Kingfisher : Shortlisted for the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction

Kingfisher : Shortlisted for the 2026 Women's Prize for FictionAuthor: Rozie Kelly Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945) Published on 3 April 2025 by Saraband Contraband in the United Kingdom. Paperback 208 pages 197 x 129 x 12 152g Shortlisted for the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction 'A gentle and compassionate novel that explores the nuances of queer love and friendship.' Derek Owusu, The GuardianWhen a creative writing academic becomes infatuated with his colleague the poet it is not long before it begins

Author: Rozie Kelly

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 3 April 2025 by Saraband / Contraband in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 208 pages
197 x 129 x 12 | 152g

Shortlisted for the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction 'A gentle and compassionate novel that explores the nuances of queer love and friendship.' Derek Owusu, The GuardianWhen a creative writing academic becomes infatuated with his colleague – the poet – it is not long before it begins to threaten his relationship with his partner, Michael. Michael is beautiful. Michael is safe. But the poet is everything he isn’t; she has everything he wants. While he writes about steel and sex, she dreams about the movements of swallows. While he tends to his budding career, she writes from her big, white house in the woods. As he slips between his old life and this new one, his fixation grows into something more powerful. The poet, his Kingfisher, is his sole focus. He is hypnotised.

But when simultaneous illnesses threaten to destroy the precarious reality he clings to, he’s forced to question what he can and cannot take from someone. This is a novel about grief, power and desire – and the tangles in between that make up a life.