2012 clan destine press catazine

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2012

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Clan Destine Press



CONTENTS

KERRY GREENWOOD 4

RC DANIELLS 10DAVID GREAGG 14PATRICIA BERNARD 18NARRELLE M HARRIS 22

ANJELO RATNACHANDRA 25A.K. WROX 30ALISON GOODMAN 36LINDY CAMERON 39VIKKI PETRAITIS 42SANDY CURTIS 46JANE ROUTLEY 50SISTERS IN CRIME AUSTRALIA 53

www.clandestinepress.com.au



Historically speaking

I grew up with the sounds of other languages swirling around myyouthful ears. Other words, other intonations, different stresses, different

meanings.I found it fascinating that you could have words which meant the same, in

translation, but bore different meanings, like calling someone a cow in Arabicor in French. One is a compliment, one is an insult.

But my love affair with history probably began when I was f ive andstanding outside the Geelong Road State School, holding my mother’s hand,on a hot summer’s day. I was very uneasy and really, really wanting to gohome, where there were no big rough children chasing each other and yelling

and hitting each other. A boy fell over on that heartless asphalt playgroundand skinned his knee and there was blood. I was horrified.

Also I was wearing a hand-me-down yellow dress, out of which anorangeade stain had never washed, and I felt unsightly.

I was so small that I was viewing this Breughal scene through a forest of hems and knees. Then I bruised my nose on a straw shopping bag and wastrying not to cry when I felt that I was being watched.

Just at my eye level was a small girl; my height. She had a home-made

bowl haircut, deep brown beautiful eyes, and a velveteen purple dress withorange skyrockets on it. It was even uglier than mine.

Those eyes told me she was feeling exactly what I was feeling and I knewin an instant that she was my friend. I put out my hand. She put out hers. Hername was Themmy – and she is still my best friend.

KERRY GREENWOOD

THE DELPHICWOMEN TRILOGY: M EDEA ~ C ASSANDRA ~ E LECTRA

OUT OF THE B LACK L AND

[CREATOR OF THE PHRYNE FISHER

& CORINNA CHAPMAN MYSTERIES]



But she didn’t speak English then, so I had to learn Greek to talk to her;which I did badly, because she wanted to speak English as fast as possible.

But I began to pick out the Greek words in English and suddenly languagepossessed me. Xenos meant stranger, as in xenophobia; zoo meant animal, asin zoological gardens: poli meant many (and polis meant town); while demos

as in democracy meant a community of people.I became drunk on words and have stayed intoxicated ever since.And Greece, of course, was the source of ancient stories. I heard them told

as though they had happened in the next village: “There was the daughter of a king, and she was called Electra, because of her amber eyes…”

Then I read them in Charles Kingsley’s The Heroes. I borrowed books onarchaeology from the library. I was enthralled by a civilisation so complete, sobeautiful, so old. I read everything I could lay my hands on. I read Henry

Treece and Geoffrey Trease and Rosemary Sutcliff.I wondered, I dreamed, I walked the streets of Ancient Greece, buying a

cup of hot spiced wine and listening to the debates in the market place, orcouched amongst the asphodel with my goats, chewing a straw and gazing atthe Archaic sky. Whenever I didn’t like the present I would retreat to the past.

I had an arrangement with the lady who ran the local op shop. I wouldarrive there at 9am on Saturday, when she opened, and I was allowed to siton the floor and read as many books as I could until she shut at noon. I only

had 10 cents pocket money, enough for one book, and she would let me bringit back and swap it next week if I didn’t like it. I have never forgotten herkindness.

But one week, when I was 11 years old, instead of rushing in, plonkingmyself down and reading voraciously, book after book, I picked upHerodotus’ Histories (translated by Aubrey de Selicourt) and started to read.And I was hooked, addicted, trapped and snared.

On the first page was an account of the kidnapping by Phoenicians of Io,

daughter of Inarchus, off the beach in Argos, which started the Persian war.This was a whole book, written in ancient times (450-420 BC) that was stuffedwith stories. When the shop closed I bought it. I still have it.

Herodotus has never failed me. Many years later I took him to Egypt with



me – or rather, I took him back to Egypt; and he was as good a travel guide asLonely Planet. (Just as Pausanius was right about which Corinthian vil lageshad lice; and Marco Polo was still accurate when I was in China.)

Herodotus wrote about the last stand of the Spartans at Thermopylae in away which still reduces me to tears, because it is not triumphalist or war

loving but just factual.They fought in a way which will not be forgotten. Here they resisted to the last, with their swords, while they had them, and then with their hands and their teeth, until the Persians, coming onthem from behind, finally overwhelmed them.

Their epitaph is: Go tell the Spartans, passer-by That here,obedient to their laws, we lie.

It took me a long time to realise that this is not a complaint. They’re boasting.The minds of the Spartans were a long way from mine and therein lies thefascination of historical writing. I cannot, being born in the 20th century,duplicate the mind of someone born 2000 years ago. But I have to try...

My Italian fellow pupils, amused by my very clumsy Calabrese and sketchySiciliani, told me about the glories of Ancient Rome and the fact that Latinwas the base for French and Spanish (but not Greek).

I was learning French at school and found again the similar words: feneter

and fenetre; table and tavolo; terre and terra.So I then plunged again into everything I could find about Rome, so

different from Greece. And there was so much of it, always more to read. Idived and swam like a dolphin through strange seas of Plautus and Hesiodand Juvenal and Lucan.

First Greece and Rome, and then everywhere else, as I discovered bookson other ancient civilisations. Worlds full of fascinating things: Bronze Agecups and Iron Age wheelhouses; rings of ancient bluestone dragged from

Wales; step pyramids with blood running down thestairs; warriors in jaguar skins with blue featheredcrowns, lost worlds hacked from clinging vines oruncovered under shifting sands.

Kerry and a new history book: a picture of bliss. Sowhen I started writing novels I wrote about the past.

I wrote my first book when I was 16. It was afantasy, because I loved fantasy and fairy stories;

another way of not being here and now.But then, when I began in earnest – desperate for a

distraction from studying law at Melbourne University(I wanted to be a lawyer to help my own people but alot of Law is mind-bogglingly tedious) – I wrote a series



of novels about a highwayman in St Albans (England) in 1840. I was inspiredby Legal History research into the number of people who were actuallyexecuted in England. I had all the original documents in facsimile in theBaillieu. I had also a wonderful, inspirational professor, Dr Ruth Campbell,who told me always to read the original documents.

“Never trust historians, especially me,” she said.So I did as she told me, and read the newspapersfor 1928, which was not wasted, because it was theinspiration for my Phryne Fisher books.

But I never lost my love of the ancient world andfinally, being young and fizzing with stories, I wrote abook about Cassandra, daughter of the Trojan KingPriam, and priestess of Apollo, who prophesied the

fall of Troy but was not believed. I researched it ascarefully as I could. I re-read all the ancient authors. Ittook me a year.

Then I asked about for an academic who wouldlaunch it, and the semi-divine Dennis Pryor not onlyread but approved of it. And then, cruel fate, hebecame my source of last resort.

I recall the night, when writing Medea, that I could not remember the

Ancient Greek word for snake. Icthys – fish, yes. But snake, no.So I just rang Dennis despite the hour – around 3am – and asked him.He said, Ophis.I said, ‘of course’… and, I believe, simply hung up on the poor man.He forgave me. I later asked how he knew it was me and he said, quite

reasonably, that I was the only person of his wide acquaintance who wouldring at such an hour with such an enquiry.

They wouldn’t let me do Classics at Melbourne for some bureacraticreason so my Lat in is very poor. Dennis was aconsummate Latinist; and Juvenal was his main man.Dennis taught Latin to almost everyone. He would starthis first lesson by having them decline coca-cola (cocamcolam, cocae colae...) Also he was a darling.

His generosity and his tolerance of my insane theorieswas inexhaustible. He even offered to translate theOrphic Hymns for me, provided I promised not to getinvolved in the scholarly arguments about Orphism,which are labyrinthine. I promised. He translated.

It was Dennis who taught me that all translation isbetrayal. We have to do the best we can... and I havealways tried to do so.



I wrote Electra out of curiosity about theoriginal revenge drama.

I wrote Medea because I was shocked that‘everyone’ knew that she had killed her ownchildren – despite that being one of several

stories about the fate of her children – andbecause I could find no modern Medea,amongst female murderers.

Women do not kill their children to stop thehusband having them. They kill them for otherreasons. I wrote a book about real-life femalemurderers. Medea did not match.

So I wrote about her to find out what had happened. I drew on my

knowledge of remnant migrant populations for the people of Colchis; and onarchaeological discoveries of females buried with weapons made for their hands; made for the Scyths/Amazons, also mentioned by my beloved friendHerodotus in his Histories.

Ancient Egypt was easier to research than either Greece or Rome, because somuch more of it is still extant; including the Ancient Egyptians themselves, inmummified form. But there are always things that either no historian agrees

upon, or that they leave out.

Filling those voids for my Egypt book, Out of the Black Land , took me a year’swork and a visit to Egypt itself. I found myself at odds with what everyonethinks about Akhnaten; but that wasn’t unusual. And I’m not an academic, so Ididn’t mind.

I love the past. I always feel so safe there. That’s why I write historical novels.

Cassandra

by Kerry Greenwood

ISBN: 9780980790047

RRP $28

coming June 2012

Electra, book 3 in the Delphic Women trilogy, coming November 2012



Egypt in the 18th Dynasty is peaceful and prosperous until the newly-renamed

Pharaoh Akhnaten – not content with his own devotion to one god alone – plans to

suppress the worship of all other gods in the Black Land.

Ptah-hotep, a peasant boy studying to be a scribe,

wants to live a simple life in a Nile hut with his lover

Kheperren, but young Akhnaten appoints him GreatRoyal Scribe.

Child-princess Mutnodjme sees her beautiful sister

Nefertit i married off to the impotent Akhnaten. As shemust still bear royal children, a shocking plan is devised.

Kheperren, meanwhile, serves as scribe to the daring

teenaged General Horemheb. But while the shrinkingEgyptian army guards the Land of the Nile from enemies

on every border, a far greater menace impends.

Akhnaten’s horrified court soon realise that the Pharaoh

is not merely deformed, but irretrievably mad; and thatthe biggest danger to the Empire is in the royal palace

itself.

ISBN: 978-0-9807900-0-9

PAPERBACK RRP $29.95

ISBN: 978-0-9807900-3-0

PAPERBACK RRP $29.95

Medeaby Kerry Greenwood

Medea: Sorceress, Princess of Colchis, Securerof the Golden Fleece.

Her very name is a byword for infamy. Legend has it

that she murdered her own children for revenge. Butlove in Ancient Greece was often a dangerous game;and legends are not always what they seem.

Medea, devoted wife of Jason, was also a lovingmother, a loyal friend of Herakles and a braveadventurer with the Argonauts. A woman bothbetrayer and betrayed, the real story of Medea isstrange, sensual and heroic.

Medea, f irst in the Delphic Women trilogy, will befollowed by Cassandra and Electra.

Artwork for Out of the Black Land,

Medea & Cassandra by Ran Valerhon.

