In 2017, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway documented a year in the life of Kate Bradbury and the tiny wildlife garden she created in a formerly decked and paved space near Hove station. Against the backdrop of a relationship breakdown and her mum having a brain haemorrhage, Kate welcomed bumblebees, red mason bees, house sparrows and dragonflies but was distraught about the habitat loss occurring elsewhere in her neighbourhood. As she lifted decking in her garden, more decking, paving and plastic grass was laid in gardens around hers.
 
Five years on, Kate has a different, slightly bigger garden (still just 40ft long), two miles away. Since she moved three years ago, her garden has been part of the BBC Springwatch 'Gardenwatch' campaign and is shown regularly on BBC Gardeners' World. She still caters for red mason bees and bumblebees, house sparrows and dragonflies. There are hedgehogs and a more diverse group of birds, hoverflies, and other critters. She has a pond where it seems the entire frog population of Brighton and Hove breeds each spring, and toads have started using the garden.
 
On summer evenings, Kate sits by her pond and watches bats flit above her and for those precious few moments, everything seems alright with the world. But she knows habitat loss remains a massive issue in gardens, the wider countryside, and worldwide. And there's another, far bigger threat, too: climate change. Bubbling in the background for the last 40 years, temperature increases are starting to bite, and Kate worries our wildlife will not be able to cope with the new normal.
 
While we experience another spring drought and weather reporters gaslight us with forecasts of joyful, summery conditions, hedgehogs go thirsty, and bees find no nectar in flowers. Hoverflies have no watery puddles to breed in, and tadpoles swim around in ever decreasing ponds. Will it rain soon? The good kind of rain that quenches the thirst of trees and plants so caterpillars can eat and baby birds can have full tummies? Or will we have a deluge, where a week's rain falls in minutes washing caterpillars off leaves, bouncing them off parched ground into drains that can't cope? In her follow-up to The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, Kate explains how her climate-change anxiety pushes her to look for positive ways to keep going in a changing world. She'll also update readers on her mum's ongoing recovery, old and new relationship drama, and the intense love she feels for her new rescue dog, Tosca, which took her completely by surprise. And there may be a few parties, festivals and hangovers thrown into the mix.
 
As before, the central character of her new book is Kate's garden. She'll introduce us to the individuals that visit and live there and head in search of wilder things beyond her garden: nightingales, cuckoos, peregrine falcons. With her new book, Kate is determined to help galvanise people - gardeners, communities and individuals - to do more for wildlife and more for the climate. Because it's not too late: climate change and biodiversity loss go hand in hand - and WE need to join hands to save everything.