‘What things?’

‘I promised not to tell.’

‘Do you remember?’

‘Some things. Not good.’

A care worker’s unwise interest in a dementia client leads him into a dark labyrinth.

A man intent on suicide happens on his doppelganger.

An abandoned woman wonders whether her lover’s crime might prove his love.

Stories to beguile and captivate.

Read an excerpt from ‘The Lost Child.’

All have elements of mystery and suspense, some a touch of the supernatural. In the opening, ‘One Winter’s Afternoon’, a distinguished G.P. confronts his past life while making an outcall to a deserted cottage. In ‘The Willing Flesh’ a rich woman confined to a wheelchair commissions a portrait painter to create for her on canvas an ideal mate, with unforeseen and disastrous consequences. In ‘The Shark’, a young idealistic teacher begins her first job in a decaying country town and finds herself caught up in a sinister web of power…

‘(Swinbourne) demonstrates a rare confidence with language that makes for compelling reading.’

– The Weekend Australian

‘Even the shorter stories quickly create an atmosphere of foreboding and menace.’

– The Sydney Morning Herald

Read ‘One Winter’s Afternoon’ from The Shark and Other Stories

In the opening story, ‘Away’ (winner of the 40⁰ South Short Story Award), a young Hobart woman visiting Sydney for work, suddenly sees the life she walked away from and is dangerously tempted back. In ‘The Divine Image’ a passionate art collector must choose between a priceless sculpture and a human life. In ‘The Deal’ a loving husband must make a pact with the devil to keep his wife…

‘The tales’…shapes converge, with a satisfying precision, on the agony of the instant. Swinbourne’ s fiction provokes and entertains, teases and disturbs, with admirable, and unpretentious vitality.’

– The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Read ‘Away’ from Away and Other Stories