Karavan Press title: Boiling a Frog Slowly by Cathy Park Kelly

The perfect match. Or so she thinks.

Her warmth and empathy. His charisma and ambition.

Yet, Cathy feels safer teaching battle-scarred gangsters in a prison classroom than at home with her own partner.

By day she walks on eggshells. At night she sleeps on the backseat of her car. Her safe place is an all-night roadhouse; her best friend, her journal.

The slow boil intensifies until, one day, Cathy finds her grandmother’s armoire smashed to pieces in her bedroom, a hammer on the floor, her life in splinters beside it.

Part memoir, part inspiration, Boiling a Frog Slowly is unflinching in its confrontation of abuse and utterly courageous in its portrayal of redemption.

 A story of loving, hurting, and healing – a gripping reminder that courage comes from within. Always.

– Tracy Going

A tale of insidious abuse told with heart-breaking honesty and humility. The triumphant ending is truly uplifting.

– Sue Nyathi

Publication date: November 2021

ISBN: 978-0-620-96482-1

Kindle edition: Boiling a Frog Slowly by Cathy Park Kelly

CATHY PARK KELLY is a writer who lives with her husband and son in a sunny valley in Cape Town.

She has a BA (Hons) in Applied Linguistics and has had non-fiction essays and short stories published in several South African magazines and anthologies. Her first book, Inside Outside, a memoir of teaching juvenile offenders awaiting trial, was quoted extensively by the (then) South African Minister of Correctional Services in a speech. This is the closest she has come to Parliament.

She loves how stories can crack open doors and offer seams of light in the dark.