“The stories of Inglewell, like the tellers, are hybrids of tales from distant woods and forests.”

You’d think a story with such a bright, sunny setting wouldn’t be dark and gloomy, but that isn’t the case with Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings. Instead, this book is full of haunting stories, shattered memories, and family secrets that were buried deep for a reason.

Flyaway follows the story of Bettina, a young adult who lives with her mother in a small Australian town. One morning she finds a mysterious note and is convinced that it was sent by one of her missing brothers. The contents of the note are too specific, and she can’t think of anyone else who would have sent it. In order to find out the truth, she sets out in search of answers.

Bettina is a little unreliable. We quickly learn that she has gaps in her memories, and isn’t quite sure if she should believe the stories her mother has told her, or bits and pieces of information she’s received from others. Throughout the book we get to see fantastical stories from other characters which help weave together the sinister truth of what actually happened to Bettina’s family.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this novella, but knew it would be good; every novella that I’ve read from this publisher has been fantastic, and Flyaway was no exception. It blended elements of folklore, horror, and fairy tales. It’s full of monsters and ghosts, and a sense of yearning so strong you’ll be pulled right in to the thick of it all.

The writing was also beautiful. The descriptions were so vivid and lush, and I was able to visualize almost every scene in my head perfectly. This was both good and bad, because some of the scenes were quite disturbing. However, the narrative throughout Flyaway, paired with the setting and tone, were right up my alley.

I’ve seen other reviews compare this book to Shirley Jackson’s writing and I couldn’t agree more. It’s dark and eerie, has the perfect amount of suspense, and will keep you on your toes until the very end. Part of me wants to reread it in the Fall, because it’d be a great fit for a chilly October night, except it’s set in bright, sunny Australia.

If you’re in the mood for a gothic story full of family secrets, check out this book. Plus, it’s under 200 pages, so it’s a quick read.

Thank you to the publisher, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, for an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley. Flyaway comes out on July 28, 2020, and can be purchased wherever books are sold.

Kathleen Jennings’ Flyaway is a rural fantasy fever-dream. Like the main character herself, for most of the book I was never completely sure what was real and what was imagined or exaggerated. Jennings sets small-town insular inter-family dynamics against the power of storytelling; waves of present and past, mundane and supernatural roil against each other to create an intensely disconcerting experience.

In the urban fantasy genre, the city setting is as much a character as the humans who populate it. Jennings’ outback-bordering Inglewild District (comprised of the towns of Runagate, Carter’s Crossing, and Woodwild) is as far from urban or even suburban as one can get. The harshness of the surrounding land and the towns’ struggles to exist within it (one of which is largely lost before the main events of the novella) informs every page. There’s never a doubt that this remote settlement has been forgotten by the rest of Australia. If these towns could talk, what would they have to say about themselves and their siblings? I think if anyone could pull off a novella narrated by three struggling, nearly-dead remote towns, Jennings could.

I also wonder about the name “Runagate.” At first I read it as “run agate” – maybe it was known for a quarry of that type of rock, dug up and transported (“run”) away – but then I started thinking of it as “run a gate” – every time a character encounters a closed gate blocking them from someplace/something dangerous, they bull their way through to occasionally disastrous results. The name can’t be a coincidence.

The District’s character is reflected in the residents. They are all practical, within the bounds of their personalities, except when the landscape and past events have taken their toll. Several characters suffer from personality disorders that leave them outside societal norms, and it seems that Bettina Scott, our narrator and main character, may be one of them. From the very beginning, Bettina seems uncomfortable in her own skin: she’s trying to be the proper young woman her mother has raised her to be, as her thoughts during her prim and proper interactions with a local homeless man, a shop-owner, and a former school friend show. But there are obvious memory gaps regarding her teen years, especially surrounding the disappearance of her father and departure of her older brothers from the family home. How Bettina currently presents herself (subdued, polite, never acknowledging the nicknames (“Tina,” “Tink”) others call her by) is clearly at odds with what her former friends remember of her, and before long Bettina begins to question which is her true self: modest behaving daughter or wild risk-taking friend? This dysphoria – what her mother expects her to be versus who she really is, what she remembers of the night her father left versus what really happened – permeates every moment of the story. Bettina is our narrator so everything, even the stories told to her by other characters, is filtered through her internalized sense that something isn’t right – or rather, that something is very, very wrong. This adds to the novella’s dreamlike quality, as Bettina stumbles her way through the events of the early chapters almost half-awake or sometimes less so. There are at least two instances where she dissociates and “loses time,” wondering how long she’s actually been standing where she’s standing. What exactly happens during these moments, and how long they last, is left for the reader and Bettina to piece together since there is no outside narrator to fill us in on the things Bettina herself can’t, or won’t, remember. We can get some small inkling through how the other characters react to Bettina after one of these episodes, but until Bettina is able to regain her memory, those moments are lost to both the character and the reader.

