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Kingfisher
An electrifying debut novel about grief, power and desire—and the tangles in between that make up a life.
When a creative writing academic becomes infatuated with his colleague—the poet—his fascination soon 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.
Meanwhile, his homophobic and spiteful mother—who cast a shadow over his childhood —is continuing to make his life difficult. As he is pulled back and forth between these two different worlds, his fixation on the poet, his Kingfisher, grows into something more powerful. She becomes his sole focus. He is hypnotized.
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.
When a creative writing academic becomes infatuated with his colleague—the poet—his fascination soon 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.
Meanwhile, his homophobic and spiteful mother—who cast a shadow over his childhood —is continuing to make his life difficult. As he is pulled back and forth between these two different worlds, his fixation on the poet, his Kingfisher, grows into something more powerful. She becomes his sole focus. He is hypnotized.
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.
217 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 3, 2025
54 people are currently reading
1910 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
March 8, 2026
a perceptive, funny, and tender novel. it went in a different direction from my initial impression of it, but i liked that shift. beautiful, soothing writing that sucked me in from the first page.
February 22, 2025
I don’t think I have the words for how much I love this book yet
March 17, 2026
4.5 ⭐️’s
This is the book I was most excited to read from the Women’s Prize Long list.
And as I finished Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly I had that feeling I’m always chasing a little bit, the sense that a book met me somewhere real, not polished, not overly arranged, just…human.
It’s a short novel, but it carries a surprising emotional density.
I read it quickly, but it didn’t feel slight. It felt concentrated.
Like everything in it had been compressed down to only what mattered, and then left slightly open so it could breathe.
What I kept noticing as I read was how comfortable Kelly is letting things be messy.
The relationships aren’t clean. The inner lives aren’t fully articulated.
People are acting, reacting, circling something they don’t quite have language for yet.
That familiar feeling of living inside your life before you understand it.
And I recognized that. That space.
There’s a kind of restraint in the writing that I really appreciated.
She doesn’t over explain.
She trusts you to sit inside the ambiguity, which gives the whole book a quiet honesty.
It feels emotionally true in a way that more “resolved” novels sometimes don’t.
Underneath it all, what she’s really working with feels like the instability of identity inside relationship.
Who am I when I’m with you? Who do I become in proximity to your needs, your desires, your version of me? Where do I disappear, and where do I resist?
There’s a subtle tension running through the book around that question.
The push and pull between closeness and self-erasure.
Between wanting connection and needing to stay intact.
It’s embedded in how people move toward and away from each other.
And the messiness starts to feel less like chaos and more like truth.
I loved that she lets the characters remain slightly unresolved, which feels deeply aligned with real life.
Most of us don’t arrive at neat conclusions about who we are in relationship.
We keep adjusting, noticing, waking up in small ways.
For such a short book, she creates a full emotional landscape.
Nothing feels wasted, but nothing feels overworked either.
There’s a rawness that gives it energy, like she resisted the urge to make it prettier than it needed to be.
I closed it feeling both satisfied and quietly stirred.
Like something had been named without being spelled out.
Those are the books that tend to stay with me.
This is the book I was most excited to read from the Women’s Prize Long list.
And as I finished Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly I had that feeling I’m always chasing a little bit, the sense that a book met me somewhere real, not polished, not overly arranged, just…human.
It’s a short novel, but it carries a surprising emotional density.
I read it quickly, but it didn’t feel slight. It felt concentrated.
Like everything in it had been compressed down to only what mattered, and then left slightly open so it could breathe.
What I kept noticing as I read was how comfortable Kelly is letting things be messy.
The relationships aren’t clean. The inner lives aren’t fully articulated.
People are acting, reacting, circling something they don’t quite have language for yet.
That familiar feeling of living inside your life before you understand it.
And I recognized that. That space.
There’s a kind of restraint in the writing that I really appreciated.
She doesn’t over explain.
She trusts you to sit inside the ambiguity, which gives the whole book a quiet honesty.
It feels emotionally true in a way that more “resolved” novels sometimes don’t.
Underneath it all, what she’s really working with feels like the instability of identity inside relationship.
Who am I when I’m with you? Who do I become in proximity to your needs, your desires, your version of me? Where do I disappear, and where do I resist?
There’s a subtle tension running through the book around that question.
The push and pull between closeness and self-erasure.
Between wanting connection and needing to stay intact.
It’s embedded in how people move toward and away from each other.
And the messiness starts to feel less like chaos and more like truth.
