Paul Burns
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The Fetish Collection
An Anthology of Short Stories ISBN: 9780992879631 Published by The Aboulia Press as an ebook and distributed via Amazon and Kobo The thirteen short stories and one novella that make up The Fetish Collection are varied other than each including at least one unusual sexual preference. These range from ablutophilia (bathing) to zonaphilia (girdles). The characters deal with issues at different stages of life including a boy who can’t understand why men stare at his mother, a student grappling with honesty, a priest who no longer has faith, grief in old age and a woman facing imminent death. While not written as pornography, some stories feature explicit sexual scenes. Others are coyer. Surprises abound. The novella and some of the stories are set in New Zealand. The geographic spread of the others is wide and the period covered stretches from WWII to the present day.
The Bush Baptist - a novel
Print and ebook versions ISBN: 9781782997078 What makes a person vulnerable to a cult? Holbach grew up in Auckland in the 1950s and 1960s. Belief in magic helped him to deal with the unhappiness of his early years until events left him feeling cursed. During adolescence, he places his faith in science and looks at religions the way others observe the behaviour of ants. He is slow to fall in love and when this happens it ends badly. Misfortune prompts him to flee to London. The outlooks of the squatters he lives with there challenge his middle-of-the-road beliefs. Coincidences further unnerve Holbach. A fundamentalist sect tempts him and its attraction grows after he falls in love with the sister of its charismatic prophet. A battle rages in Holbach’s head between rationalism and the urge to make a leap of faith. And how he is to explain the sect’s euphoria-inducing blessings? The novel deals with the inability to decide on beliefs, post-war New Zealand society, London’s 1970s counter-culture and fetishes that range from a penchant for dental nurses to the obsession with beauty that Holbach shares with his mother.
Mr Vitriol - a novel
Print and ebook versions ISBN 9780992879600 In the new millennium, two men who never met write autobiographies that include experiences of severe bullying during National Service over forty years earlier. Norman Midlin almost drowned. NCOs raped Perry Gray. Perry responds to his violation and subsequent Army cover-up through vigilantism that includes poison-pen letters, planting bugs and evidence. He writes his story in code shortly before committing suicide because exposure as Mr Vitriol is nigh. The media invented the name and whipped up public loathing for the anonymous correspondent. Norman copes with his Army nightmares by working to the point of exhaustion. He becomes a cryptanalyst. Retirement resurrects his horrors. With the help of his wife he recovers until the police ask him to decrypt Perry’s pages. Disturbed by Perry’s account and then by being widowed, Norman teeters between illusion, delusion and shrewd insights. He intersperses Perry’s chapters with his own story and comments on parallels and differences. Norman’s abhorrence of Mr Vitriol is tempered by Perry’s autobiography and the sense of his presence. The men develop a dialogue and a relationship that ranges from poignant to stormy.
A Thingummy of Things: An ABC of Animals
Children's ebook ISBN 0992879620 Illustrated by Donata Zawadzka A page for each letter of the alphabet and each page features a different animal and a newly minted collective noun. An audience of alligators, a buzzload of bees, a caboodle of cats... It will be enjoyed by children, particularly those between 3 and 7 years of age, and adults who enjoy imaginative illustrations.