Boundaries blur. There are no maps. The skin of the world spirals out of control, bringing distant myths to fresh, vivid life. Expect the unexpected -- truths as slippery as blood and as sharp as bone.

From the razor-sharp imaginations of the best genre writers in Australia comes this new anthology of the gothic and the supernatural. Moving, surprising, erotic, unsettling and unrelenting in the desire to entertain, Southern Blood is the state of art of horror in Australia.

Deborah Biancotti
Simon Brown
David Carroll
Bill Congreve
Stephen Dedman
Terry Dowling
Robert Hood
Naomi Hatchman
Sue Isle
George Ivanoff
Rick Kennett
Rosaleen Love
Geoffrey Maloney
Kirstyn McDermott
Lucy Sussex
Sean Williams

From the editor's introduction...

The stories you are about to read range from the traditional Australian ghost story, Rick Kennett's 'In Quinn's Paddock', to the new serial killer profiling with a twist of Terry Dowling's 'Basic Black', and Sean Williams' 'Hunting Ground'. From the traditional fantasy setting of Naomi Hatchman's 'The Pique of Death', to the modern urban gothic of Stephen Dedman's 'Madly' and Lucy Sussex's 'La Sentinelle', even to the country gothic of Kirstyn McDermott's 'The Truth about Pug Roberts'.

Here you will find thrillers, but there are also atmospheric stories, and thoughtful stories. Stories that will excite you and scare you; stories of landscape and madness, bravery and fear. Stories of revenge, murder and the plain orneriness of the world we live in. There are stories in which the 'other', the supernatural, triumphs, others in which the characters fight back and find redemption in love, friendship, and their own courage. Some of the stories will last only minutes, others an hour or so, for the times when you sit back in your armchair with a glass of port at night and imagine, for just a moment before you begin reading, that we might allow you to relax.

Boundaries blur. Expect the unexpected. If it can be imagined in the heart or in the mind of even one human being, then it is happening now, in the dark where no one can see ...

Southern Blood: New Australian Tales of the Supernatural
Edited By Bill Congreve
ISBN 0958073902, $19.95

To purchase this book, go to the How to Order page. For customers outside Australia, go to The Australian Online Bookshop.

MirrorDanse

SOUTHERN BLOOD

New Australian Tales of the Supernatural

Edited by Bill Congreve