to the conclusion that she is staying with a bunch of nutty, paranoid, new age anarchists! Sadly, she is soon labelled paranoid by Prish and Veda when she complains about someone hanging around her caravan at night. It’s a long, quite treacherous underfoot walk from the house so Bronte worries if anyone would hear her if she needed help.
There is quite a bit going on in the book, though it is all linked to Nell and her obsession with the dam and the obsession of Joanne/Veda and Troy etc being part of a common assembly that is against all “normal authority.” There’s a siege where Bronte and a Police officer end up locked in one of the panic rooms only to be rescued by the confused Nell.
Just when you think everything is over and all questions are answered something else pops up! This story really shows just how ‘strange’ people can be and how far people are prepared to go when they think they are being pushed into a corner. I enjoyed reading the book and it certainly kept me reading, I wanted to know who was hanging around after dark outside of Bronte’s caravan. I also wanted to learn more about Ezra and his altercations in the past with Joanne/Veda and Nell. There were so many spokes to this plot, though most seemed to lead back to Joanne/Veda and her mother Nell and a history of violence at Gwendolynn.
The book also reveals how social media is a double-edged sword, that once something is posted it is out there forever. That you can have a supportive, positive reaction on social media but that there is a darker, negative side where you can be trolled continually.
My immediate thoughts were Wow! What an ending! Just when I thought it was over something else happened…twice!
Summing up, despite having dementia there was a memory that Nell was fixated on to do with the dam that ends up explaining the reality behind her fear of the police. It does make you wonder if her daughter Joanne/Veda really cared about her mother or if she tolerated her just to keep a hold of the property Nell owned and keep their dark history with Ezra a secret. The loose ends were all tied up at the end of the book but the relationship that was created between Bronte and Reece could hint at a possibility of more books where the duo solve cyber bullying cases. There is also the potential for more exploration of the friendship with Iris and the possible romance between Bronte and Reece.