Out of the Black Land

by Kerry Greenwood

available now

available now



My latest book – and my first paranormal crime – has been a long time in

gestation. The original part of the story was written 30 years ago whenPunk Rock was new and cutt ing edge. I was 23 years old and had no idea if Icould write; I knew only that I had to.

A marriage, six kids, approx 30 published children’s books, an award-winning fantasy trilogy, a bestsell ing fantasy trilogy, and a Masters in ArtsResearch... and now, finally, one of the first books I ever wrote is seeing thelight of day.

Why did it take so long? The original story is set in St Kilda and is based

on the adventures of a friend of mine who drove taxis; plus the dramas of apunk rock band that lived downstairs from me. Of course, this was theleaping off point and from there my imagination took over. I wrote theGuinevere and O’Toole story l ine and I felt it was a satisfying story.

But I was only 23, I figured I didn’t have enough life experience to writesomething really good, so I put the book away for a dozen years.

When I was 36 and had six children under 10, I came across the HarperCollins $10,000 Fiction Prize and thought why not enter my book. I pulled

the manuscript out, cleaned up a sentence or two and sent it off. I was overthe moon when it made the long, short list. But it didn’t win and I was reallybusy with life and only just getting back into writing. And, because of myyoung children, I concentrated on writing kids books for a while.

R C DANIELLS

The long wait for overnight fame

T HE P RICE OF F AME

[CREATOR OF THE: LAST T’E N TRILOGY

K ING R OLEN’S K IN

THE OUTCAST CHRONICLES]



In my forties I came up with a way to update the manuscript byintroducing a second time line. I created a contemporary narrative thread,which tied into the story set in the Eighties.

So with my publishing record at the time, why didn’t it get publishedthen?

Publishers often prefer writers to write in just one genre, or even onlyone kind of fantasy book, if they are a fantasy writer. My publishers weren’tinterested in me doing anything outside the fantasy genre.

But I read across genres. I will follow a writer across genres. In fact, if Ifind a writer I admire, I’ll read everything they’ve had published.

I’ve always been a voracious reader of science fiction, fantasy, horror andmystery. I loved Laurell K Hamilton’s early Anita Blake books. I’m a big fan of Simon Green’s Nightside series and who doesn’t love Janet Evanovich’s

Stephanie Plum books? I don’t see why you can’t write a book that containsthe elements of paranormal, with gritty realism and quirky fun.

With The Price of Fame I set out to deliver a convincing mystery, with vividcharacters and a paranormal, spine-tingling edge. I just had to find apublisher who was willing to take a punt on paranormal crime set inMelbourne.

Enter the new independent publishing house Clan Destine Press.What’s nice about this book being accepted by Clan Destine Press is that

the publisher, Lindy Cameron, is an award-winning crime author in her ownright. This means my book has met her high standards. It’s alwaysparticularly nice as a writer to have a fellow author say they like your bookbecause, like an architect, they can see the framework holding up the story.

To differentiate this book from my fantasy books I discussed using adifferent name and decided to publish as RC Daniells as opposed to RowenaCory Daniells. This way readers who like my books can find both the fantasyand the paranormal crime. I figure if I read across genres, then they

probably do too.A book’s cover is really important. Since both my husband and I have

worked as graphic artists illustrating books and doing covers, we asked



Lindy if we could have a go at the cover of The Price of Fame. I wrote up abrief for my husband, where I talked about the feel of the book, the maincharacter in the contemporary story line and her connection to the girl,Guinevere, from the original story. My husband put a rough together andLindy loved it. With a bit of tweaking we came up with a final version.

And yes, there is a cat in the story.So there you have it; a book 30 years in the making.I guess what I’m saying is that perseverance is a creative person’s

greatest asset. Looking back, there was nothing wrong with the book Iwrote at 23. The original story is still there embedded in the contemporarynarrative with a couple of phrases rewritten. I could have given up and neverwritten again, or given up on this story but I didn’t. I thought there wassomething worthwhile in the book and, 30 years later, thanks to Clan

Destine Press this book will reach readers.So you can see why the publication of The Price of Fame is particularlysatisfying for me. I hope you enjoy my book.

Rowena’s three fantasy series are:

*** The Outcast Chronicles (2012) is a story of persecution and betrayal. If therewere people with magical abilities, mystics, living alongside us, how would we

feel about them? You only have to look at the way people who are different are

treated in the real world to see. The persecution culminates in a siege of the

mystics’ city and follows the myst ics as they try to make a new home. The story

explores themes of trust and tolerance.

** King Rolen’s Kin (trilogy - 2011) is a roll icking fantasy tale. There’s an invasion,

battles, monsters, betrayal, pirates and unrequited love. It explores the question

of friendship and brotherhood, and how far you would go to protect a friend.There’s a second trilogy being written, which the publishers want me to submit

as soon as possible.

*The Last T’En Trilogy (2000-2002) is a fantasy with a love story at its core. Instead

of writ ing about the great battle and how the good guys defeat the invaders, I

wrote about what happens after the battle. The last female of the royal family

gets married off to the invader to cement their right to rule. The story explores

the clash of cultures - she’s from a society where women are powerful, he’s from

a patriarchy. The underlying theme is learning to trust those who are different.



Where will Antonia’s search for truth lead and who will suffer?

When f ilm and TV graduate, Antonia Carlyle, sets out to make adocumentary about eighties band, ‘The Tough Romantics’, she uncovers

new facts surrounding the death of singer song-writer, Genevieve. This leadsher to suspect that the man arrested for her murder was not the killer.

One of the three surviving band members believes it is time to settle oldghosts but the other two have gone on to forge solo careers and don’t wantAntonia to rake up the past. One of them knows who the kil ler is, the otherneeds to hide their guilt.

A growing psychic link with the dead girl and the conviction that justicemust be done, drives Antonia to face her own demons, uncover the past and

confront the present.

The Price of Fame

ISBN: 978-0-9872717-2-3

RRP $28

coming May 2012

Price of Fame

by R.C Daniells



DAVID GREAGG

The subject interviews his biographer

DOUGAL’ S D IARY

W HEN W E W ERE K ITTENS

Interview with Man, by Dougal

D: Hello Man. How are you today?

M: Very well thank you.D: This seems a bit odd to me, interviewing you for a change.

M: Well, fair’s fair. And what would my beautiful cat want to know today?

D: Tell me about the other cats who used to live here.

M: There have been so many. Don’t look like that, Dougal! We’ve lived a verylong time and we needed other cats before you and Shadow turned up.There was Mu, who was a bit like you, only she was a Mum. She ran likeyou do. You’re rocking-horse cats.

D: I am not a rocking horse cat!M: Yes you are. You run with your front paws together and your back paws

together. It means you can run very fast, even faster than your sister, who just hurls herself forwards and her paws try to catch up with her. Shadowis fast, but not as quick as you. Mu was our First Cat and she was adorable,though cross; a bit like Belladonna. Mu was Tigger’s Mum. Both of themwere stripy cats. And then Tigger had a daughter called Bootle and shewas a tortoiseshell. She used to jump on spiders and crush them. She also

liked to bring in birds from the tree and hide them under things.D: You won’t let us do that, I notice!

M: They were sparrows. And she really didn’t hurt them. She’d just leavethem under the bookshelves to play with. We didn’t have wattle-birds



then, and if we had she couldn’t have done that with them because they’dhave hurt her badly; and we couldn’t have that. She brought home atortoise once.

D: What is a tortoise?

M: Imagine a big lizard who lives inside a really

hard-crust pastry. That’s a tortoise.D: I think you’re having me on.

M: I’m not. Your sister will have seen some on AnimalPlanet, I expect.

D: Is that all those cats and dogs on TV?

M: Yes. Shadow can watch it for hours. You’ve seen her.

D: Until the dogs come on.

M: And she changes the channel.

D: I would love to know how she does that. Who else was there?M: Then we had Ashe and Horatio, who were the cats who drove away the

Bad Cats like you do. And we had Kari, who’d jump through the carwindow and sit on my shoulder when I drove places.

D: I f ind that very hard to believe. You put me in the car once and I howled allthe way there and all the way back.

M: I know, you poor little cat. You thought I was taking you back to the BadPlace with the cages, so I’m not surprised you were upset.

D: You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?

M: Never. You are staying right here for as long as you want to.

D: Why do YOU keep going away? You know we get upset when you do that.

M: Sometimes it’s because Woman and I need to go away. We’d love to takeall of you with us but it’s such a long drive in the car that you would find ittoo awful to bear. And I can’t drive properly with three cats yowling theroof down and complaining all the time. It just wouldn’t work. And you

get Man With Not Much Fur On His Head to stay and he looks after you.Also, some of the places I go are not good places for cats. You might runaway and how would you get home then? I know you’d find a way homeeventually but I’d wear my own paws out looking for you. Believe me, it’sbetter this way.

D: You would come looking for me if I got lost, wouldn’t you?

M: Of course. But that’s partly why I take you and Shadow for walks, so if youdo get lost when you wander off by yourselves you can find your way

home.D: So tell me why you spend so much time at your Picture Boxes.

M: It’s what humans do, Dougal. It’s called Work and lots of humans do it sothey can bring home food for their cats. I used to go away to do it but now



I am lucky enough to work at home so I have my beautiful cats keeping mecompany. I like it better this way.

D: So do I. But you also talk to other humans on your Picture Box, don’t you?

M: Yes. I know a lot of humans and it would take forever to see them all. So wetalk to them on our Picture Boxes.

D: So tell me about making the phone ring and the Talking Box.M: The Talking Box? Oh, the answering machine. That’s where I’ve left amessage, to ask people to leave us a message if we’re not here.

D: Ah. Or if you’re in the garden. I’ve noticed that sometimes your voice is inthe Box, but you’re outside. Or in the bath. So it’s you, but not really you.

M: Yes. But, when I talk to you and Woman on the phone, it really IS me but I’ma long way away. You would not believe how big the world is. When I wentaway for a really long time it would have taken me longer than you’ve been

alive to walk home and say, Hello Dougal. So I rang you instead.D: What’s with the Big Box of Metal Stuff and the sticks?

M: That’s my suit of armour. When I take it with me when I go away it means I’mgoing to put it on and play with other humans. We hit each other with thesticks. But the armour means we don’t get hurt much because it’s playf ighting. Like you and Shadow do.

D: Do any other humans take their cats for walks l ike we do?

M: Some do, but it’s not very common. I have taught you and Shadow to be

very good around cars now. I’m proud of you. But other cats are not goodaround cars. It scares me that they might get squashed.

D: It scares me too. I hope Red Cat Two doesn’t get squashed, even though he’sas silly as a wheel.

We don’t understand why humans need so many toys. Would you like tocomment on this at all?

M: It’s a human thing. I have some I have to play with when I’m out.

D: Like your armour and sticks?M: Yes and my recorders. I had to stop playing them at home because cats keptstuffing their noses in the other end wanting to stop the funny noises.

D: It’s a cat thing. So how’s our new book coming along? And why are youcalling it When We Were Kittens?

M: You and Shadow are always talking about when you were kittens so Ithought it would make a good title. And it’s finished.

