Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings – via Grimdark Magazine

I’m very pleased to have another book review published on the Grimdark Magazine website – this time I’ve reviewed a fantastic horror novella called Flyaway, by Australian author Kathleen Jennings and published by Tor.com. If you just want to check out my review, head over to the Grimdark Magazine website right here and have a read – as usual, I’ve tried to keep the review concise, spoiler-free and as objective as I can be. If, however, you’re up for reading a few more of my thoughts on the book, from a somewhat more subjective angle, then by all means read on!

I’ll leave it up to my review to give you a full description of the book, but loosely speaking I’d call it a ‘folk horror’ story, drawing heavily upon Australian folklore and a sense of magic and otherness stemming from the wildness of nature. It’s a tale of a young woman – Bettina Scott – withdrawn from the world around her, steered towards homemaking and manners and ‘being a good girl’ by her protective mother, who’s brought out of her shell by an unexpected connection to her past which pushes her to gradually reconnect with her life. It’s definitely a horror story, but it’s more about an underlying sense of creepiness than anything overtly shocking or gruesome, with a sinister sense of magic coming across in Bettina’s strange worldview and a collection of eerie folk tales interspersed throughout the story.

Looking at other reviews of Flyaway I’ve seen a few readers who struggled to get into the book, which I can understand – it’s the sort of story which eschews exposition early on and leaves the reader to gradually work out what’s going on as it develops. That won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it’s a style which I really enjoy. As a reader I love that sense of trusting the author, of losing myself in a story and a world which feels real by virtue of not being instantly explained, but which – if I pay close attention – will eventually make sense. I read this over a single day, and felt absolutely immersed in the story, in Bettina’s journey to wakefulness and in a world of small towns being swallowed by the wild, in which monsters feel creepily real.

While I’ve never visited Australia so I don’t really have a frame of reference for the sights and sounds of everyday Australian life, even so I felt like this brought Bettina’s world to life with wonderful, evocative detail. Reading it I could almost feel the sun beating down on my shoulders and the arid dirt beneath my feet, and see the trees casting their long shadows beyond the town boundaries. There’s a haunting, compelling sense of contrast between the bright Australian sunshine and the shudder-inducing creepiness of the story, emphasising the strangeness of Bettina’s existence even in the everyday moments. There’s actual darkness aplenty here, but it’s just as sinister in the glare of the burning sun.

I normally try not to comment too much on authors’ prose – I’ve never studied English Literature or creative writing, and I don’t really feel qualified to talk on the subject so I generally focus on things like plot and characters instead. I’ll make an exception here, however, because Jennings’ prose is just absolutely gorgeous. Everyone’s taste is different, but for me her writing manages to convey masses of detail and wonderful imagery without ever getting bogged down or becoming difficult to read, and there’s no sense of literary pretentiousness here – just great writing which paints an evocative picture of quiet, small-town Australia.

At the time of writing this article it’s been a couple of weeks since I read Flyaway, so I’ve had time to really absorb the story and how it made me feel. I can vividly remember finishing it and just sitting and staring, not knowing quite what to do with myself, thinking about two things. One was the brilliant way Jennings wove little details into the narrative right from the beginning, which at first just felt like texture but in hindsight were hints and signs of things to come. The second was just how dark the story was, in terms of Bettina as a character and the things she went through – I won’t spoil any of the secrets, but thinking about her journey genuinely gave me shudders. Even now, I feel ever so slightly uncomfortable (in an interesting way) thinking back to what happened.

I should point out that this is coming out from Tor.com in July, which is obviously quite a way off. It’s comfortably one of my books of the year so far, however, and I think I’m going to be recommending this to a lot of people – if you read this article or my review over on GDM and it sounds like this is a book you’d like, I would urge you to pre-order it! I’ve talked quite a lot on Track of Words about how much I enjoy novellas, and this is a great example of the format, but I worry that to the casual reader/browser they might not always be the first choice…but in this case especially I really can’t recommend it enough! If you’re interested in something strange, dark and haunting with a vivid sense of nature and magic, then make sure you add this to your list.

If you haven’t already checked out my review, I’ll leave you now to click this link and have a read of my more formalised, objective thoughts on the novella. I’d love to hear what you think if you’ve read this article and/or my review and are tempted to pick it up. Drop me a line in the comments below, or find me on Twitter to let me know!