Why am I passionate about this?
I’m Australian and there’s a big place in my heart for Australian-set stories. I read mostly for escapism, but there’s a deeper connection with tales from my own backyard. I’ve also always loved speculative fiction and I’m excited when my favourite genres and setting come together. I’m the author of five speculative fiction novels with Australian settings: the four novels in The Rephaim series (urban fantasy) and The Undercurrent (slightly futuristic/pre-apocalyptic). With The Rephaim series, I wanted to put angels, half-angels, and demons in a sunny coastal Australia setting, rather than the gloomy European forests we’re mostly used to for those types of stories. It was a lot of fun.
Paula's book list on other-worldly creatures roaming around Australia
Why did Paula love this book?
Australian author Kirsty Eagar’s love of surfing and the ocean comes through in every book she writes.
Here, she combines quintessential Aussie surf culture with vampires. Not sexy, heart-throb vamps, but soulless killers with an unquenchable thirst and increasingly disturbing plans for themselves and humanity. This novel is equal parts edgy contemporary Aussie coming-of-age story and skin-crawling horror. It’s no mean feat, and Kirsty hits it tone-perfect.
As always, there are well-written, believable characters (teen protagonists, unhinged vamps, and dodgy adults), plus a tense plot that builds to a frenetic pace with high stakes. Kirsty gives us classic mythology, refreshed and transplanted into a sun-drenched beach setting, underpinned by a reimagining of the brutal real-life story of the Batavia shipwreck in 1629.
I first read this over a decade ago and I loved it even more the second time around.
1 author picked Saltwater Vampires as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A fast-paced thriller about surfing, the supernatural, and one of history's bloodiest maritime incidents. Shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Young Adult fiction.
Holidays in the coastal village of Rocky Head should mean surfing, dodging tourists, and partying at the local music festival. But when Jamie Mackie is savagely bitten in the surf by a friend, he realises things are going to be different this summer. The Mutineers are in town, a coven of brutal vampires created in the shipwreck of the Batavia, four hundred years ago. If their plans succeed, nobody in Rocky Head will survive to…
- Coming soon!