D: Well, OK then. Thank you for your time, Man.

Oh, one more thing. Could you possibly write up my notes? I tried using yourlaptop but it just came out as paw-prints. I can’t manage the touch-pad forsome reason, and Shadow kept sitting on it because it’s so warm.

M: It would be my pleasure, Dougal.



When We Were Kittens

by David Greagg

The continuing adventures of Dougal the Giant Kitten

and his foster-sister.Dougal and Shadow are still living with Man,

Woman and Belladonna – the Senior Cat and boss of the house – but the pair are now, mostly, all grown up.

Life is seldom boring as Dougal tackles newescapades and figures things out, like how his sisterhas been taking Assertiveness Training fromBelladonna.

The young cats make a truce with the Wattle-birdsand Crows! in their garden; but find the dogs in thestreet are noisy and stupid.

As Dougal negotiates his position in the adult world,emotional reassurance, revelations and even help comesfrom a surprising source. But then – woe! – Man goes away for a Long Time andthe poor boy is just sad and lonely.

Will Man come home? Does Shadow love him, even though she still eats his

food? And if Man does come home again, will they all still go for walks at night?

ISBN: 978-0-9807900-1-6

ISBN: 978-0-9872717-1-6

coming April 2012

RRP $18

Dougal’s Diary

by David Greagg

After some traumatic early life experiences, Dougalthe black-and-white kitten falls on his paws into a

loving home with two kind humans.Dougal decides to repay his humans’ kindness by

trying to be a Good Cat at all times.But when you have a little sister like Shadow,

being good isn’t as easy as it should be; becauseShadow is an alley-cat who eats his food and lovesstealing from neighbours’ barbecues.

And, although they don’t know it, the kind

humans are not in charge in this house. That rolegoes to the imperious old cat Belladonna, who doesnot take kindly to newcomers in her space.

Dougal’s diplomatic skills will be tested as he triesto make sense of human and feline psychology.

available now



Since childhood when my third grade teacher read to our class about

Hercules, the Argonauts, that race that was always won by that heartlessprincess who only lost to Theseus when she stopped to pick up the goldenapples, and Atlas with the world on his shoulders, I have adored story tel ling.

Fantasy, mythology and historical novels are my favourites, but thatdoesn’t mean I can’t spice up my own stories with a mystery, murder or loadsof adventure. I even wrote a travel book about India with those ingredients.

But deep down the imaginative worlds in fantasy, speculative fiction andparanormal are the most fun for me to write. And when I say write, I mean live

within the story for twelve months at a t ime. And when I say l ive, I meanbecome each character, wear each outfit, say each line of dialogue and doeach action, especially the romance and the fight scenes.

Legend of the Three Moons came about during a babysitting job I had withfive children (two girls and three boys). Fearful of the damage they would doto my new red sofas I took them off to Sydney’s Centennial Park.

There I handed each of them a stick and told them to invent a weapon of their choice, choose a pet animal or bird to travel with them, make up at leastone monstrous creature to do battle with, and a magical gift that wouldchange them and allow them to do unusual things whilst on an adventureinto a world that we would plot and name that very day.

From the game we played that afternoon – as we slashed away at the

PATRICIA BERNARD

Myths, mysteries and lots of adventure

L EGEND OF THE T HREE M OONS

CDP EBOOKS:

* THE THROWBACK TRILOGY:T HE T HROWBACK , T HE P UNISHER ,

& T HE RULE C HANGER



park’s bamboo with our imaginary broad swords, stabbed the heaving earthwith our long swords, and shot horrendous creatures with our arrows – wasborn the mighty, adventurous Legend of the Thee Moons.

I used the children’s names and physical descriptions (as thanks for theirefforts that day), and began drawing maps of my countries and plotting my

chapters. My readers – many readers – love maps and I love drawing them; somost of my kids’ and YA books have maps in the front.

I also love quest stories where the heroes get into the plot, get their feetdirty, maybe fall off a cliff or two, battle against gigantic odds and thensomehow, miraculously – but only in the very last chapter – survive, conquerand win.

I also love creating odd characters, nice or nasty, that the reader can fall inlove with. Hannah the Hangwoman is just one of mine and I can see her as

clearly as if she were standing behind me as I type. She’s over 6ft tall (doesn’tsound as good in metric) is swarthy and has three chins, an untidy topknot of bright red hair and muscles a weight-lifter would envy. She’s also incrediblysmelly (bathing not being her favourite occupation); wears a blanket as askirt; boots, untied to fit her fat feet; and a huge man’s coat buttoned acrossher large belly. She carries a backpack with saucepans, an axe and hangman’snoose. But there is more to Hanging Hannah than what meets the eye. She

doesn’t eat. And as fantasy readers know, there has to be a very good reason

for a very fat woman not to eat. And I mean ever.

Then there is sly-eyed, twelve-fingered Jessup Birdsnest, an accomplishedpick-pocket, collector and purveyor of odd and unusual objects such asmagician’s shadows and invisible bird feathers. Jessup Birdsnest, of the longblack cloak and wide-brimmed pointed hat comes from Belem an island city

down on its luck since being attacked.I love making up characters whose wriggling fingers dipping into pocketsbring a chill; whose offer of an apprenticeship to be a hang child can frighten;or whose kindness – like that of San Jaagiin of the bird shop of Belem, or Verv



Roliat the one legged tailor, or Edith the Oracle who lives in a cemetery withher ghost dogs – stays with my readers all their lives.

When I sent off the first three chapters of Legend of the Three Moons toClan Destine Press I was about to set off on a two-month journey aroundTurkey and Greece; all the time collecting ideas for the next book. After

Europe I was to fly to the Romance Writers Conference in New York, becausemy next YA book is a paranormal romance/horrendously scary adventure.

Somewhere in Turkey, probably just after I had my f irst bathhouse-with-massage experience, I received an email from the CDP publisher and herresponse to those first three chapters was so lovely that I carried around awarm glow for the next month.

On arriving back in Sydney I did a final (who are we kidding) edit. Now Idon’t know if it is the same for other writers, but I have a completely

unrealistic idea of how long editing takes. It takes ages! Forever! It is a slowprocess! People interrupt you all the time!Finally – and after it had been read by one, just one, of those original kids

(how quickly their interest fades at that age) – I sent it off and joy, joy, joy itwas accepted.

So then what, I wondered. Oh, that’s right. Sit down and edit TheThrowback Trilogy – The Throwback, The Punisher & The Rule Changer – that

Clan Destine Press will be re-publishing as eBooks.

This trilogy (which has been out of print for a few years) is a futuristicfantasy about Fish, a Mega ‘throwback’, and his Outcast brothers and friends.

The Throwback Fish must confront his enemy the Megas, even though helooks just l ike them. His friends and the rest of the Eastern Outcasts, are nothappy about that. How are they going to smuggle Fish into Megalopoliswhen he is too tall, too thin, too blonde and looks nothing like the rest of their own Outcast cluster?

The Punisher Fish discovers Ari, a Mega female, who has suffered a melt-down from too many Knowledge Chips being inserted in her brain. He savesher but later learns she has been stolen by Wilderness gypsies to be given tothe Punisher who intends to sacrific her to Or Mool.

The Rule Changer After Fish, Weed and Branch save Ari from being sacrificed,they have to cross the Wilderness Mountains to return to the Eastern Zone.

And it is Fish, as the Rule Changer, who unites the four Zones and Megalopoliswhen al l are attacked by Oriac and the forces of Or Mool.



Five children held captive in an ever-changing forest,trapped by their own memory loss,

face the battle of their lives to overcome eviland reclaim their birthright.

Why do they only have some memories for one day?

What is the purpose of the Three Moons’ Song?

Which of their magical gifts will allow the childrento conquer the riddles of the imprisoned mermaid,

the chained eagle and the frozen dragon?

Adventure and danger aboundas Lyla, Celeste, Lem, Chad and Swift

face enchanters, murderers, shape thieves, monsters and slave tradersto save all that is precious to them.

Legend of the Three Moons

by Patricia Bernard

ISBN: 978-0-9872717-0-9

coming May 2012



I grew up reading in a house always bursting with books. I grew up writing,too, as soon as I knew how. For a long time it was just a fun part of who I

was, and I did other things for a living, including teaching English as aforeign language in Egypt and Poland.

Eventually, I woke up to my true vocation and became a writer for myday job. At the same t ime, my fiction writing f inally found a publisher. Myfirst book, two crime novellas under the title Fly By Night , was nominatedfor a Ned Kelly Award for First Crime Novel in 2004. My next two books werefantasy quests, Witch Honour and Witch Faith, published in the US.

The Opposite of Life, my fourth novel, was published in Australia. The

vampire novel-come-murder mystery is set in contemporary Melbourne,narrated by Lissa, an angry and impulsive l ibrarian, and featuring Gary, anerdy, social ly awkward vampire from the suburbs. Together, they attemptto find the rogue vampire murdering people in Melbourne, preferablybefore the population at large realises that vampires aren’t just stylishlydressed metaphors for sex and death. Lissa and Gary develop a friendship,making some realisations about themselves, life and loss as they go.

Gary and Lissa made an impact on a lot of readers, including Charlaine

Harris, author of the vampire novels on which True Blood is based, who said:

Lissa Wilson, librarian, geek, and young woman about town… seems tobe the magnet for trouble. … She’s a wonderful character; not becauseshe’s an heroic supergirl, but because she rings true.

NARRELLE M HARRIS

The blood, the kill ing, the running away

W ALKING S HADOWS

THE LONG-AWAITED SEQUEL TO:

T HE O PPOSITE OF L IFE



Gary and Lissa took on a l ife of their own since their book came out, andconduct irregular reviews (or ‘GaryViews’) on my blog, Mortal Words. Mostlythey review vampire books, films and tv with an eye on how inaccurate theyare about vampire lore. Their Gary View conversations often reveal elements

of their ‘back story’ about their families and early childhood years.Lissa also makes Gary review musicals because, she says, the look on hisface as everyone starts to sing is just plain hilarious. They have also reviewedart, theatre, stand up comedy and a decorative skull. (The pair also haveTwitter accounts, but they only go online from time to t ime. Gary keepsforgetting how to use computers. It’s hard having an undead brain.)

Most recently, Gary and Lissa went to the Royal Melbourne Show anduncovered undead scheming at the Haunted House. This story appears in

my anthology Showtime (Twelfth Planet Press), where it keeps companywith other short stories featuring ghosts, vampires and zombies. Like TheOpposite of Life, the stories all share a certain black sense of humour;explorations of (family) relationships; and proper scary bits, because youcan’t have a zombie story without the eating of brains, after all.

I’m delighted to be working with Clan Destine Press to bring out WalkingShadows, the second Gary and Lissa novel, wherein they continue theirattempts to live ordinary lives, while the universe continues not to allowthat to happen.

While the first book dealt with a murderous vampire breaking the 21st

century vampire code of staying under theradar, Walking Shadows sees Gary and Lissafacing the arrival of a frighteningly successfulvampire hunter, who is relentlessly picking off Melbourne’s small vampire community.

