Cirrus@Austlit

'Parisian psychologist Madeline Diomande has known her share of peculiar and demanding clients. But Wander Paxton is something more. Wander has lived in seven countries and speaks four languages, and claims a dreamlife even more exotic. There, an entity she equates with Phobetor, the Roman god of nightmares, pursues her through a landscape of archetype and wild fantasy.

'As her efforts to help Wander draw them closer together, Madeline's own old nightmares resurface. But strange things are happening in Paris. As the incidence of night terrors in children reaches plague proportions, adults become violent and suicidal. By the time she realises the truth of Phobetor's connection to her patient, it may be too late to save anyone.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Enter a dark carnival where nothing is as it seems, in this collection of thirteen tales by award-winning author KYLA LEE WARD. Each exhibit tantalises with a mix of horror, seduction and blackest humour.

'A masked apparition tempts a struggling musician. Tourists in the City of Assassins seek a truly authentic experience. Gargoyles and angels battle for the future of a university. Firefighters confront the spectre of what has burned before. Actors in a funfair haunt realise where the true horror lies. A wax-working necromancer plots vengeance for the death of her lover.

'This menagerie of stories represents twenty years of publication by a unique voice in contemporary weird and Gothic fiction, and will enthrall enthusiasts of thoughtful horror and dark fantasy, especially readers of Joyce Carol Oates and Tanith Lee. A cavalcade of artists and archetypes, mummies and masquers, vampires and voyeurs will sweep you away to distant times and places, and shock you with surprises closer to home. But be warned! For as the hour grows late, the difference between spectator and attraction blurs. After midnight, you’ll never want to leave...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A contemporary re-envisioning of the medieval “The Dance of Death” theme (fourteenth-century), written for the twenty-first century onward.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In the newly-formed penal colony of Sydney, plague and starvation are a constant threat. But this time isolation has a more sinister edge. In 1919, a reclusive Sydney doctor with a dark history and a fear of treating patients is drawn into a situation beyond even his control. Beneath the bustling noise of present-day Sydney, Jacqueline's accidental discovery while on an archeological dig unearths more than just a rotting corpse.'

Source: Back cover.