I loved that she lets the characters remain slightly unresolved, which feels deeply aligned with real life.
Most of us don’t arrive at neat conclusions about who we are in relationship.
We keep adjusting, noticing, waking up in small ways.
For such a short book, she creates a full emotional landscape.
Nothing feels wasted, but nothing feels overworked either.
There’s a rawness that gives it energy, like she resisted the urge to make it prettier than it needed to be.
I closed it feeling both satisfied and quietly stirred.
Like something had been named without being spelled out.
Those are the books that tend to stay with me.
March 15, 2026
4.25⭐ That was exceptional for a debut. more thoughts to come!
December 2, 2025
Stunning but devastating debut. I must admit it felt slightly unfinished… though I may just be someone who prefers not to have loose ends when I finish the last page. (Very curious about the overheard phone call and who was on the other line?) I look forward to reading more from this author someday.
March 21, 2026
"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."
Might be an unpopular opinion, but I do not like books that have protagonists with no redeeming qualities. I saw someone compare Rozie Kelly with Sally Rooney and I went "now it makes sense!" - I am not a fan of masochistic characters who wantonly choose to derail their lives. Of course, except in this case, I just didn't understand the central character.
In Kingfisher, a creative writing professor in a stable relationship becomes infatuated with his older colleague, “the poet”—enough to leave his partner, Michael. Michael, is someone who endures the professor’s difficult, homophobic mother and navigates the complexities of an open relationship (polyamorous) —something the protagonist can neither accept nor articulate. What follows is a kind of identity drift, where the professor shifts versions of himself depending on whether he is with his partner, his mother, his friend Jennifer, or the poet herself, who is slowly dying.
On paper, this fluidity—this polymorphism of self—should make for a compelling psychological exploration. But I found myself unable to get past the protagonist’s inner world. No amount of elegant prose could quite bridge that gap for me.
And the prose is elegant. The recurring bird imagery is striking, and there’s a lyrical quality to the writing that often elevates even the more uncomfortable moments. The novel does gather some emotional momentum toward the end—but by then, I had already stopped investing in the central character.
Maybe I missed the point. Maybe the point is the messiness—the lack of resolution, the discomfort, the emotional dissonance.
Or maybe this book simply wasn’t for me.
Most of us are poets, she said. It’s just a question of how it comes out."
Might be an unpopular opinion, but I do not like books that have protagonists with no redeeming qualities. I saw someone compare Rozie Kelly with Sally Rooney and I went "now it makes sense!" - I am not a fan of masochistic characters who wantonly choose to derail their lives. Of course, except in this case, I just didn't understand the central character.
In Kingfisher, a creative writing professor in a stable relationship becomes infatuated with his older colleague, “the poet”—enough to leave his partner, Michael. Michael, is someone who endures the professor’s difficult, homophobic mother and navigates the complexities of an open relationship (polyamorous) —something the protagonist can neither accept nor articulate. What follows is a kind of identity drift, where the professor shifts versions of himself depending on whether he is with his partner, his mother, his friend Jennifer, or the poet herself, who is slowly dying.
On paper, this fluidity—this polymorphism of self—should make for a compelling psychological exploration. But I found myself unable to get past the protagonist’s inner world. No amount of elegant prose could quite bridge that gap for me.
And the prose is elegant. The recurring bird imagery is striking, and there’s a lyrical quality to the writing that often elevates even the more uncomfortable moments. The novel does gather some emotional momentum toward the end—but by then, I had already stopped investing in the central character.
Maybe I missed the point. Maybe the point is the messiness—the lack of resolution, the discomfort, the emotional dissonance.
Or maybe this book simply wasn’t for me.
March 13, 2026
Literally not once did this book go in a direction I was expecting. I do think if it had gone the way it initially seemed, I would have enjoyed this more, but nonetheless very unique, very nuanced, and very grey.
I've read interviews with the author and her message time and time again seems to be that there isn't anything in particular she wants her reader to take away from the book, but that she wants them to feel strongly about it. This is evident to me, because while reading I just kept thinking what is the fucking point of this? But I still felt strongly pulled along.
What I think I'm taking from this is that there is an inevitable impact on your life that each person you know carries, and something else i can't really put into words
Also I love the avian imagery and language, but I do think that this aspect wasn't expanded to its fullest.
I've read interviews with the author and her message time and time again seems to be that there isn't anything in particular she wants her reader to take away from the book, but that she wants them to feel strongly about it. This is evident to me, because while reading I just kept thinking what is the fucking point of this? But I still felt strongly pulled along.
