Flyaway

by Kathleen Jennings

Overview

A 2021 World Fantasy Award Finalist!

A 2020 Crawford Award Finalist

An Indie Next Pick!

Named a Best of 2020 Pick for NPR

Transformation, enchantment, and the emotional truths of family history teem in Kathleen Jennings’ stunning debut, Flyaway.

"Kathleen Jennings' prose dazzles, and her magic feels real enough that you might even prick your finger on it."—Kelly Link

“An unforgettable tale, as beautiful as it is thorny.” —The New York Times Book Review

In a small Western Queensland town, a reserved young woman receives a note from one of her vanished brothers—a note that makes her question memories of their disappearance and her father’s departure.

A beguiling story that proves that gothic delights and uncanny family horror can live—and even thrive—under a burning sun, Flyaway introduces readers to Bettina Scott, whose search for the truth throws her into tales of eerie dogs, vanished schools, cursed monsters, and enchanted bottles. Flyaway enchants you with the sly, beautiful darkness of Karen Russell and a world utterly its own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250260482
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/28/2020
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Kathleen Jennings is a writer and illustrator in Brisbane, Australia. She was raised on fairy tales on a cattle station in Western Queensland, and practiced as a translator and a lawyer (which is all stories, isn’t it?) before returning to undertake a Master of Philosophy in Creative Writing (Australian Gothic Literature) at the University of Queensland. Her short stories have appeared on Tor.com, in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, in anthologies from Candlewick, Ticonderoga and Fablecroft Publishing, and elsewhere. Flyaway is her first novel. As an illustrator, she has been shortlisted for one Hugo and three World Fantasy Awards, and has won several Ditmars.

Editorial Reviews

Kathleen Jennings's Flyaway reads like a fairy tale, one in which everything is slightly off-kilter…Jennings's sentences are startling, requiring one to look close, then step away…It can feel claustrophobic at times, but entering this world is worth the discomfort: Jennings has written an unforgettable tale, as beautiful as it is thorny.

The New York Times Book Review - Danielle Trussoni

A 2021 World Fantasy Award Finalist!

A 2020 Crawford Award Finalist

An Indie Next Pick!

Named a Best of 2020 Pick for NPR

“An unforgettable tale, as beautiful as it is thorny.” —The New York Times Book Review

"Half mystery, half fairy tale, all exquisitely rendered and full of teeth."—Holly Black

"A fairytale wrapped about in riddles and other thorny bits of enchantments and stories, but none of them quite like any you’ve heard before. Kathleen Jennings' prose dazzles, and her magic feels real enough that you might even prick your finger on it."—Kelly Link

"Shirley Jackson Down Under: a brooding, bruising fairy tale about blood and history and sharp-toothed things waiting in the woods. I loved it."—Alix E. Harrow, author of Starling House

"A superbly told tale of folklore-infused fantasy, full of rising dread, set in a sharply observed Australian outback town."—Garth Nix

"[Flyaway] will leave you feeling deeply satisfied." —Washington Independent Review of Books

"Katheleen Jennings' writing is highly poetic and her imagery superb... [and contains] revelations that even the most seasoned genre reader won't see coming. More like this, please." —Rue Morgue

"Flyaway is a novel that knows any story is only as truthful as the person who tells it; that the tale itself survives as a parasite does, jumping from person to person and host to host."—Australian Book Review

"In spellbinding, lyrical prose Jennings lulls readers into this rich, dreamlike world. Lovers of contemporary fairy tales will find this a masterful work."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Achingly gorgeous. . . . As tangled and densely interwoven as a tuft of dusty fur snagged on a barbed wire fence, Jennings' debut novella is both deeply indebted to the Australian gothic tradition and vibrantly, bewitchingly itself. A dark, delicious shrike's feast of a fairy tale."—Brooke Bolander

"Brilliant light washes through these pages, a perfect foil for the novella’s shadowy, all-too-serious battles of class, community and family. Sly visitations from imported, half-naturalised folklore add further layers of mystery and wonder to a more-than-magical tale of history’s grip, the land’s memory, and the harm we cannot help but do to ourselves and each other."—Margo Lanagan

"I love the imagery, the atmosphere, the incredible tactile quality of the world as described, the structure. . . . Some of the best prose I've ever read."—Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

"A darkly enchanting and unexpected tale. A gothic Alice in Wonderland meets Picnic at Hanging Rock. With Flyaway Jennings takes old threads and weaves them into something new and exciting."—Angela Slatter

"I feel as if a very new voice has whispered a very old secret in my ear, and I’ll never be able to un-hear it. Nor will I ever want to."—C. S. E. Cooney

“I finished [Kathleen Jenning’s] Flyaway last night and haven't been able to start anything new yet because I don't want to leave that lush creepiness behind.”—Sarah Pinsker

"An exquisite gem of a book, a story which hoards its secrets and reveals its answers slowly, patiently, rewarding the reader who’s willing to go on a strange and haunting journey. . . . Subtly sinister and utterly, utterly magical."—Grimdark Magazine

"Jennings’s debut novella is pure, poetic Australian gothic, filled with haunting emotions, fairy-tale action, and sharp prose."—Library Journal

"A deliciously mysterious Gothic fairy tale wrapped in elegantly descriptive prose."—Booklist

"Part ghost story, part murder mystery and part fairy tale, Flyaway feels like a perfect combination of all Jennings’ experiences and imagination."—Book Page

"An entrancing and unforgettable debut."—The Southern Bookseller Review

From the Publisher

★ 05/01/2020

Quiet and constrained Bettina Scott found a note in the mailbox, addressed to her, that could only have come from one of her two brothers. But they disappeared years ago. As Bettina begins a journey to discover the truth behind the note's cryptic message, she opens a Pandora's box of memories that slowly unravel the true story behind their and her father's departure, from layers of storiesfrom old friends and others about mysterious dogs, magical bottles, and monsters born right inside their small Queensland town of Runagate. Within curses and cages lies the truth, with Bettina at the center. VERDICT Jennings's debut novella is pure, poetic Australian gothic, filled with haunting emotions, fairy-tale action, and sharp prose.—Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Library Journal