Gary also has some secrets he’s nevershared; and Lissa learns even more about theunexpected downsides of being undead.Mundy, Melbourne’s oldest vampire, seems tohate Lissa; and Magdalene, Melbournemeanest vampire and owner of the Gold Bug,isn’t much of a fan either. So it seems Lissa andGary have enemies no matter which way theyturn.

All the while Lissa is managing the return of her alcoholic father and trying to convince herbeloved sister that Gary is not going to eat anyone.

Of course, before the end, there’s the blood, the killing, the fires and therunning like the clappers for their lives.



My other recent projects have included the creation of aniPhone application, ‘Melbourne Literary’, which is a guide toMelbourne’s literary scene. I’m working on a second secretiPhone project in between all my other projects, becausethat’s how I roll.

To f ind out more about Narrelle, Gary and Lissa:

Website: www.narrellemharris.comBlog: www.mortalwords.com.au

Walking Shadows

by Narrelle M Harris

ISBN: 978-0-9872717-6-1

coming June 2012

Lissa Wilson’s world changed forever when people she cared about – and oneshe could’ve loved – were murdered. By vampires. They tried to kill her, too.

On the plus side, she made a new friend.

Gary Hooper might be Melbourne’s – or maybe theworld’s – least impressive vampire, but he may just beLissa’s best friend, ever.

Without meaning to, he changed her and he taughther the value of her life.

Knowing Lissa has changed Gary, too, even thoughhe’s not really sure what it means. It doesn’t meanthat he doesn’t have secrets. Secrets that might endtheir friendship, if Lissa ever learned about theservices he provides the undead community.

And what is an ordinary geekgirl librarian to dowhen hardcore vampire killers begin killing off

Melbourne’s vampire population, and her undead bestie is on the hit list?Should she throw herself into mortal danger, despite having no battle skil ls,let alone supernatural strength?

Lissa risks everything to protect someone who should be perfectlycapable of protect ing himself. And Gary f inds that the ways he’s changingmight make him more human – if they don’t get him killed.

Everyone has secrets; everyone gets trapped by their history. How many canlearn how to change? How many will live long enough to try?



Just imagine that you are in your mid twenties, on a working holiday in

London and living the good life; a fun share house, great mates and a jobthat couldn’t be any better.

Imagine you’re enjoying another balmy English summer night watchingTV in the living room at the front of your house, scooping the dregs straightfrom a container of ice-cream, when suddenly you hear the sound of smashing glass.

It takes a moment to register where the noise has come from and, almostbefore you do, you see your venetian blinds move – and you know it’s your

own front window that’s been broken.Then time slows.You see two teenage boys: Bangladeshi, you think. Their eyes are dead

eyes; hate-filled eyes.One boy is holding a glass bottle, with a rag sticking out the top.You look at his other hand. It holds a l ighter.Slowly, slowly, you see him fl ick the lighter and bring his hands together.

You see the lighter touch the rag, then a burst of flame. You see the flaming

bottle leave his hand as he throws it... at you.You have enough t ime to scream: ‘You’ve got the wrong guy!’But it’s too late; the flying bottle continues its trajectory into your home.You duck and try to shield your face. The bottle deflects off your forearm

Why don’t you write a book?

B EYOND P AIN

ANJELO

RATNACHANDRA



and smashes against the wall above you, raining petrol down on you. Andthen – with a whoosh – you are on fire.

Your arms and your face go up in flames.The walls around you and the couch you are sitting on is ablaze.From that moment, your life is never the same again.

This is a true story.This is my story.

We al l experience pain in one form or another, but we rarely stop to thinkabout what pain really is. Have you ever sat through a painful conversation, orexperienced the pain of a broken heart? Where do you have that pain?

When amputees say that they can feel pain in their amputated toes, whereis their pain? When you have a scan or x-ray of your back pain or a sore knee,and the results come back as normal, where is that pain?

The reality is that pain is complex. It is not actually something that you cansee on a scan or x-ray. In fact, we don’t have a test to show pain. Unfortunatelymost people, including most health practitioners, don’t understand this.

When I started my career as a physiotherapist not so long ago, I reallydidn’t understand pain either. I would treat the same person once or twice aweek for months on end without much success. I continued to treat them,because at least I was doing something; although I did sometimes questionthe effectiveness of my treatment.

I also began to notice patterns. Why were my patients saying that whenthey were upset or stressed, their pain was worse? And how on earth could theweather affect their levels of pain?

With so many questions, the only answer I had for sure was that I wasn’tgoing to learn the answer by working as a junior physiotherapist at a busyprivate practice.

So to satisfy my hunger for knowledge – and my rampant travel bug – Ipacked my bags and left the eastern suburbs of Mel bourne to join the madrush of London. For a couple of years, I worked at various hospitals gaininginvaluable experience.

And then I got a dream job with a research-based pain managementprogram; one of the best in the field. Working there answered so many of myquestions about pain, and gave me the skills and knowledge not only to dealwith its physical aspects but its psychological ones as well.

I was soon teaching pain sufferers ‘what pain was’ and, more importantly,how to manage it successfully. Even so there are some things in l ife you can’tbe taught. In my case, although I was considered an expert in painmanagement, I didn’t know what it was like to live with pain. After thehundreds of people we treated at the program, I could understand what itmight be like, but I had no first-hand experience.



Not until that balmy summer night when I was attacked by two teenagershurling a Molotov cocktail.

During my long inpatient hospital stay, and through the follow-up medicalappointments, I became one of the very people I’d been treating for so long.

Waking up with pain, having to take medications, feeling drowsy and

desperate for a good night’s sleep was a whole new world to me. Not just that,but the emotional rollercoaster made things worse. Not knowing if I’d bescarred for life, the frustration of being unable to use my hands because of thepain, not being able to concentrate, feeling down for no reason, and losing mytemper with my friends and family over minor things was a terrible thing toexperience. And thus began my real education.

Being a pain expert guaranteed me no immunity from the experience of pain. I began to isolate myself and started to fall into the same viciousdownward spirals that had snared many of my patients.

I f inally recognised what was happening to me, and managed to get myself together. I began using the very principles I’d taught my patients: how to paceactivities; how to get into a positive mindset; how to manage flare-ups; andhow to get back to doing the things I enjoyed.

I literally practiced what I preached and I was soon getting back to normality.After I was on my feet again, I decided to return home to the support of my

family in Melbourne. I started working in Occupational Rehabilitation, helpinginjured workers return to work, but soon noticed that many of the doctors andtherapists who were ‘helping’ my clients, had a poor understanding of effectivepain management.

I met so many injured workers who simply needed guidance, but insteadwere almost being over-treated, in multiple weekly appointments, with no

effective change or improvement in theircondition.When I realised how many people could benefit

from my knowledge and skills in pain management,I started my own practice, Beyond Pain.I knew what it felt like to be in pain; and knew the

successes and pitfalls in trying to manage it. And, asa professional expert, I had the medical knowledgeto know what worked and what didn’t in effectivepain management.The pain management program at Beyond Pain

runs like a course. Each session includes aneducational component, and a practicalcomponent which looks at effective self-management strategies.

In late 2011, in front of an audience of more than a



thousand people, I was thril led to receive the WorkSafe Treating HealthPractitioner Achievement Award for my program.

I’m always fine-tuning the program, tailoring it to the individual, and I oftensee remarkable changes after just a few sessions. Clients, whose pain makesthem slow and awkward in simple walking and stand-up/sit-down exercises,

show noticeable improvement in flexibility, agility and general movement.But there are so many people in pain. It is estimated that one in five people

in the western world suffers from pain. That’s more than the number of diabetics and asthmatics put together. In Australia alone, pain treatments costover $35 billion annually. And too many of those sufferers have no outwardsigns – or ‘proof of pain’.

I started wondering about how I could share my award-winning programwith as many people as possible, to help others take control of their pain, and

change their lives forever. I’d love people to fill their diaries with things theywant to do instead of noting one medical appointment after another.But how could I help more than just the people who came to my program?

How could I help everyone?It was a friend, and breast cancer survivor, who gave me the answer. I had

caught up with her socially and was talking about how best she might be ableto manage her pain and the strategies that could help her. She was amazed at

how simple, yet helpful, my suggestions were. She couldn’t believe, after

seeing so many doctors and specialists, that a catch-up with a friend gave herthe strategies she was looking for.She said: Anj, why don’t you write a book ?And there was my solution. That was how I could pass my knowledge on to

as many people as possible.Nearly two years later, Beyond Pain the book can give you all the answers

you need to conquer pain effectively, without the drugs, without thefrustrations, and without the side effects.

The book also has information that health practit ioners can utilise.What is unique about Beyond Pain is that it is the only program written byboth an expert and a sufferer of chronic pain.

People who suffer from chronic pain can read about my journey, learn tounderstand what pain really is, and then follow the easy-to-use program.People who live or work with someone in pain can also learn from it, can beginto understand what their family member, friend or colleague is going throughand encourage and them to take the path beyond pain.



ISBN: 978-0-9872717-3-0

coming July 2012

Beyond Pain

by Anjelo Ratnachandra

Melbourne physiotherapist Anjelo Ratnachandra left home to work in acutting-edge pain management clinic in the UK. Little did he know that hewould soon have to use those very methods on himself after getting caughtin the crossfire of a vicious gang war.

A tragic case of mistaken identity left the young Australian severelyinjured after members of a local gang threw a petrol bomb through his frontwindow.

Forced to practise what he’d been preaching, Anjelo Ratnachandragained a profound personal understanding of pain and its management –both as a medical professional and a sufferer of chronic pain.

On his return to Australia, Anjelo opened his own pain managementclinic, where he introduced and refined the best practice in painmanagement. His methods – if they’re followed correctly – are guaranteedto improve the lives of sufferers of chronic pain.

Anjelo soon realised, however, that he wasn’t reaching enough people,so he he decided to write Beyond Pain – to tell his own story and share hismethods.



We’re tempted to begin this article with ‘once upon a time’ because that’sthe way all good fairy tales begin. And this is a fairy tale – or a fairy tale

that culminated in another fairy tale.So we begin the story of two stay-at-home mums, both accomplished in

many things, but stil l seeking the very thing that would complete them. Two

mums who came to know each other through a twist of fate, who woulddiscover that they shared a passion for books and writing, and well, most thingsreally; who would become firm and favourite friends; who would inspire eachother to follow their dreams; dreams which would collide and unite.

Several years ago we – Amanda Wrangles and Kylie Fox – lived just ten doorsaway from each other in the same street but had never actually met. Each dayKylie would wander past Amanda’s house, always interested in the people wholived in the place with the gorgeously-decorated ‘undersea’ bedroom. Amanda,

meanwhile, would watch as the heavily pregnant Kylie walked past pushing hertwo young daughters in their pram.Somehow, even then, we both knew we were ‘our’ kind of people; but had

yet to learn just how true that was. At the t ime, we were both stay-at-homemums – a position we both revelled in, even though we knew the world heldso much more for us.

Amanda was a qualified hairdresser and a dive master and was alwaysbusying herself with a new art or craft project – creating beautiful pieces of work with her various talents. She’d also written several stories and had alwaysloved to write; and read – her shelves were brimming with books. Words, sheknew, were always going to be a passion.