What I think I'm taking from this is that there is an inevitable impact on your life that each person you know carries, and something else i can't really put into words
Also I love the avian imagery and language, but I do think that this aspect wasn't expanded to its fullest.
March 21, 2026
A creative writing academic falls in love with a charismatic poet colleague, despite having a boyfriend. That's the simple synopsis, but this is so much more than that.
This went in a direction I wasn't expecting, but ended up being a reflective and introspective look into grief and love. How one person can enter your life at the right time, change you and leave. We never know the poets real name, she's constantly left just out of touch, a mythical kingfisher for our protagonist yet we see all facets of her through his eyes. Their relationship, and the protagonist's relationships with his boyfriend Michael and mother Hattie are complicated, multifaceted and fully formed. I was surprised to find myself laughing a number if times through this too, glimmers of humanity and moments of real life sprinkled through the harder moments. It's a great exploration of what it is to be human - messy, joyful and full of life.
This went in a direction I wasn't expecting, but ended up being a reflective and introspective look into grief and love. How one person can enter your life at the right time, change you and leave. We never know the poets real name, she's constantly left just out of touch, a mythical kingfisher for our protagonist yet we see all facets of her through his eyes. Their relationship, and the protagonist's relationships with his boyfriend Michael and mother Hattie are complicated, multifaceted and fully formed. I was surprised to find myself laughing a number if times through this too, glimmers of humanity and moments of real life sprinkled through the harder moments. It's a great exploration of what it is to be human - messy, joyful and full of life.
April 16, 2025
Just finished this book, and it's left me staring out my bedroom window, not wanting lunch.
It's poetry. It's descriptive. It's beautiful. It made me laugh a good few times. The author relates everything to smell which I'm obsessed with, some I don't get , some feel like how did she get that moment related to smell so perfectly.
The start frustrated me not knowing anyone's names but I grew to love it and knew them so well as characters that didn't end up needing to know.
It made me think, love the writing, and wish I could have made the chat she did in Ripon.
Obsessed and feel like I will definitely read it again in life which I don't feel often.
It's poetry. It's descriptive. It's beautiful. It made me laugh a good few times. The author relates everything to smell which I'm obsessed with, some I don't get , some feel like how did she get that moment related to smell so perfectly.
The start frustrated me not knowing anyone's names but I grew to love it and knew them so well as characters that didn't end up needing to know.
It made me think, love the writing, and wish I could have made the chat she did in Ripon.
Obsessed and feel like I will definitely read it again in life which I don't feel often.
August 28, 2025
This was fantastic and really different to what I expected. Tried it out as the author is local to me.
The audiobook is beautifully read. So many interesting, different characters and so real - the details of food you can manage when on chemo or Hettie’s strong tea.
Loved getting into the main character’s head, his relationships with his parents, Michael, The Poet and Jessica - I loved The Poet and Jessica.
(If anyone reading this knows - I really want to know what the penguin classics book with joy on the cover was - maybe it was referenced earlier but with an audiobook it’s hard to find).
The audiobook is beautifully read. So many interesting, different characters and so real - the details of food you can manage when on chemo or Hettie’s strong tea.
Loved getting into the main character’s head, his relationships with his parents, Michael, The Poet and Jessica - I loved The Poet and Jessica.
(If anyone reading this knows - I really want to know what the penguin classics book with joy on the cover was - maybe it was referenced earlier but with an audiobook it’s hard to find).
August 13, 2025
The writing in this is beautiful but it reminds me so much of Normal People in the way that I just do not get most of the characters or they feel too nuanced for me.
March 16, 2026
This is why I read the Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist. I’d never have picked this book up alone and yet I really enjoyed it. Very different prose and story to my usual, more literal, choices. Interesting to read a woman writing a MMC. Love, illness, family dynamics, queerness, friendship. A lot going on and it didn’t always entirely connect for me, I am not sure I’m clever enough to join the dots in such a poetic book (!) but very much enjoyed it and will remember it I think.
March 12, 2026
Would you love me if I was a bird?
Yes. He does.
Yes. He does.
March 20, 2026
wspaniała
March 12, 2026
Very smooth, beautiful, poetic writing, but I just couldn’t really feel anything for any of the characters. Felt quite Sally Rooney-esque. May have liked it more if it HAD SPEECH MARKS. Hate this trend.
August 17, 2025
4.5 this was so fucking good, like sally rooney but I hated it less?? I wrote a big long review on @thebookmark_mcr but god I love poetic fiction wrap me in your arms
December 17, 2025
I love the writing in this book. I don’t always understand the characters or their behavior but that’s ok. There was. Lot bout this book I liked.
