Kingfisher - Rozie Kelly

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2026 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

A creative writing academic falls under the spell of his colleague, a lauded author whose life seems to shimmer with a freedom he cannot reach. At home, there is Michael: beautiful, steady, safe. But this wordsmith is something else entirely – she is restless, luminous, untouchable.

As his fixation deepens, the boundaries between admiration, desire and possession begin to blur. His Kingfisher – as he thinks of her – draws him further from the life he knows, into a world shaped by art, longing and illusion.

Then illness arrives, closing in on them all, and the tightrope he’s been walking starts to sway.

Kingfisher is a beautifully crafted novel of queer desire and ambition, grief and creativity, and the fine lines between intimacy and obsession.