Kindling

Kathleen Jennings  - published January 2024

Published simultaneously in trade cloth (9781618732170), trade paper (9781618732132), & ebook (9781618732149) · 288 pages

World Fantasy and Aurealis Award shortlists

A fabulous debut of folk tales and fantasies by an award winning author and illustrator.

Small fires start in the hearts of Kathleen Jennings’s characters and irresistibly spread to those around them. Journeys are taken, debts repaid, disguises put on, and lessons offered — although not often learned — in these fantastic tales. Jennings’s confident voice lulls readers into stepping off the known paths to find “Undine Love,” “The Heart of Owl Abbas,” and further unexpected places and people.

Read a story: Undine Love

Table of Contents

The Heart of Owl Abbas
Skull and Hyssop
Ella and the Flame
Not to Be Taken
A Hedge of Yellow Roses
The Tangled Streets
The Present Only Toucheth Thee (story; podcast)
On Pepper Creek
Annie Coal
Undine Love
Kindling
The Splendour Falls

Read Kathleen’s story notes.

Reviews

“A real treat. There is a kindling in each character’s heart throughout this collection of fantastical stories, as well as throughout Jennings’s whole oeuvre.”
— Lyndsie Manusos, Book Riot

“But sinking into each story, to delight in the rhythms of the words and the delightful worlds created: That’s giving this collection what it deserves.”
— Alexandra Pierce, Locus

“A range of strange tales, from the myth-like to settings in suburban and outback Australia.”
— Steve Pfarrer, Daily Hampshire Gazette

“If you are looking for lovely fantastical short stories, such as a perfect for savoring on a cold winter night (or hot summer day if you are antipodal), I enthusiastically recommend Kindling, by Kathleen Jennings.” — Charlotte’s Library

“Fantasy writer and illustrator Kathleen Jennings (Flyaway) offers 12 glittering, fantasy-inspired short stories in Kindling. In ‘Ella and the Flame,’ three women and one child tell each other stories to comfort themselves while their neighbors burn them alive as retribution for a mysterious crime. Flipping the fantasy script by placing a boggart rather than suspected witches at its center, ‘On Pepper Creek’ tells the story of a boggart who is brought to a new land against his will in a family trunk and who exacts his revenge in return. And while the titular ‘Kindling’ centers the unexpected intuition behind a barmaid’s observations of her clientele, ‘Splendour Falls’ shows the much more nefarious manipulations of a mysterious young woman who enchants a young man gifted with special sight.
Jennings’s plots are refreshingly never straightforward, and her tone and subject matter never the same. For example, ‘Ella and the Flame’ casts a wistful spell with its oral-storytelling conceit and angle of feminist tragedy. Meanwhile, ‘Undine Love’ is a complex balancing act between a cautionary tale and dark humor, using its narrator’s outside perspective to infuse humor in the plight of its doomed “hero.” Though recognizable folk tales and fairy tales appear in fragments — ‘Sleeping Beauty’ in ‘A Hedge of Yellow Roses’; ‘The Frog Prince’ in ‘Undine Love’; ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ in ‘Splendour Falls’ — they never play out the way readers expect. Throughout, like the scraps of old tales, characters’ motivations flicker in and out of view, making the true magic of these stories the simultaneous predictability and unknowability of the people and creatures at their centers.” — Alice Martin, Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“Women with guts and men of good fortune in search of their personal treasures.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Following her debut, Flyaway (2020), Jennings here compiles a collection of 12 of her previously published short stories. Samplings of her elegant fantasies include “The Heart of Owl Abbas,” a beautifully detailed tale of a lonely songwriter who sends anonymous compositions to a recently arrived virtuoso, which unfortunately brings her presence to the attention of their dissipated ruler. In ‘Ella and the Flame,’ three sisters and a child spin wondrous tales while awaiting their cruel neighbors’ unjustified vengeance, and in ‘Not to Be Taken,’ the survivor of a murdered family returns home after decades away intent on finding a place for her burgeoning collection of poison bottles. As a riff on ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘A Hedge of Yellow Roses’ has a fully-awake but abandoned lady faire hoping for rescue by the unwitting knight who stumbled into her thorn- encrusted compound. The title story, ‘Kindling,’ links six customer scenarios to a clumsy but intuitive barmaid and her lovelorn admirer. Offer to fans of lyrically descriptive prose.”
— Lucy Lockley, Booklist

Praise for Kathleen Jennings’s books:

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

“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

“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

“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

“Half mystery, half fairy tale, all exquisitely rendered and full of teeth.” — Holly Black, author of Book of Night

“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, author of White Cat, Black Dog

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

“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

Cover art by Kathleen Jennings.

About the Author

Kathleen Jennings is an illustrator and writer based in Brisbane, Australia. As an illustrator, she has received the World Fantasy and Ditmar awards and has been shortlisted for the Hugo and Locus awards. As a writer, she has won a British Fantasy and Ditmar awards and has been shortlisted for World Fantasy, the Courier-Mail People’s Choice Book of the Year Award, the Crawford, and Aurealis awards.

Previously

Fri, 14 June, 6 p.m. AEST, Meet Kathleen Jennings, Brisbane Square Library, 266 George Street Brisbane City, QLD 4000 Australia