“[S]tunning…[Kelly’s] vital, fresh debut novel is highly recommended.” Library Journal

“A gentle and compassionate novel that explores the nuances of queer love and friendship.” The Guardian, Derek Owusu

“a tenderly written meditation on art, love and life that’s as much about the search for self as for connection.” Marie Claire, editor’s pick

"Kelly writes the messiness of power dynamics well." Telegraph

“Rozie Kelly finds beauty in the messiness of being human in her meditation on grief, power, desire, our search for identity, how we love and the consequences when we fall short.” Women’s Prize for Fiction Judges

“Kelly observes relationships and their intricate power dynamics with precision and grace. This sublime novel is skilful in the extreme, balancing brutality and care with the deftest touch.” The Bookseller

“… bound for success” The Yorkshire Post

★Spanish rights sold.
★SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2026 WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION.

She smelled like jasmine. No, not exactly. She smelled like the earth beneath a jasmine plant on a hot day. Most of us are poets, she said. It’s just a question of how it comes out.

When 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.

Rozie Kelly is a prose writer based in West Yorkshire. After reading English Literature and Creative Writing she moved to Hebden Bridge, where she works for the Arvon Foundation, hosting creative writing courses. She was shortlisted for the PFD Queer Fiction Prize 2023 and is one of the eight participants in the inaugural Prototype Development Programme, which offers extended support and career development to emerging writers and artists. She won the 2024 NorthBound Book Award for Kingfisher, her debut novel.