March 15, 2026
I’m reading this because it’s on the women’s prize longlist for fiction, so I was surprised to find that our protagonist is a queer man in a same-sex relationship falling in love with an older woman he can’t be bothered to name but only calls “the poet”.
I can’t tell if we’re being progressive or regressive by including this much internalized misogyny in the women’s prize longlist.
Needless to say I thought women’s fiction centered mostly around women’s stories(?) was that wrong?
The first sentence is literally : “I can pinpoint, almost to the second, when I realized I wanted to fuck her.”
It’s so disappointing that a woman has written a story where the main character is a man and the woman is only used as a tool for him to process his life circumstances. It felt like he was using her as a stand in for his horrible mother. (Because of course it’s always the mothers fault right?)
The mother was also an absolute caricature of a miserable old woman. And it lacked any and all nuance to make her and their relationship believable. Having a very strained relationship with my own mother, I feel that the author missed the mark here. If the mom is horrible 100% of the time on all fronts, it doesn’t explain why the son loves her so much. But the connection between them is never explored, just assumed for some reason. And it doesn’t even begin to touch the complexity of a relationship like that. That the author herself has said that her own mother is a saint might be why this isn’t believable.
All in all, I was very disappointed by this. I’m disappointed that this is supposedly the best of women’s stories by female authors - a secondary or cruel side character to a man as the main character. Does this book even pass the bechdel test?
I can’t tell if we’re being progressive or regressive by including this much internalized misogyny in the women’s prize longlist.
Needless to say I thought women’s fiction centered mostly around women’s stories(?) was that wrong?
The first sentence is literally : “I can pinpoint, almost to the second, when I realized I wanted to fuck her.”
It’s so disappointing that a woman has written a story where the main character is a man and the woman is only used as a tool for him to process his life circumstances. It felt like he was using her as a stand in for his horrible mother. (Because of course it’s always the mothers fault right?)
The mother was also an absolute caricature of a miserable old woman. And it lacked any and all nuance to make her and their relationship believable. Having a very strained relationship with my own mother, I feel that the author missed the mark here. If the mom is horrible 100% of the time on all fronts, it doesn’t explain why the son loves her so much. But the connection between them is never explored, just assumed for some reason. And it doesn’t even begin to touch the complexity of a relationship like that. That the author herself has said that her own mother is a saint might be why this isn’t believable.
All in all, I was very disappointed by this. I’m disappointed that this is supposedly the best of women’s stories by female authors - a secondary or cruel side character to a man as the main character. Does this book even pass the bechdel test?
March 7, 2026
This is 200 pages split into 50 chapters, which means short chapters, some only a paragraph or two long, and I really like a short chapter as they help the story flow more. This book had a lot of work to do because it had no speech marks and I cannot stand books with no speech marks, and I'm inclined to hate books that have no speech marks, so year, I needed the story and characters to do a lot of heavy lifting and I think it was too big an ask. I'm not a prude in any way, and sex scenes do have their place in literature but it felt odd in this. It was like she was in competition with herself as to how many references to sex she could put in, whether it worked in context or not, like she had to prove it was a grown-up book by repeatedly mentioning penises...penii? I can acknowledge the writing is beautiful but it felt like she was more focussed on that than actually making the plot interesting or giving us any character depth.
March 16, 2026
Holy shit this was amazing. I was completely shaken by how deeply this book affected me.
The narrator is such a tender, thoughtful character. You really feel him struggling as a young man trying to figure out the world, but there’s something so fundamentally good-hearted about him that you can’t help but care about everything he’s going through.
This is a love story, but it’s also a story about intense loss — the kind that sits in your chest and doesn’t let go. The emotional weight of it is incredible. At the same time, there’s something very honest about the way the narrator sees the world. He’s not cynical or hardened; he’s open, observant, and deeply human.
It’s no wonder this made the Women’s Prize longlist. The writing is beautiful and the story is so carefully and thoughtfully executed. I honestly devoured it.
There are so many incredible books on this year’s Women’s Prize longlist that I don’t know how they’ll narrow it down, but this one absolutely deserves to be in the conversation.
I’m just grateful to be reading at a time when there are so many talented women writing books like this.
The narrator is such a tender, thoughtful character. You really feel him struggling as a young man trying to figure out the world, but there’s something so fundamentally good-hearted about him that you can’t help but care about everything he’s going through.