Kylie, on the other hand, had more than a passing obsession with the darkside. At school she’d studied psychology with the intention of going on to

A.K. WROX

A fairy tale of kindred wordsmiths

A RRABELLA C ANDELLARBRA

& T HE QUESTY T HING

T O E ND A LL QUESTY T HINGS

S CARLET S TILETTO

T HE S ECOND CUT



further studies in criminology or law. A childhood spent watching horrormovies with her father piqued more than a little interest in what made thebad guys tick. But most of all, Kylie wanted to write. The problem was, real-life, normal people didn’t write books, did they? Authors were mysteriousbeings who spent their lives in the highest towers of crystal castles, tapping

out fabulous stories for others to enjoy. They weren’t stay-at-home mumswith giant dreams and no one to share them with.Then fate stepped in, in the form of a Christmas street party. Normally

fairly shy, we ummed and erred about attending, but in the end were draggedalong by our partners and children. We’re still not sure if was the glint in eachother’s eye that told us we were kindred word-souls, if Christmas magic wasat play, or if it was just that we were the only two people at the party pushingsmall children in prams – whatever it was, magic did happen that night.

We met, we talked – a lot – and then Amanda invited Kylie into her hometo see, up close, the underwater murals she’d painted on her son’s bedroomwalls. When Kylie noticed that Amanda’s bookshelf was stuffed with titlesalmost identical to her own, that they... we realised this was going to be afriendship like no other – a friendship that, just like a fairytale, would changeour l ives forever.

A wicked sense of sarcasm, horror, blood, dirty nappies, a sick sense of humour, children’s birthday parties, debates on religion, politics, tolerance,

and how globs of brain matter might stick to walls, are the things thatbrought us together. But the things that cemented our friendship was ashared love of books, words, favourite authors (gotta hand it to you, MrStephen King), all the characters we met and loved between the pages, andthe dream we both held of writing about our very own, made up worlds.

It wasn’t long before we decided that simply talking about our dreamswasn’t enough – after all writers write. We had to do something about it. Butwhere to start? Our children’s kindergarten may not have been the obvious

place to find the answer but that was where we found it, none the less.Fortuitously, one of the other kinder mums, someone we’d spent timewith on the committee of management (eek!), told usabout a friend of hers who used to run a creative writingclass. Perhaps she would reinstate the classes if she knewthere was some interest in the area. And she did.

The first Wednesday morning, when the writing coursewas set to begin, Amanda had to drag Kylie up thedriveway of Lindy Cameron’s house because theexcitement and anticipation had moved aside to allownerves, fear and an abundance of self-doubt to creep in.What if, after dreaming of being a writer for her whole life,Kylie discovered that she actually sucked at it?



Within a couple of weeks of classes and the start of a novel,the answer to both Amanda and Kylie came with a handslammed on the table and a roaring curse from Lindy. “Youtwo didn’t tell me you could already write!”

Writing classes became less classes and more a regular

writing group with each of us sharing our work, discussingour plots and talking all things books and writing. For oneday of the week, children were left behind and our wordbabies got to come out to play.

Soon, Amanda’s first novel about a dead chick, her freakybest friend and a host of other creatures, and Kylie’s book about a government-sanctioned assassin with a wicked sense of humour, were born.

We both continued to work on our novels, one a young adult paranormal

thriller, the other a dark crime-based thriller, while we also tackled some shortstories. Two of those stories – entered in Sisters in Crime Australia’s annualScarlet Stiletto Awards – gave us the confidence boost we needed to know thatwe were on the right track; that this writing gig could really work for us.

Amanda’s story, ‘Persia Bloom’ won the 2009 Scarlet Stiletto Award; andKylie’s story ‘Poppies’won the compet ition’s Dorothy Porter Award in 2010. Bothare published in the anthology Scarlet Stiletto The Second Cut.

To be able to call ourselves “award winning writers” was and still is, an

amazing feeling – but having our brains permanently immersed in the darkworlds we’d created was, at times, exhausting. It occurred to us that we couldand probably should write something more light-hearted and possibly evenfunny, to counter-balance the dark.

We’d already had fun writing a multi-authored story with our writing group,but we wondered if we could write something together, passing the torch backand forth; purely for our own entertainment. We figured if it were just for us, wewouldn’t have the constraints of worrying what others thought; we could play

with words in a way that gave us complete and total freedom. We wanted towrite something as far from our normal genres and safety zones as possible. Wewanted

to

push ourselves, and each other, and to hel l with the

consequences! And so, one dark, stormy night (well, it couldhave been, we’ve no idea what the weather was really like) of alcohol-induced brainstorming, Arrabella Candellarbra wasborn.

As in all good fantasy stories, Arrabella, the fairest of all

maidens, would need the manliest man of all men as her loveinterest. Lord Langley Kilkenny, he of the oily skin and magicalloin cloth immediately sprang to life. Of course, with ourwarped minds, the road to true love and happiness could not beeasy for Arrabella and Langley; they would need some type of



quest to complete before they could truly settledown and l ive happily ever after.

Quests need friends and other peeps on your side.Prince Jim of the Fairies, a very fey prince indeed, was

joined by the wisest of all wise wizards because every

warrior girl in a quest story needs at least one fairyand an icicle-bearded wizard called Gary.

Of course epic quests need more than good guysand great sidekicks, they also need foes anddastardly impediments. In particular a questy thingneeds an arch-enemy: a wickedly nasty, formidablecrone with thousands of minions under her spell, who’ll stop at nothing to ruinArrabella’s chances of completing her quest to gain the power of all the lands,

Mother Nature, Father Time and Aunt In-Between.Enter the very evil Betty-Sue.And so, on that (ahem) dark and stormy night, our init ial cast of characters

was brought to life on scraps of paper, between laugh-out-loud scenarios, andnervous giggles of where we might take them. Love? Eww. We didn’t do love.Sex? Ughh. Even worse. We’re mothers remember?

But, pop culture references infiltrating the questy thing at every turn and

songs turned into spells and incantations? That we could do!

The next morning, even sober, the idea didn’t seem too ridiculous. So wecreated a private Facebook group, with only two members. Using the old‘discussion’ format (that Facebook has eradicated), we began our story with oneword: Enter. One of us would write a few lines, or even a paragraph if the moodstruck. The other would pick up the story at exactly that point. We didn’t edit theother’s posts, but we did do a lot of complaining every time we left ourcharacters in a dire (or rude!) predicament. But that was part of the fun – whenour minds went blank, our children actually required feeding, or it just got too

damn hard – we passed the buck.Our posts would sometimes be only a few dozen words, other times a fewhundred, but as time went on and Arrabella’s storygrew, those words and lines became pages. Always,the object was to make the other squirm, to pushourselves into an uncomfortable place where we’dnever admitted out loud we could write before. Wegave ourselves time limits, no writer’s procrastination

allowed.Gradually as the story began to unfold, it became areal story. Gone was the idea that it was merely awriting exercise. The characters took on lives of theirown and the questy thing became more epic. We



needed to know what was going to happen, and our writing group – withwhom we’d decided to share each chapter, week after hilarious week –needed to know what happened. It became evident that this was and shouldbe a real book.

By that stage Lindy had launched her own publishing company, Clan

Destine Press, and broached the subject of publishing Arrabella. After all, if we thought it was funny and our writing group thought it was funny thenmaybe, just maybe, other people would think it was funny too. But to becertain, we all needed a second opinion. And who better to ask than someonewho’s written more novels than she’s had years on the planet? Lindy sent TheQuesty Thing To End All Questy Things to Kerry Greenwood. Surely she couldbe trusted to judge a good story when she read one.

The response was a resounding, and slightly overwhelming, yes! Kerry

stayed up into the wee hours unable to put the book down, reading ouradventures and laughing out loud. That was all the reassurance we needed.The book was f inished – all without a single argument or disagreement

between us – and Arrabella Candellarbra was launched into the world.We’re still working on our own solo novels and the second book in the

Arrabella series is wel l underway. The quest heads to Fairyland where a cast of new characters await to tantalise, tease, taunt and conjure fits of laughter.

In Arrabella Candellarbra 2 we have a slightly mad fairy king, a whole lot of

(possibly headless) statues, killer penguins and butterflies. There will be allthe old friends and foes, and Arrabella will learn some lessons in betrayal.We still use a similar format to write, passing the buck back and forth

between us – even for this article!No one but us knows who wrote which bits in Arrabella’s story (not even

our publisher), and we have to admit, even we get confused these days. Ourwriting style for this fairy tale series for adults has become so entwined, sosimilar, that it really belongs to another single entity known as A.K. Wrox.

Just l ike Arrabella, A.K. created herself. Yes, she’s us, but she’s also herown person. A.K. is everything we’re not quite – she’s never self-conscious orshy, and she doesn’t stumble over herwords when she’s nervous.

Frankly, A.K. is who we’d like to be.She writes about sex, she writes about(strange) love and she writes a hell of a lot of kick-arse action scenes with

nasty bunnies and viscous toads. She’sfunnier than either of us and, becauseshe has no one at all to answer to, herimagination knows no bounds.



Arrabella Candellarbra& The Questy Thing To End All Questy Things

by A.K. Wrox

ISBN: 978-0-9807900-6-1

available now

Arrabella Candellarbra is like no one you’ve ever met before; even though herquesty thing is the stuff of legend.

Okay, the hilarious epic-fantasy spooferyadult fairy-tale kind of legend.

Arrabella, a beautiful, flaxen-haired maidentrained in all things warrior-like by the mostfamous warriors of all – The Reginas – embarks

on a quest to claim her birthright and to wieldthe power of all the lands.

Arrabella joins forces with Lord LangleyKilkenny – the perfect specimen of manliness;icicle-bearded Gary – the wisest of all Wizards;and Prince Jim – the very-fey fairy Regent.

The Four Adventurers soon find themselvespitted against the Evil Betty-Sue – the meanest

of evil beings in all of the lands – and her scaryminions.

Yes, our heroes must defeat SawtoothedBunnies, Viscous-Tongued Frogs and theBarella Monkeys to rescue The Reginasfrom… something!

Nothing could possibly go wrong on a quest like this, could it?Featuring heroic heroes and a host of characters and creatures never

before assembled in one story, this epic fairy tale for grown-ups delivers loveand lust, action and inaction, battles, incantations, sexual shenanigans andhigh-kicking sing-a-longs.

It promises that all those epic questy things will never be the same again.Seriously!

coming October 2012

Arrabella Candellarbra

& The Questy Thing To End All Questy Things 2

Artwork for Arrabella Candellarbra by Ran Valerhon.



ALISON GOODMAN

Dark and edgy with a serve of miso soup

A N EW K IND OF D EATH

[AUTHOR OF:

E ON , E ONA

S INGING THE DOGSTAR B LUES ]

I

was 12 years old when I got the idea for my crime novel A New Kind of Death. That sounds a bit precocious, but it was, of course, only the core idea and I

didn’t recognise it for what it was until I was well into my twenties.That core idea arrived via the book I was reading at the time: Watership

Down by Richard Adams. Watership Down is a marvellous story about the livesof rabbits, and it has a passing reference to the ability of female rabbits toreabsorb – or resorb to use the scientific name – the foetuses of their youngback into their own body in times of stress or overcrowding.

