A review by ceallaighsbooks
Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“These stories of Inglewell, like the tellers, are hybrids of tales from distant woods and forests. I cannot believe our silky oaks, our ironbarks, the shimmering brigalow are less handsome than those fabled groves, but the stories (even those, like us, half-made here) fit them uneasily.”

TITLE—Flyaway

AUTHOR—Kathleen Jennings

PUBLISHED—2020

PUBLISHER—tor dot com

GENRE—literary horror speculative fiction novella; modern fairy-/folk- tale

SETTING—Australia

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—awkward loner MC, unsettling mother-daughter dynamic, Little Red Riding Hood, stories & memory as legacy, shapeshifters, The Seven Ravens/The Wild Swans vibes, the bush, alchemy & arcane arts, loss of cultural knowledge via settler-colonialist displacement, dark family secrets, eldritch horror, the stark contrast between a settler colonialist *presence* on the land vs an indigenous *connection* to the land

“Once there was a boy called. . . Let’s say he was called Jack. Boys in fairy tales always are. Twelve years old and too small for it. Certain the world was withholding something. …and if he’d paid more attention to the stories he’d heard, he’d have known better.”

Summary:

“A beguiling story that proves that gothic delights and uncanny family horror can live—and even thrive—under a burning sun…”

"I feel as if a very new voice has whispered a very old secret in my ear, and l'lI never be able to unhear it. Nor will I ever want to." — C. S. E. COONEY

My thoughts:

This book begins in a haze, the heat of an antipodean sun lulling you into a sense of mild interest and wait-and-see. At some point, certain things that had been previously obscured or out of focus blink into sharp relief, catch your eye and make you start to pay a little more attention. Then it comes—the first moment you realize that Jennings is doing something special here.

I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy their eldritch horror novellas with an atmosphere of dusty swelter and more substance than is typically seen in this genre. This book is best read not too casually—you don’t want to miss that moment you “get it”. 😉

Final note: Excited to find more books that explore these themes from a similarly humble, honest, and fearless perspective.

“They set off to catch the bone horse. Botched it, of course: only caught a part—the ghost, the power of it. Something like a soul. Where the horse scavenged that, I don't know—from a deathbed or graveyard; half Inglewell is built on blood. The bone horse wore it loosely. Once, if you saw it, it used to trail a bit of a shine.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Season: ☀️ Late Summer / Early Fall 🍂

CW // body horror, gore (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

Recs:

• Shirley Jackson
• Helen Oyeyemi 

TBR:

• Alexis Wright
• Ellen van Neerven
• Ambelin Kwaymullina
• Claire G. Coleman
• Kim Scott
• Joan Lindsay
• Rosalie Ham
• Shaun Tan