Dreams, especially those we experience when we’re ill, often take turns into completely disconnected and unexpected territory. Flyaway does the same thing several times, action halting for a side story that feels disconnected from everything around it. But Flyaway isn’t a dream, it’s a carefully layered construction. Each of the side-stories is a complete whole – any one of them could be published as a satisfyingly eerie stand-alone short story, an impressive feat in a book that is already economical in length – but everything comes together at the end. It’s through the digressions that the reader is able to piece together connections the characters can’t, or sometimes willfully don’t, make. And they are placed skillfully so that the reader’s suspense is as great, if not greater, than the characters’.

I devoured Flyaway in one sitting and re-read it almost immediately just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. The second time around I picked up on another bit of word-play: the Damson family, as represented by current eldest child Gary (a former friend of Tina’s and still concerned about her), are the ones who build and mend fences; their role is stated several times as making sure everyone else knows their place without taking sides in any conflict. The Damsons, if not Gary himself, seem to be as aware of the supernatural aspect of the Inglewild District as anyone else, and so it seems their job is also to inhibit the flow of humans into the wild – one might say their job is to build a dam separating human and supernatural. I’m pretty sure future re-readings will reveal more small connections like that.

After seeing this absolute beautiful cover and reading the synopsis of this book I was eager to buy this one for my collection. I was so excited when I was approved for a copy on Netgalley but soon felt deflated. This book starts out very confusing and it took me to about 60% in before I got the gist of what was happening. It seemed to pick up and become interesting but flatlined at the ending. I so, so wanted to love this book but it’s just not for me. I would have given this a 1 star but I still adore the esthetic appeal of the book itself.

FLYAWAY contains gorgeous prose but ultimately has a messy plot that detracts from the reading experience. Jennings is incredibly gifted in her descriptions, metaphors, and similes and convincingly paints a terrifying picture of a family riddled with secrets in a small Australian town.

In addition to the prose, FLYAWAY is very convincing at showing how rumors can harm an individual's lived experience. Bettina Scott's father and brothers left her and her mother years ago and ever since, the Scott women have lived apart from and full of disdain for their neighbors. After receiving a mysterious note in the mail, Bettina decides to search for her estranged family with the help of two former friends in town. The overarching mystery of the novel is punctured by tales passed down from Trish and Gary that illuminate elements of Tina's past and future.

Jenning's lush prose tries to overshadow the convoluted telling of Bettina and the town's secrets. I could understand arguments that the lack of coherence is to reflect Bettina's headspace, one that has been traumatized by her mother's gaslighting. Many threads in the story when woven together are confusing. As a result, FLYAWAY is the rare Tor novella that was not a 5 star read for me.

Fans of Gothic horror and dark fairytales will undoubtedly be interested in FLYAWAY but may find frustration with the characters and plot.

I have mixed feelings about this one.

I was very confused at first but things eventually started to make sense. I liked the creepy fairy tale atmosphere and once things started to make more sense, I felt immersed in it. It would've been a 4 star if it wasn't for that incoherent part at the beginning. It was a quick read and definitely worth the time but I wished it was a bit longer.

I’ll be 100% honest. I chose this book for the cover. It’s beautiful. After receiving a mysterious note from one of her brothers who vanished years ago, a young woman begins to question her memories of their disappearance and her father’s departure.

I really enjoyed this one. It’s a weird little book with a strong hint of gothic horror without explanation. Sometimes I want to know every detail and fit a puzzle together nicely, and other times, I just want to sit back and enjoy the ride. This book is definitely the latter. It takes a second to get going, but I enjoyed the leisurely pace of the beginning. It made the speedier pace of the second half even more enjoyable. There are so many cool, horror elements in this story and its tied together nicely with beautiful prose.

I flew through this one, and I imagine it won’t take you long to read, either, so if you need a few titles to round out that summer tbr list, definitely give this one a shot. I’ve never known Tor to disappoint, and this book is on brand. It’s out on the 28th, so only a few days left to wait!

