Cirrus@Austlit

'OLD SECRETS NEVER STAY BURIED

'An isolated town with a dark past…

'Devlins Reach in the Hawkesbury River is known for its secluded location and picturesque beauty. But within its tight-knit community of loggers, store owners and tight-lipped locals, a killer is on the loose.

'When three bodies are unearthed in an excavation site, park ranger and wilderness expert Taylor Bridges is called in to help local police, and he discovers the town has an unsettling history. But Taylor has a past of his own that still haunts him and his family.

'As a torrential storm grows closer, The Reach goes into lockdown. With no way in or out, Taylor finds himself in race against the power of nature to catch the killer before the town goes under.' (Publication summary)

'‘The past is my shadow, forever behind me.’ 

'Cassie Belrose was used to looking over her shoulder. Running away was what she did best – away from a possessive husband who wants her back, running from city to city, from job to job, to stay one step ahead of him.

'Daniel Woodsman is at home in the dark; in the abandoned railway tunnels below the city where the homeless veteran has built his life since his injuries had taken away more than just his confidence.

'Fleeing the Suits dispatched by her husband to bring her home, Cassie enters Daniel’s domain in the subway where their two worlds collide.

'Together, can they stop running long enough to begin living again.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'A week of despair - a century of evil. The latest spine-tingling tale from B. Michael Radburn

'Damaged but not yet broken after an ordeal in Tasmania's wilderness, park ranger Taylor Bridges believes his ghosts are in the past until a raging forest fire in an isolated canyon of Eldritch Falls lays bare the remains of a young woman...and a secret killing ground.

'After the police enlist Taylor in their investigation, the evidence bizarrely points to Jacob Muller, a deranged preacher, who reigned over The Falls a century ago. But when a crucial witness disappears, it's clear there is more to the dark history of The Falls. ' (Publication summary)

'Andy Walker, son, lover, and a veteran of war, knows tragedy is only ever a heartbeat away.

'When an inmate escapes from the prison farm upriver and abducts Nathan, a child Andy has vowed to protect at all costs after loosing his own son years before...Walker draws on his inner soldier to deliver young Nathan from harm, and discovers who the escapee is; a dark figure from his past, the devil who changed his life forever, the man who introduced him to 'The Game'.

'The story ends as it began, with the same two people on the banks of Blackwater's river - only this time Walker has a gun, and a choice to make. And so in the end, Blackwater may keep just one more secret...' (Publisher's blurb)

'Redemption is born of guilt, and weighs heavy on even the strongest man.

Traumatised by the disappearance of his daughter Claire, Taylor Bridges' marriage breaks down, and he exiles himself to Glorys Crossing in Tasmania. Taylor is the only ranger in this isolated town adjoining a national park... a town dying a slow death as the rising waters of the new dam project slowly flood it.

Struggling with the guilt of Claire's disappearance, Taylor is a chronic sleepwalker. When another young girl the same age goes missing, Taylor begins to question himself... uncertain of what happens when he sleepwalks.

It's a race against time not just to find the missing girl, but in Taylor's search for redemption and a past better left lying at the bottom of the new lake.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Gary Lafferty hates lifts, and lifts hate Gary Lafferty.'

Source: Author's website. (Sighted: 16/6/2014)

Australia's first specialist semi-professional (in that it did not pay authors) magazine in the genres of horror and fantasy, The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine was founded in 1984 by Barry Radburn.

It ran for six issues, including the combined final issue 5/6.

According to Stephen Paulsen,

While it's true to say that earlier Australian magazines sometimes published horror stories, Futuristic Tales (edited by Don Boyd) and The Cygnus Chronicler (edited by Neville Angove) for example, these were primarily science fiction and fantasy magazines. AH&FM was the first Australian publication devoted to the weird and macabre.

Assisted by Stephen Studach and joined later by Leigh Blackmore, Radburn produced six digest-sized (A5) issues averaging forty to sixty pages (the final two being published as a double issue) between early 1984 and October 1986. In total he published some thirty-one original stories and twenty original poems. Of these numbers, about half were contributed by Australian writers.

For the covers Radburn used simple but striking illustrations on coloured stock to good effect. Many of the stories were also illustrated, but the quality of these drawings was uneven, ranging from the amateurish to near professional. As with the prose about half the art pieces published were Australian. AH&FM also included articles, reviews and letters and while no single piece of work stands out, in the main the contents were competent and enjoyable.

Source:

Paulsen, Stephen, 'The State of the Horror Fiction Magazine', Bloodsongs, 1 (1994). Republished by the Australian Horror Writers Association (http://www.australianhorror.com/articles.php?article=9). (Sighted: 24/9/2014)