This is a love story, but it’s also a story about intense loss — the kind that sits in your chest and doesn’t let go. The emotional weight of it is incredible. At the same time, there’s something very honest about the way the narrator sees the world. He’s not cynical or hardened; he’s open, observant, and deeply human.
It’s no wonder this made the Women’s Prize longlist. The writing is beautiful and the story is so carefully and thoughtfully executed. I honestly devoured it.
There are so many incredible books on this year’s Women’s Prize longlist that I don’t know how they’ll narrow it down, but this one absolutely deserves to be in the conversation.
I’m just grateful to be reading at a time when there are so many talented women writing books like this.
March 14, 2026
3.5 rounded up to 4 stars
I only read this because it was on the 2026 Women's Prize longlist and I was able to get with an Audible credit. It turned me off at the beginning and if not reading in audio, I suspect I would have put it aside. However, it improved as it went on. The young man at the center of the story was struggling with himself. He had significant mother issues. He matured as the book progressed, mostly due to his relationship with the poet and by the end of the book seemed to have righted himself and come to terms with his relationship with his mother, be it a bit late. I am not a fan though of the careless drug use.
I only read this because it was on the 2026 Women's Prize longlist and I was able to get with an Audible credit. It turned me off at the beginning and if not reading in audio, I suspect I would have put it aside. However, it improved as it went on. The young man at the center of the story was struggling with himself. He had significant mother issues. He matured as the book progressed, mostly due to his relationship with the poet and by the end of the book seemed to have righted himself and come to terms with his relationship with his mother, be it a bit late. I am not a fan though of the careless drug use.
March 19, 2026
Picked this up cause it’s long listed for Women’s Prize (Fiction) 2026. I’m between 3-4 stars for this book and decided with 4 mainly because of the writing. While I love the writing, I don’t really like the characters. It reminded me a lot of Sally Rooney’s Normal People - tad boring at times with a touch of heartbreak.
March 16, 2026
I think this will appeal to a lot of people because of its brevity. But it’s not an easy read and quite challenging. Unusually for the women’s prize, it is seen through a male lens. There is also a reverse age gap relationship and various serious themes all told using poetic prose. A good example of queer fiction, showing power dynamics and homophobia. I liked the use of birds and water as symbols.
March 15, 2026
My heart 💔
Read
March 10, 2026А book that made me feel present in the settings alongside the characters. I loved the characters—they felt very grounded and real. I appreciated how their normality left room for depth without any forced grandeur. It reminded me of Cunningham’s Day, Swift’s Mothering Sunday, and Chopin’s The Awakening. Such resolute delicacy.
March 7, 2026
Finished it only because it’s on the long list for the Women’s prize for fiction.
January 30, 2026
This was an extremely enjoyable story that was hard to put down and the last image literally knocked me off my feet. Complex relationship dynamics were yum!
I feel like the bird imagery felt a bit shoehorned in towards the end though? My only critique!
I feel like the bird imagery felt a bit shoehorned in towards the end though? My only critique!
August 17, 2025
Another book club read.
I think that of all the 2025 book club reads, this is the best so far. Somewhere in the league of Bunny- but less of the (excuse my French) mindf*ck that I experienced reading that book. We’re seeing the same unreliable / not likeable narrator who doesn’t really take initiative, but in a softer way. This guy is more convincing, but I still don’t get him, exactly.
I quite liked the themes of obsessive love and the way that they manifest in this book. In fact, there’s quite a few expressions of what love could be- some genuine and some less so. And I really enjoyed the dissecting and analysing that in the discussion we had on Thursday.
The true rating I’d give this book is a 3.75 / 3.8.
I think that of all the 2025 book club reads, this is the best so far. Somewhere in the league of Bunny- but less of the (excuse my French) mindf*ck that I experienced reading that book. We’re seeing the same unreliable / not likeable narrator who doesn’t really take initiative, but in a softer way. This guy is more convincing, but I still don’t get him, exactly.
I quite liked the themes of obsessive love and the way that they manifest in this book. In fact, there’s quite a few expressions of what love could be- some genuine and some less so. And I really enjoyed the dissecting and analysing that in the discussion we had on Thursday.
The true rating I’d give this book is a 3.75 / 3.8.
May 1, 2025
I thought this was a stunning debut novel. I was immersed in it from the start and found myself visualising the characters and scenes as the descriptions were so beautifully written. Interesting perspectives on love, grief, age gap relationships. Very interested to see what this talented young novelist produces next
Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews