Kathleen Jennings Books in Order

Bettina lives quietly with her mother after her father and brothers disappear. An unexpected note draws her into the scrublands beyond her Australian town, where unsettling folklore and buried family secrets challenge everything she has accepted about her life.

Nine train journeys through Massachusetts, New York State and England become a collection of poetic travel vignettes. Passing landscapes, everyday details and unexpected metaphors capture the shifting relationship between observation, imagination and the motion of travel.

Village couples seek a magical stag’s blessing before they marry, taking golden rings from its antlers. When one determined suitor makes a rash choice to secure a woman’s love, the consequences disturb the community’s familiar traditions.

Moving between poetry and prose, this short work examines the familiar figures and patterns of fairy tales. Shifting perspectives and possibilities invite readers to reconsider their horrors, wonders and the many ways old stories can be transformed.

Twelve fantastical stories explore journeys, debts, disguises and lessons that resist easy understanding. From an unusual singer in a restless city to encounters with strange creatures and hidden mysteries, familiar tales turn toward unsettling and unexpected possibilities.

Charlie plans to leave Bellworth after settling his dead aunt’s house, until a woman with roses growing through her skin arrives. Together they uncover the town’s haunted secrets and confront consequences reaching back to a decision from his childhood.

Returning to her family’s hometown for a wedding, a woman stays with her cousins in their grandmother’s house. Family stories and unfamiliar details reveal that the people of Connorville may be stranger than they appear.