This just blew my twelve-year-old mind and I immediately asked thequestion: what if women could resorb? That what if was the start of my life as a

writer. And it was the start of the creation of A New Kind of Death.At the heart of A New Kind of Death is the idea that a few women in the world

have the ability to resorb their own foetuses at will . It is a mutation that, if leftto develop, would eventually become the norm. Just imagine what wouldhappen to the multi-billion dollar contraceptive market if the Rabbit Womanmutat ion took hold. The Forecaster, one of the characters in A New Kind of Death, is paid by his pharmaceutical company to imagine just that type of scenario, and he knows he has to act against the mutation before the

company’s profits are compromised forever.And so starts A New Kind of Death – a dark, funny, sexy and violent crime

novel, set in Mel bourne and Sydney with an occasional crossover to Harare andKyoto for that added zing of international menace.



The story follows the collision course of four characters. First is TheForecaster, the Japanese salary-man intent on protecting his belovedcompany.

Then there is Hannie Reynard, a fledgling Melbourne filmmaker who isdesperately trying to track down one of the “Rabbit Women” to save her

documentary.Hannie is being blackmailed by Mosson Ferret, a bean counter who is

overseeing her grant and trying to force his way back into filmmaking.And last – but never least – is Trojan Carmichael, an ageing hitman hired to

kill the seven Rabbit Women living in Australia. A New Kind of Death has a strong Japanese element woven into the story,

and that comes from the influence of my late Japanese aunt who introducedme to her culture through her stories and wonderful food, and inspired a life-

long fascination with Japan.As part of my research for the book, I travelled to Tokyo and Kyoto, andwalked along the streets that my character Mosson Ferret walks on his ownbig trip overseas; the same streets that The Forecaster dreams of returning toin his lonely company flat in Harare.

That trip to Japan was just part of what I call ‘experiential’ research, orhands-on research, and I do a lot of it for each of my novels.

For A New Kind of Death, I also learned how to shoot handguns and rifles (I

wasn’t too bad), studied hand-to-hand fighting techniques (I wasn’t toogood), and met up with some decidedly dodgy people who had been in‘security’ for large overseas companies.

I also ate a lot of delicious Japanese food – a really tough researchassignment, but someone had to do it. You’ll f ind a lot of food in A New Kind of Death – agadashi tofu in salty bonito soup, hokkien noodles dripping withdark soy, doughy daifuku cakes with nutty red bean centres. Mmmmm. Don’task me why, but death and food seem to go together.

A New Kind of Death is not your normal sort of crime novel. It’s edgy anddark and slyly funny. It has sharp elbows and bared teeth and packs a punch.But it also has heart and a good dollop of classic edge-of-your-seat suspense.Not to mention, a very good recipe for real miso soup.

A New Kind of Death was previously print published in the USA underthe title Killing the Rabbit .

It received a Highly Commended at the 2008 Davitt Awards.



‘A sharp, aware and compelling thril ler, takingthe genre into exciting new territories.’

– Michael Marshall (author of Blood Angels)

‘Every fascinating, unique character leaps off the page and lingers long after it’s

turned. Goodman has a winner.’

– Kelley Armstrong (author of Exit Strategy)

‘Take one part Michael Crichton-style sci-fi speculat ion and two parts Australian

ambience, add the hot-button topicality of women’s reproductive rights plus acolourful array of endearing misfits and evil henchmen for spice, stir in generous

helpings of white-knuckle suspense and corporate cloak-and-dagger intrigue, and

shake well, and you have the recipe for [ A New Kind of Death], a delectable debut

thriller from Alison Goodman. You’ll eat it up!’

– Stephen Woodworth (author of Through Violet Eyes and With Red Hands)

‘Quite simply the best first SF novel I’ve read in years. I’m tempted to invoke the

names of Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Marge Piercy, and even Quentin Tarantino… but Goodman’s near future vision and ripped-from-the-tabloids premise are so

unique I’d rather not compare her to anyone. I hope and believe that [ A New Kind Of

Death] marks the arrival of a major new talent on the SF scene.’

– Chris Moriarty (author of Spin Control)

A New Kind of Death

by Alison Goodman

Hannie Reynard landed every aspiring f ilmmaker’s dream: a hefty grant to make

her documentary, Freaks or Frauds. But the ground breaking film that was

supposed to launch Hannie’s career may kill her instead.

Blowing the grant money on a lost weekend was bad

enough, but now the subjects of her f ilm - women who

share a unique genetic trait - have stopped talking...

and started disappearing.

Blackmailed into accepting a burned-out colleague as

her cameraman, Hannie follows a perilous trail that

leads her and her crew towards a powerful puppetmaster with a deadly obsession.

And closing in on them all is a ruthless hit man with a

shooting schedule of his own.

ISBN: 978-0-9872717-7-8

coming July 2012



LINDY CAMERON

When you just have to blow something up

R EDBACK

CDP EBOOKS:

GOLDEN R ELIC

* THE K IT O’MALLEY MYSTERIES:

B LOOD GUILT , B LEEDING H EARTS

& T HICKER T HAN W ATER

* K ILLER W OMEN

* M URDERER IN THE F AMILY

* C RIME S HOTS

I have been a writer of crime fiction for 17 years and have loved every wordof it. There’s nothing better than ravelling a bit of intrigue and suspense

around a domestic crime, a criminal plot, or a neat MacGuffin, while usingthis most perfect of vehicles to delve into social, legal, political orenvironmental issues. As a strong sense of place forms the foundation of anygood crime novel, I like to think that my first four novels – Golden Relic andthe three Kit O’Malley mysteries, Blood Guilt, Bleeding Hearts and Thicker Than Water – also helped to put contemporary Melbourne on the fictional-crime map of the world.

But, while I was busy creating an imaginary Melbourne, which now existsinside the real city, the world around me was going to hell in a hand-basket.Our previous government had dragged Australia onto the world stage so itcould play with the big boys; while it ignored issues of illegal detention of both asylum seekers and enemy combatants; and created sedition laws tokeep us all quiet.

I was getting madder by the day, but didn’t know what to do about it. Andthen it dawned on me; I should do what I do best: makes things up. I decidedto write a f ictional polit ical-espionage adventure thriller in which the realworld is disguised in a cloak of action and drama.

Yeah I know, I’m not the first author to do this. But I did discover that notmany other Australian writers were/are doing it; and was very surprised tolearn that too many of those few had resorted to using Americanprotagonists to tell their action/adventure stories.



As a Nat ional Co-Convenor of Sisters in Crime Australia I have long beeninvolved in the promotion and encouragement of Australian (women)writers who write Australian crime. I figured it was time we home-grownauthors or perhaps, more tellingly, our publishers acknowledged that therewas no reason why the action hero, and other ‘main characters’, of a

contemporary fast-paced espionage-adventure thriller can’t be Australian.Why shouldn’t Aussies traipse around the world saving the day?

Novels, TV and movies have forever given us imaginary US Presidentsand British Prime Ministers who save the world, or lead it to the brink of disaster; who get kidnapped, assassinated or run out of office; or who areseen to be good, bad or indifferent.

The high esteem in which the off ice of the US President is held byAmericans has never stopped American writers from creating fallible or

heroic, honest or dishonest fictional versions of the ‘leader of the freeworld’. There has been, however, a strange reluctance to create f ictionalAustralian leaders of any description.

With Redback I dare to suggest that my Aussie PM may well be thesubject of an assassination plot; that his government should accept theconsequences of its foreign policy decisions and its involvement in the waron terror; and that our nation is in fact the target of known terrorists.

I also – it must be said – LOVE shooting bad guys and blowing things up.

This may be an odd thing for a woman – even a woman crime writer – toadmit to, but I do! I love guns, and swords and explosions.And I love research.I therefore have the best job in the world because as a writer I can

combine all the things I love. For instance, I researched Apache helicoptersso I could work out the most dramatic (and realistic) way to blow one up.

I researched sniper rifles, kitanas and handguns, so I… so my heroes andbad guys could have the right/best/coolest weapons for the jobs they have

to do.I researched the SAS, ASIO, the CIA, MI5, the FBI, the White House,Peshewar, Dallas and Sydney, so that my Aussies can take on the world.

I vicariously studied different forms of armed combat and martial artsand very techno techno-stuff so I could create a totally kickarse team of believable Aussie ‘Retrieval Agents’.

And then I created the sublimely professional ex soldier CommanderBryn Gideon to lead that very team of multi-skilled agents and likeable

bunch of blokes known as The Redbacks. And of course, being me, I madeBryn Gideon a woman.Because I could.



On a tranquil Pacific island, Commander Bryn Gideon and the Redback retrieval

team stage a secret rescue to recover hostages captured by rebels.Meanwhile, American journalist Scott Dreher,

researching computer-game training for actualwarfare, uncovers disturbing links betweengovernment agencies and known terrorist groups.

Elsewhere around the globe, trade negotiator JanaRossi’s new job with the Helix Foundation lands herin trouble in Thailand; Ashraf Majid prepares for his

first mission for the militant Atarsa Kára; home-grown terrorists in Europe and America prepare toassault their own governments; and a lone assassinstalks and dispatches the victims on his hit l ist.

Independently, Gideon and Dreher narrow thedegrees of separation between these seeminglyunrelated international incidents to the singularmanipulations of a mysterious organisation with no

common political or religious affiliations.

To achieve their ult imate goal, these conspiratorshave no problem playing both sides of the terrordivide against each other.

It then, of course, becomes a race for Gideon and her Redbacks to unravel aGordian knot conspiracy to...

Redback

by Lindy Cameron

ISBN: 978-0-9807900-2-3available now

FROM THECLAN DESTINE PRESS EBOOKERY

* coming June 2012available now



I began writing about the Frankston serial killings in 1993, before PaulDenyer was even caught. His crimes interwove with some short true crime

stories I was writing after doing ride-alongs with the police at Frankston.I was sitting in the back of a police car on the night that Natalie Russell

was murdered, feeling sick with dread that this killer could walk among usand kill with such daring brutality, even with the hundreds of extra police whohad been cal led into Frankston as reinforcements.

The 2011 updated re-release of my book The Frankston Serial Kil ler – withthe twist about how Denyer wants to become a woman – made me realisethat a case like this grows up with all of us.

I was in my twenties when I wrote the original book (titled The FrankstonMurders) back in 1994. My daughter, who was in primary school then, is now

is a young woman with a baby of her own.The crimes, so raw and fresh when I wrote about them, are a solved case

that will be 20 years old in 2013. This passing of time was no better illustratedthan when Natalie Russell’s mum, Carmel, told me that Natalie’s youngerbrother is now in his 30s, and had she lived, Natalie would have been 34.

Instead, Denyer’s final victim is forever 17, never growing older; capturedas a teenager in the photos that still have pride of place around her parents’home in Frankston. Her loss, heartfelt as ever, has become something

different over time: something to lament; something to sigh over. But backthen, the family’s loss was a puffy-eyed, heartbreaking raw wound.

Many authors say they never read their own books once they’ve beenpublished. Part of the reason is that we have read it hundreds of times in thewriting and drafting process and at the end, are almost incapable of judging

Revisiting a real-life serial killer

T HE F RANKSTON S ERIAL K ILLER

CDP EBOOKS:

C RIME S HOTS *

VIKKI PETRAITIS



it at all. We’re too close. So aside from the case, which is always fresh in mymind, there was a certain cringe-factor when it came to reading my book somany years after it was released.

We authors imagine that the more years we write the better we get at itso, ergo what we wrote 15 years ago was probably badly written. Yes, folks,

an insight into a writer’s insecurities…I was pleasantly surprised then this book was not only compelling but,

because of the way I wrote it, really showed the humanity of the people whowere affected by the case.

As far as the story itself, I found myself getting quite emotional readingparts of it because not only was I remembering the story, but I recal led themoments of hearing it from the families of the victims over coffee andtissues. I remembered their pain as if it were yesterday.

At the time, I had experienced little loss in my life aside from elderlygrandparents. Now I have a better insight into the loss I ‘described’ in thebook; the pointless unexplainable loss that can’t be made sense of. I nowknow first-hand what that is like. I have empathy rather than sympathy.Then, I felt their pain in my heart, now I feel it in my soul.

Revisiting Frankston for me was also a physical thing. I used to live nearwhere it all happened, but moved away not long afterwards. As I drove

through the streets, I smiled at the Safeway where I used to shop, the Chinese

restaurant that often fed my family when I was too busy writing to cook. Ismiled at so many memories.After 19 years, it was interesting to see who – apart from the families of

the victims – still holds the Frankston serial killings close to them. The caseremains very fresh in the minds of many people who l ived in the area and hada connection with either the victims or the Denyer family. And to those whohad no direct connection, but who lived with the terror of who might be thenext victim. Would it be their daughter, wife, sister or friend. While people

from other Melbourne suburbs might struggle to recall who the Frankstonserial killer was, Frankston residents have no troublenaming him.

Paul Denyer himself has changed. A lot. When he wasfirst interviewed by detectives, he was a thuggish 21 yearold with a chip on his shoulder, facing what he imaginedto be a 20-year sentence for the crimes he admitteddoing. He wrote chirpily to family about what he was

going to wear in court, and talked about his favouritecars. Being only 21, he perhaps had little concept that hemight never drive a car again, let alone save up and buyhis favourite model.

Denyer has kept himself clean in prison – as most serial



killers do. Aside, that is, from the bombshell he dropped about wanting towear make-up, dress as a woman, and call himself Paula.

Experts explain the prison phenomenon with serial killers. They say thatwith a regular regime, good nutrition, and an absence of victims, serial killersare generally well behaved. After all, the only laws they broke on the outside

were often the murders and nothing else. Deprived of victims, they areusually quite civilised in their behaviour.

But that’s where the problem lies. When Denyer applies for parole after his30-year minimum sentence is up, he can point to his unblemished recordinside, and declare himself free from his boyhood shenanigans.

Look at me now , he might say as a 51-year-old model prisoner dresseddemurely as a woman, I haven’t done anything wrong for 30 years. Trust me.

But the fact is, we should never trust Paul Denyer. He was born with a lust

for murder. It was all he used to think about. The power of taking a life was hisaphrodisiac. And, despite appearances, he still doesn’t get it. Dressing as awoman does not demonstrate empathy. He is incapable of it.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the letter he wrote back to meafter I’d written to him to ask if he wanted to make a statement for the newedition of my book.

‘Paula’ Denyer wrote back to me saying ‘she’ wouldn’t add anything to the

book because one day, she intended writ ing her “own unbiased account of

the murders”.Huh? Unbiased ? Is he kidding? Or does he truly believe, just as children do,that because their account feels right, it must be the one true version.

So while Paul Denyer might look like a warped version of a woman, wemust never forget that he is/was a man who hated women and wanted to killthem. We must never forget that he demonstrated a very dangerousegocentricity during his interviews. It was all about him and his reactions.

The women he killed were mere props in his play. He described Natalie

Russell offering sex in exchange for her life as disgusting; shaking his headlike she was filth, not a kid in a school uniform trying to survive. Headmonished Rozsa Toth for ‘going against her word’ and running away fromhim as he tried to kill her. In short, he expected others to play by the rules,while he violently flouted them.

This character trait can be masked by the passing of time and the gainingof wrinkles and grey pigtails. But it is not just the façade that the parole boardwould be releasing, should they go against the advice of the sentencing judge

and grant Denyer’s freedom when he is el igible to go before it. They would bereleasing the dark and twisted mind, the knife-wielding killer who hunted andstalked women as a pastime.

It is the hidden killer they need to look out for – the very thing that canremain masked until it is too late.



The Frankston Serial Killer

by Vikki Petraitis

The riveting and true account of seven horrifying weeks in 1993 when theAustralian bayside town of Frankston was terrorised by a series of crimesunlike anything it had experienced before.

Vikki Petraitis details the extensive police investigation into threebrutal homicides that led to the search for a serial killer, and the effect thathis killing spree had on the families involved and the community as awhole.

Few cases in Victoria’s history have incited the fear and panic of thatwinter when a vicious killer was stalking the bayside suburbs.

When Paul Denyer was caught, detectives listened for hours while hedescribed the killings in chilling detail and without a shred of remorse. Hehad coldly ended the lives of three young women, simply because hecould.

ISBN: 978-0-9807900-7-8

available now



Brisbane, where I spent most of my childhood, owes a lot of its casuallifestyle to the river that meanders through it. My brothers and I often rode

our bikes to Seventeen Mile Rocks, hoping to catch f ish, but mostly hooked eelsthat curled in such sl imey knots we’d have to cut the line to get them off.

The river played a big part in our growing up, so it wasn’t surprising that

when I wrote Fatal Flaw , I would use the river not only as a focus point...

As the impact of what she’d read slowly lessened, Julie turned and looked

through the large windows of the restaurant. The city of Brisbane lay in the

distance below, the river snaking wide and brown, houses slumbering, high-

rises clawing into the haze. The islands of Moreton Bay sprawled on the

horizon, green smudges between dark blue ocean and pale sky. A serene vista

that contrasted acutely with the turmoil of her thoughts. Of all the things she

knew her father to be, murderer was unimaginable.

...but as a place where murder was possible:

‘You have three seconds to show yourself before I throw Julie into the river.’

The words froze Mark’s heart. The voice belonged to Harry Lee, and he knew

what Harry was capable of.

‘Her hands are tied behind her back. It’s deep water off the edge of these

rocks. She’ll go straight to the bottom.’

In some books, the location is generic, the town could be any town, the city anycity. But I love to use locations that draw the reader into a world that’s either sodifferent from their own that it becomes as interesting as the plot; or sofamiliar that they gain a pleasing sense of recognition.

Location, location – for murder

F ATAL F LAW

CDP EBOOKS:

D ANCE W ITH T HE D EVIL

B LACK I CE

D ANGEROUS D ECEPTION

D EADLY T IDE

U NTIL D EATH

SANDY CURTIS



I’ve lived in and visited other Australian states, but my heart belongs inQueensland. I love the steamy tropics, lush rainforests, and reefs teeming withmulti-hued fish, gentle turtles, dugongs and dangerous sharks; the imposingmountain ranges and endless dusty plains with scrubby bushes and drought-tolerant eucalypts. Even our cyclones affect me to the degree that my f irstnovel, Dance with the Devil , began in the eye of one.

Stillness gripped the land.

An eerie sky seeped sulphurous light through all-pervading grey, hanging low,

seeming to suck the air off the earth like some gigantic sponge.

The st illness was intense, oppressive. The valley seemed to sink beneath the

weight of it, huddling down into itself, pulling in the craggy mountains that

reared up on either side. A river that began high in the Great Dividing Range

snaked its way down the valley in giant curves, cutt ing neighbour off from

neighbour, itself cut by old wooden bridges of the only access road.In one loop of the river, a small homestead sprawled across lush green

paddocks and rocky outcrops; the house a lowset Queenslander, aged and

neglected.

Everything was silent.

Emma Randall gradually became aware of water dripping from trees, running

down slopes in rivulets, plopping into puddles. She became aware that the body

she cradled had become heavy. Not just physically. The burden in her arms was

light compared to the burden in her heart.

When I travel led to Carnarvon Gorge in Central Queensland to research my f ifthnovel, Dangerous Deception, I had certain expectations. There would be thetowering cliffs, waterholes hiding elusive platypuses, meandering trails,Aboriginal rock art, strange rock formations – the usual visually breathtakingscenery that makes a tourist attraction so appealing.

What I didn’t expect was the emotional and physical impact I experienced

not only driving into the Gorge, but visiting sites like the Amphitheatre. I knewthese places would become not just locations in which to put my characters, butcatalysts for the l ife-changing events that would occur there.

As they drove closer to the Gorge, it was like they were entering an enormous

funnel. There was something primeval about the land here, as though its spirit

breathed under the dirt and in the craggy cliffs that drew them with the force of

a magnet. Rogan’s pulse quickened. He was not given to flights of fancy, but the

feeling that something momentous was going to happen seeped through him.

Metres above their heads the rock joined again, the only light coming from the

passageway entrance and the opening ahead. Breeanna negotiated the last

tricky section, and found her breath catching in her chest as it always did when

she walked into the bowl-shaped Amphitheatre.



Most of the floor was covered in tree ferns which had

been roped off to prevent visitors from damaging them.

Grey silt covered the rocky path around the left-hand

side, sloping higher to where two timber benches

offered a rest ing place. Breeanna stopped and gazed

upwards. Sheer sandstone walls towered fifty metreshigh, slanting inwards, creating the effect of gazing up

at a cathedral spire. Muted light seeped through the

opening as black clouds rolled across the sky. She could

feel the walls resonating with the power of nature that

had caused the erosion of dirt and stone trapped within

these massive vertical faults and forced it out through

the narrow passageway to create the area in which they

now stood. A church-like hush f illed the cavernous area. Breeanna shook off the awe

that always gripped her here and turned to Rogan. He, too, had stopped, and

the expression on his face, the almost reverential stance of his body, surprised

her. She was sure that if she touched him she would feel the vibrations of the

earth through his skin.

My forthcoming seventh book, Grievous Harm, goes to parts of Queensland far

removed from the Kings Cross cult Kate Maclaren is forced to infiltrate, and thebrutal side of Brisbane that sets John Corey on a mission beyond that of hisundercover assignment.

That mission leads John to find Kate, a woman he comes to love, but it alsoputs him in a position where he not only has to act against all his moral values,but, in order to save her from an horrific fate, he must destroy any chance of her returning that love.

There were scenes in this story that were extremely difficult for me to writebecause I cared about these characters so much. In a lot of ways the

Queensland Outback, as described below, reflected the devastation of bodyand spirit they both had to endure.

The land surrounding the Duralinga weapons research facility reflected the

extremes of temperature the area experienced. Red earth, baked beyond

hardness to a layer of dust, gripped the roots of trees stunted and warped by

many rainless seasons. A small spur of hil ls, more rock than dirt and startling

in its unlikely emergence from a flat landscape, thrust its craggy escarpments

at a cloudless sky.

