A dark Family Secret. A web of deception. Exiles in alien lands. Who will survive their Australian Christmas calamity to celebrate the sun-scorched festive season? Harbouring a dark Family Secret, prodigal grand-daughter Kate brings her unsuspecting partner home to Christmas lunch with her menagerie of weird relatives… 25th of December 2056, Mary and her soldier boyfriend Nick are sent to break up an illegal meeting on their space-ship. But old memories resurface, forcing Mary to rethink the choices she's made... Exiled to an alien land with no means of return, the blooming of the Christmas Bells now brings Sara only grief and despair… Clara gets more than she bargained for when she plays a new virtual reality platform. Suddenly, virtual characters are coming after her in reality. The only way to stop them - is to play the game to the end… Nine-year-old Juliette covets her brother's Christmas present, a chocolate bar hidden away by her father. Preoccupied by the search, she is oblivious to a crisis unfolding outside… When a private investigator lands a much needed job just days before Christmas, the last thing he expects is to be drawn into a surreal web of deception and justice… An Antipodean Christmas feels awfully topsy-turvy to Evangeline and when she goes to buy gingerbread for her father, she finds that the weather is not the only odd thing about this festive season… Queen Aeria of the Northern Elves reluctantly agrees to help Mrs Claus find her missing husband. Now Aeria is in for an unforgettable experience, some uncomfortable truths, and a few unfamiliar traditions from the Great Southern Land... Set sail with our Narrator - spectral convict mariner, Jacob Bloodsworth - as he nets a catch of eight Australian speculative and contemporary Christmas stories bobbing in the ghostly waters off the coast of this Great Southern Land. Christmas Australis contains a novella, two novelettes and five short stories - something for everyone this Festive Season. Buy A Frighteningly Festive Anthology of Spine Jingling Tales and treat yourself to eight individually crafted stories from Down Under!