LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

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.