My books are set al l over our wonderful country, not just Queensland, but Ihope I’ve been able to give you a taste of my state, the one I love so much.



Fatal Flaw

by Sandy Curtis

FROM THE CLAN DESTINE PRESS EBOOKERY

ISBN: 978-0-9807900-9-2

available now

A city in danger. Thousands will die. What would you sacrifice to save them?

Operative Mark Talbert’s father is murdered, the agency he works for hashim hunting terrorists, and the only connection isthe father of Julie Evans, the woman he loves.

Julie’s father has placed her in the hands of aterrorist determined to unleash horror on anunprepared city. She needs someone she candepend on, but can she trust the man she loves?

People are dying; people who seem to have

nothing in common, until Mark discovers his ownfather’s involvement in a decades-old crime. Akiller is taking a calculated revenge thatthreatens Mark, Julie, and Julie’s son.

Meanwhile the terrorists are making their finalmove.

Grievous Harm

coming November 2012



Intrigue, passion, demons

CDP EBOOKS:

THE DION CHRONICLES:

M AGE H EART

F IRE A NGELS

A RAMAYA

JANE ROUTLEY

I had once seen Kitten Avignon. It was on the very day that Michael and I,

covered with grit from our long walk east from Moria, had entered Gall ia.

She was the most beautiful woman I had ever set eyes on.

All around us enthusiastic people waved and cheered as she rode by on a

huge white horse surrounded by dark clad servants. She sat with straight-

backed dignity, smiling and gently waving her fine-boned hand. She wasdressed in deep red, and everything about her, from her pure white skin to the

red rose in the hat that covered her fair hair, seemed to glow vividly.

Looking back, Mage Heart had its genesis in the TV movie Love Among theRuins in which Katherine Hepburn stars as a glamorous older actress with

a past. I’m not sure I ever saw the movie and if I did I don’t remember whathappened, but I remember the ads with Katherine Hepburn’s character in a

delicious gown (the movie was set in the Edwardian age) and a really, reallybig hat of the kind the Edwardians excelled in.Regardless the item of clothing, Hepburn’s character really appealed to

me. I remember, as a teenager, announcing that I didn’t want to grow up tobe a wife and mother, but to be a famous actress with a thousand ex-lovers.This prompted a friend’s older brother to invite me out, which lead to an earlyromantic disappointment on both sides. (The less said about that the better.)

Sadly I proved not to have the talent or drive to become an actress and,

even more problematically, I lacked the emotional makeup to become thewoman with a thousand ex-lovers. Aside from the problems of attract ing thatmany partners, they’d have to be discarded pretty quickly to get the numbersinto four figures, and I’ve always been fatally soft hearted.



But my fascination with shady ladies has remained strong. My firstDungeons and Dragons character was a courtesan although she was quicklydiscarded in favor of someone with less subtle skills.

And so to Kitten Avignon, adventuress, actress, mistress of the Duke of Gallia, and the character at the centre of my first novel. She’s a combination

of Lola Montez, Nell Gwynne and Marilyn Monroe. Kitten is in control of herown life, as most of the great courtesans in real human history were.

In Mage Heart, a dark mage from Kitten’s past has caught up with her andis determined to kil l her. She has to find a mage who can help her.

This brings in the book’s narrator, Dion Holyhands. Writers always putparts of themselves into their books. How egotistical am I? I’ve put in twoparts: Kitten Avignon the adventurous femme fatale I’d liked to have been;and Dion, who is anxious, overeducated, inexperienced and painfully shy. In

other words my 17-year-old self. Thank God that time’s behind me!The first book follows the relationship between the two women and their

struggles to survive Kitten’s stalker. Kitten also becomes Dion’s mentor,guiding her through the rich and corrupt world of the Ducal court as the youngmage discovers the extent of her own powers. Along the way there are riots,assassinations, plots, betrayal and love.

And of course, there’s romance too.

A tall, dark man was leaning against the wall and looking down at us, at me

as I lay sprawled across Rapunzel’s lap, legs all awry, hair coming down.

He was the most magnif icent and startling creature I’d ever seen. His pale

face was lean and hard and beautiful, surrounded by a mane of long black

curls. A wicked little half smile played on his full red lips and his large, dark

and, God and Angels!, kohl-lined eyes regarded us caressingly.

He nodded. “Ladies,” he said softly.

I tried to make Mage Heart a juicy book. The common folk call Kitten Avignon

‘Our Lady of Roses’ (which was also the original t itle) and I tried to capture thesensuousness of roses – their furled petals, soft as velvet and shiny as silk, thelush way they burst out of their tight buds into a bounty of delicious petalswith just the hint of the secret yellow centre.

In hindsight it’s probably lucky my original print publisher didn’t allow meto go with my first title. Our Lady of Roses is one of the names for the VirginMary – and that may have been a touch inappropriate.

And now Clan Destine Press has released Mage Heart and its sequels – Fire

Angels and Aramaya – as The Dion Chronicles in eBook form. For the firsttime, they have covers which evoke the rich sexy atmosphere I wanted tocapture. Thank you Daryl Lindquist!



The Dion Chronicles

by Jane Routley

Provincial and naive, and the most powerful mage in the realm, young Dion

Holyhands is an innocent adrift in a world of intrigue and

treachery; a world where foul, hungry demons lurk just beyondits borders.

Dion has been called upon to serve her Duke’s favourite

mistress, the extraordinary Kitten Avignon. The courtesan is in

dire jeopardy, stalked by a fearsome necromancer who will not

rest until she suffers horribly and is destroyed.

Shielding the Lady from harm will require all of Dion’s power

at a time when her gift is imperilled by blossoming womanhood

and dangerous desire.

Reunited with the family she left as a child, Dion finds her cherished homeland of

Moira overrun by marauding Witch Hunters and dreaded Fire

Angels. She realises she must use her powers to save her land

and people from the grip of the Great Destroyer.

Thrust into a morass of court intrigue, political conspiracy

and furious passion, Dion is forced to confront the deadly but

seductive world of demons. Ultimately it is her own strength of

will, and the pure heart and bravery of the man she loves, that

will serve as her only weapons against the arch necromancer

who would make her his queen.

Fire Angels won the 1998 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy

Novel.

The conclusion to The Dion Chronicles takes the Dion across the ocean to

Aramaya, the centre of civilisation, in search of her missing niece, Syndal.

Dion and Kitten survive shipwreck to reach Akieva, the glorious

capital of decadent Aramaya, where they find Syndal caught in a

thrall of necromancy within the magnificent Winter Palace.

At the centre of this web lurks Dion’s arch enemy Bedazzer, the

ruthless demon who has vowed to possess her – no matter the

cost. In the ensuing deadly conflict, Dion must confront the dark

secrets of her own heart and the mighty evil concealed in those

around her. Aramaya won the 1999 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel.

AVAILABLE NOW FROM THE

CLAN DESTINE PRESS EBOOKERY



The Scarlet Stiletto Awards: 17 – going on 18 – years; 1987 entries, 604 stories

shortlisted, 17 trophy winners, 127 category awards, 87 special commendations.

Why do the Convenors of Sisters in Crime Australia do it? Every year? Moreimportantly – with so many wonderful tales of murder, mystery, mayhem, revenge,

justice and just deserts – how did we autopsy such a huge body of writing to choose

just 48 stories for our first two publicat ions?

Obviously the Scarlet Stiletto winners – 17 First Prize stories by only 13 women –

survived the f irst incision. Further probing, however, told us that some suspects kept

turning up in other categories in different years. Second prize winners had won the

Malice Domestic; many repeat offenders in the Special Commendation file had

escalated to Third Prize or Police Procedural; and some, on serial writing sprees,had turned to a life of Verse or, disturbingly, tried to perpetrate the Funniest Crime.

The final line-ups reveal evidence of the twisted, the nefarious, the sinister and

dark; but mostly exposes the guilty pleasure of the perfectly executed crime… story.

Our investigation into the Scarlet Stiletto Award archives also raised one last

question: Why do so many women out there want to get away with murder?

Scarlet Stiletto – both cuts

ed. Sisters in Crime Australia

Cate Kennedy ~ Roxxy Bent

Christina Lee ~ Janis Spehr

Category winners:

Josephine Pennicott ~ Jacqui Horwood ~ Julie Waight

Inga Simpson ~ Ann Penhallurick ~ Margaret Pollock

Margaret Bevege ~ Dianne Gray ~ Sarah Evans ~ Kerry Munnery

Ronda Bird ~ Phyl O’Regan ~ Bronwyn Blake ~ Liz Cameron

Louise Connor ~ Siobhan Mullany

Liz Filleul ~ Tara Moss

Scarlet Stiletto

1st Prize winners

‘Crime and mystery story collections of startling originality; and a grim

warning of what evil lurks in Australian suburbia.’ – Kerry Greenwood

Amanda Wrangles ~ Eleanor Marney

Aoiffe Clifford ~ Eveylyn Tsitas

Category winners:

Kylie Fox ~ Liz Filleul ~ Vikki Petraitis

Sarah Evans ~ Ronda Bird ~ Kirstin Watson ~ Jane Blechyden

Kerry James ~ Louise Bolland ~ Lois Murphy ~ Lesley Truffle

Kristin McEvoy ~ Corinna Hente ~ Rowena Helston ~ Linda Tubnor

F IRST C UT

ISBN: 978-0-9871604-5-4

Second Cut

ISBN: 978-0-9807900-8-5

available now



Clan Destine Pressis all about genre

Genre fiction in its myriad and wondrous forms:crime, mystery, historical fiction, thrillers, adventure,

speculative f iction, fantasy, science f iction, horror,urban fantasy, paranormal, steampunk,

and ah-ha! – which is any combination of the aforementioned –for Adults, Young Adults and Kids.

We publish inventive, clever and original works of page-turning genre fiction;riveting cross-genre stories; and books that are heroic, questy, feral, dark,

funny, spine-tingly, fast-paced, serious, silly and sensible.

Our authors are Australian and Clan Destine Press novelsare straight, gay, queer, ancient, contemporary, gothic, retro,

post-apocalyptic, earthbound and/or galactic.

We dabble in non-fiction (true crime and heroic-type real-life stories)but we specialise in genre fiction which – for some strange reason – means

we love fictional (& factional) cats, dogs, alpacas, cosmic toucansand Sawtoothed Bunnies.

We aim to publish new and exciting, plot-driven, boundary-pushing fictionwith fully-fledged characters and a strong sense of place.

It is the prime objective of Clan Destine Press to uncover, foster and promotenew Australian genre writers and to provide a home where already-published

authors can cross-over and dabble in new worlds.

Paperbacks & eBooks direct from Clan Destine Presswww.clandestinepress.com.au

Paperbacks from all good bookshops Kindle eBooks from Amazon

Booksellers contact our distributors: ABG Australian Book [email protected]



GENRE FICTION SPECIALISTS

PAPERBACKS & EBOOKS

AN INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIAN

PUBLISHING HOUSE

www.clandestinepress.com.au

crime historical fantasy

speculative fiction

science fictionurban fantasy

true crime

memoiradventure

2012 clan destine press catazine

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