Kathleen Jennings’ Flyaway is an Australian gothic novella that scales up the haunted house trope to encompass a landscape. In this review, I’ll focus on some of the book’s ecological themes which are largely presented to the reader in the form of fairy tales.

Fairy tales are a way of transmitting the deep past to future generations. While often told as lessons to children and thus morally coded, fairy tales also affirm a common experience within cultural boundaries. But Jennings’ Flyaway challenges these boundaries: the haunted landscape is one that has been altered beyond recovery by the presence of an alien: the colonizing settler. Reflecting the experience of life on the continent, Jennings’ weaves invasive plant and animal life into the fairy tales she tells.

The megaritty is a fantastical creature whose presence serves as a warning within its fairy tale. The megaritty is yellow-eyed and bronze-furred, and has the ability to mimic and ultimately replace those it targets. The tale explains the megaritty’s presence in a land that is not its own by citing the ways a creature might be transported: in a ship’s hold, as a pet, and as an animal or woman accidentally ensnared in hunting or marriage.

The megaritty’s story illustrates the multifaceted nature of colonial invasion. While invasion, when observed from the view-point of the individual settler, may not be intentional, the individual is part of a system which violently replaces indigenous plants and animals as well as Indigenous people.

Similarly, the lantern-bush is brought to the continent as a beautiful plant for settler gardens. Like all invasive life, the lantern-bush, once established, escapes the bounds of the colonial garden to occupy indigenous ecosystems.

The effect that the lantern-bush has on the communities surrounding Runagate is devastating. While the tale which depicts the way the lantern-bush overran whole buildings and swallowed people is fantastical hyperbole, the message that the alien plant life is destructive to ecosystems and human life alike is one that echoes through both the fantastic and realistic parts of the novella.

I enjoyed the way that Flyaway‘s combination of fairy tale and roadtrip mystery complicated the idea of home and what it means to make a place home, and particularly how it brought invasion and colonization into that conversation. The unreliable protagonist narrator combined with the magic of fairy tale makes this, sometimes, a difficult narrative to pin down. But the dreamy ending, which further destablizes the reader, is a good fit for an exploration of the effects of colonization. Colonization is, after all, a systemic problem that continues to threaten communities and the world at large.

What a haunting delightful read set in Australia. If you love gothic mysteries, you will surely enjoy Flyaway. Our protagonist is a shy mild-mannered woman whose father left, and brothers disappeared. When our heroine started seeking answers that’s when things start to change, our heroine is joined by two other “friends” They encounter curses, weird creatures etc. I loved the eerie atmospheric feeling the town had especially when its so sunny, kudos to the author making the light scary. Overall Flyway is an excellent, haunting gothic read that will make you question not everything hides in the dark.

There's something very...familiar when it comes to Australian lit. As a kid, I didn't live here for long, but the impressions of the countryside stay with you. The small country pub, the dinky little school. All your friends being a stones throw away. So when it comes time to read fic set in the countryside, you generally know what you're getting into. Kathleen Jennings Flyaway, has that familiar feelings, yet at the same time invokes a sense of the macabre.

Set in a small town in rural Queensland, Flyaway tells the story of Tina Scott, a girl whose past isn't quite what it seems. Interspersed with local legends and folklore tales, we find out what exactly happened three years ago when her father and brothers disappeared. Slowly as the story progresses, we find out how she, and two other teenagers, Gary and Trish, are all linked together in this mysterious family drama. For in a small town, all families share a common past. I'll leave it at that, as more would be spoilers.

I don't read many Australian authors. Not because I don't like them, but more because there never seemed to be a huge amount publishing in the spec fic genre. Back in the 90s it seemed we were in a golden age, but now, not so much. I'm hoping that with Tor.com picking up Jennings this is a signal that change is coming. I think the thing I appreciated most about this book, were the fairy tales; while the main story was interesting, it wasn't until the last quarter of the story that I found myself being fully engaged with where it was going. The stories on the other hand, I was constantly wondering where and how they linked back to things. And perhaps, at the end, too much is spelled out for you, but I don't fully mind - the intricacies of why certain families are like they are, and what the future will bring for the characters is left open for more.

I'd recommend this book for those who enjoy dark fairy tales, mystery stories, and interwoven tales.

