A fabulous debut of folk tales and fantasies by an award winning author and illustrator.
Small fires start in the hearts of Kathleen Jennings's characters and irresistibly spread to those around them. Journeys are taken, debts repaid, disguises put on, and lessons offered — although not often learned — in these fantastic tales. Jennings's confident voice lulls readers into stepping off the known paths to find "Undine Love," "The Heart of Owl Abbas," and further unexpected places and people.
August 18, 2023
Following her debut, Flyaway (2020), Jennings here compiles a collection of 12 of her previously published short stories. Samplings of her elegant fantasies include "The Heart of Owl Abbas," a beautifully detailed tale of a lonely songwriter who sends anonymous compositions to a recently arrived virtuoso, which unfortunately brings her presence to the attention of their dissipated ruler. In "Ella and the Flame," three sisters and a child spin wondrous tales while awaiting their cruel neighbors' unjustified vengeance, and in "Not to Be Taken," the survivor of a murdered family returns home after decades away intent on finding a place for her burgeoning collection of poison bottles. As a riff on "Sleeping Beauty," "A Hedge of Yellow Roses" has a fully-awake but abandoned lady faire hoping for rescue by the unwitting knight who stumbled into her thorn-encrusted compound. The title story, "Kindling," links six customer scenarios to a clumsy but intuitive barmaid and her lovelorn admirer. Offer to fans of lyrically descriptive prose.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
October 15, 2023
Old tales and new turning points converge in a dozen fantasy-rich stories. Here's a treat for readers who wish each fable launched by the words "Once upon a time" would segue into a cautionary tale punctuated with mythical motifs and genuine danger. In the opener, "The Heart of Owl Abbas," a songwriter and a songbird in a mythical land bring forth one final song. "Skull and Hyssop" taps into the swashbuckling spirit of old Errol Flynn movies with its tale of a reluctant pirate and a low-powered enchantress at odds with a government flunky. Meanwhile, "A Hedge of Yellow Roses" is steeped in medieval lore; we meet a masterless knight on the run, carrying only "news of the murder of a King, a sword wrapped in a cape and tied to my saddle, and a secret so close to my own heart that even I did not then suspect it." A child walks through fire in "Ella and the Flame," two lovers of death find each other in "Not To Be Taken," and a stowaway boggart causes a bit of chaos in "On Pepper Creek." Even when the book veers past familiar fantasy into the boundlessly imaginative, it's still beautifully composed, as in "The Present Only Toucheth Thee," in which a storybook offers its own postmortem in the form of poetry, and "The Tangled Streets," which features an enchantress helping a troubled young man find his true form. More often, it's luridly imaginative--see the helpful amateur cryptozoologist in "Undine Love"--and genuinely exciting, like the ending of the title story: "No, I can't stay any longer. I've been tangled in this story for too long. I have tigers to hunt, dragons to slay. An old friend to find." Women with guts and men of good fortune in search of their personal treasures.
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