This copy was provided by Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I was very much looking forward to Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings. She’s one of my favorite illustrators and the book featured many themes and topics that I love, including folklore, fairy tales, and gothic horror.

Perhaps my high expectations contributed to my lack of enjoyment. I had a hard time getting into the book—it opens with a long description of the town which features beautiful prose and very little plot. By the time I moved to the next chapter, I found myself unable to connect with the characters and the plot seemed rather thin. This is a slow burn of a book that’s better suited to highly patient readers.

Thanks to Tor for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This wasn't quite what I was expecting when I began it -- I thought it would be more contained, and instead, the prose and plot are, as the title suggests, flyaway -- but lyrical and atmospheric and compelling, once you relax into what Jennings is trying to do. And what is that, exactly? Well, I would say that she sets out to do two things: 1), transplant some traditional western European fairy tales into the arid Australian outback, and 2), capture both the sense of wonder and disorientation that would accompany being in the midst of a fairy tale, rather than just reading about it in the book. And what's the likelihood that only one fairy tale would be involved? After all, the "originals" frequently feature similar character types. The result in Jennings' novel is both horrifying and thoughtful -- a little bit The Pied Piper, a little bit The Wild Swans, a little bit The Island of Dr. Moreau. It made me think of trust - the trust between siblings, and the trust between children and their parents, and how the latter can be developed, changed, and not infrequently, betrayed.

Flyaway is a beautifully written, creepy, and atmospheric story. Gorgeous imagery is the backdrop is this creepy tale. The story is rooted in the mystery of Bettina’s yearning to find her father. And when she receives a mysterious letter, she must figure out the truth of her story.

The story was very reminiscent of Neil Gaiman with elements of magical realism, where monsters and magic appeared on the page. Where the reader unearths family secrets that have long since been buried and encounter with creepy creatures that one wouldn’t want to meet in the dark, it is an immersive read that pulls you into the world, and like the characters, you have to claw your way out.

I've tried several times now to get into this book and I just... can't do it. Jennings is an amazing illustrator, but her writing left something to be desired. It was awkward and overwritten, like you could feel the author trying so hard to create an air of mystery that it just didn't work. I know I was supposed to be enamored but it all felt unnatural and unconvincing.

The style in which Flyaway was written just didn't work for me. It made me feel like I couldn't get to know the characters as well as I would have liked and overshadowed the plot.

Flyaway is seriously creepy and extremely weird. It also proves that a place doesn’t need to be dark, gloomy and cold in order to generate plenty of shivers and chills. There’s plenty to be scared of in the hot, dry and sun parched, and there are just as many lonely places in the Australian Bush as there are in the dark castles of Europe or the ghost towns of the American West.

And family is everywhere. If most people are killed by someone they know, and most accidents occur in or near the home, it makes entirely too much creeptastic sense that your relatives are the ones you need to be afraid of the most, especially in an isolated place like Inglewell. Because Bettina Scott has more reasons to be afraid of her entire family than any one young woman ever should.

At first I thought Inglewell was going to turn out to be a kind of Brigadoon. Was I ever wrong!

Also at first, I thought the problem was that Bettina Scott was being drugged by her mother. There was certainly something wrong with Bettina and that relationship. And in the end there definitely was – just not exactly what I thought at the beginning.

Actually nothing about this story was exactly what I thought. Flyaway is as grim as any of Grimm’s Fairy Tales in the original versions, without the moralizing lesson at the end.

There’s a saying that the world is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we CAN imagine. But the world this author has imagined is way stranger than anywhere I’d ever want to be. Maybe that’s the point of that saying after all.

Escape Rating B-: This was weird. I know, I’ve said that already. But it was – very creepy and extremely weird. It’s also the darkest of dark fantasy, the kind that falls right over the border into horror.

It’s also the kind of horror that sort of, I think spirals out might be the best phrase, from a beginning that doesn’t seem too outre. Not that Bettina’s relationship with her mother doesn’t feel wrong from the very beginning, but at first it’s the kind of wrong that could have a logical explanation – or at least as logical as brainwashing, or drugs, or Munchausen syndrome by proxy. All horrible but not supernatural.

But as the story goes on, the story of Bettina breaking away from her mother, it’s interspersed with stories of supernatural horror that all take place in Inglewell, in the not too distant past. At first those stories don’t seem related, but as those stories catch up to Bettina’s “now’ we learn just how isolated, insular and downright creepy the area really is.

It’s like the isolation distilled the creep factor into something that really, really shouldn’t be running around in this world – but is. A something that every once in a while sucks in a new victim, and that entirely too many residents seem to accept as just part of life there.

But I left this book extremely glad that I don’t have to. I’m still creeped out. I really need a cocoa and a lie down after this one. This is not a way I ever want to pass again.

I have been interested by this book since a long time, to start with the wonderful cover (made by the author themselves), then by the presentation (all that I liked!) and to finish the blurb, as I have loved many Holly Black's books.

Hum. Flyaway is clearly for me a "hit or a miss" and, if I didn't really disliked this story, I didn't find much to get my teeth into.

What I rather liked  was the immersion in the characters' world, even if I was disappointed by the lack of substance in their story, where much is hinted and nearly nothing is really explained. Coincidentally I was rereading at the same time two favourite books of mine, "We're all completely fine" and "Harrisson Squared" by Daryl Gregory, and thought their stories infinitely superior, for very similar promises (or so I thought).

Then, I didn't understand the necessity of such a long preamble for such a short story (short stories should be riveting in my opinion) especially as it seemed only there to expose the author's style. If you think about skimming all the pretty sentences, there wouldn't be much remaining of the story, which is always an irredeemable flaw for the reader I am. I'm not much of an admirer of stylistic effects, but you may make your own idea by reading the extracts below!

Extracts:

"She tried to ignore it, not to find a pattern, but there were -feelings. Impressions of violet shadows and chill golden sunlight, the twisting nets of liquid day through brown water, the scudding lights of high clouds at dawn, the blazing of stars in blue night and beneath all that, echoes of darkness like centuries in rocks, and the promise of the unknown behind bleak hills."

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

Bettina has grown up in a small town in Australia where people seem to just up and disappear. She's a young woman who has had good manners and decorum drummed into her by her somewhat aloof mother. Her father left them and even her two brothers disappeared but Bettina has very little recollection of the circumstances until a note turns up. Bettina has shied away from others in town knowing her mother expects her to always be ladylike but she needs answers and finally reaches out but what she discovers changes everything.
This jumps about and it is almost as if the author wants her readers to be confused. Chapters about side characters, supporting characters with their own weird experiences and then there's the disconcerting sense of something watching, ready to gobble characters up. If blunt it took me a while to really like Bettina but as the story progressed and it became apparent that her memories were clouded I did have more sympathy for her. I did like the explanation but still feel the ending lacked quite a lot. Still if you are looking for a creepy, short read then I'm sure many will enjoy working out exactly what is going on.
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

It took me a long while to get my bearings in this one. The prose at the beginning is very purple: circuitous and overly detailed and not going very much of anywhere. And then we're introduced to our main character and she's... well she's not a whole person - and there's definitely something going on. But it all takes so long to actually happen that when it did I was floored.

It turns out most of this story is constructed in the remarkably two-faced way that modern southern Gothic is written - and it isn't until we get the contrast of Trish (city girl with her modern notions and tattoo and brashness) that we really cop on to what's happening. From there the story picks up and doesn't let you go.

Interwoven with local folk tales (all of which are surprisingly only at most one generation removed from our young trio of protagonists, but still somehow carry the vagueness of legend), we get depth and backstory without needing to really see the truth. They do get a little bit too heavy-handed and obvious by the end but at that point the whole story has changed.

I wasn't expecting the gore. But it was a pleasant surprise.

Flyaway gave me strong Shirley Jackson We Have Always Lived in the Castle vibes. Dark, despite the harsh Australian sun, atmospheric, family secrets - it was breathtaking. While nothing was overtly scary, Jennings' beautiful and haunting prose sometimes made my skin crawl and shiver even though I was reading the book outside on a sunny 85 degree day.

Flyaway was a treat to read. I plowed through it within an afternoon, completely unable to set it down. Jennings's writing was heady and left me with a dazed fleeting feeling of being in the sun too long.

I read this. I re-read parts to be sure I read the words on the page, and in the best way possible I am not 100% certain what exactly has come to pass in Runagate and would not have it any other way.

The best horror, the best gothic thrillers and fables of suspense leave the reader questioning and pondering. They leave the reader slightly ill at ease and with a sense of "if only I could draw back the curtain a little further'. Flyaway manages this with measurable success, creating a lore on the back of legends capable of standing on its own.