Hell's Bells: Stories of Festive Fear by members of the Australian Horror Writers Association

by Martin Livings (Contributor), Keith Williams (Contributor), Deborah Sheldon (Contributor)

40 short stories of Christmas and ghosts. Published by the Australian Horror Writers Association. Cover art and layout by Greg Chapman. Copyright © AHWA 2016.

Table of Contents:
Tradition ~ Martin Livings
The Christmas Before Night ~ Neil Cladingboel
When All Goes Cold ~ David Schembri
Oh Christmas Tree ~ Jason Nahrung
Christmas Spirit ~ Chris Mason
Ever Near To Us ~ Bernie Rutkay
I’ll Be Home For Christmas ~ Greg Chapman
The Gift ~ Mark Smith-Briggs
Three Doors Down ~ Cameron Trost
Hairy Plopper and the Half-Blood Pudding ~ Keith Williams When This You See, Think Of Me ~ Deborah Sheldon
A Christmas Carillon ~ Joy Loggie
Christmas Past ~ Anthony Ferguson
Do Not Open This Gift ~ Chris Ferdinands
Propeller ~ C S Hughes
Feeding The Fire ~ Barb Ettridge
All I Want ~ Angela J Maher
Grandmother Rina ~ Geneve Flynn
Strange How Potent Cheap Music Can Be ~ Rob Barden Santa’s Slay ~ Louise Zedda-Sampson
Home For Christmas ~ Trevor Cleland
The Carol Singer At The Back ~ Rebecca Fraser Christmas Morning ~ Steve Paulsen
Alone ~ Steve Herczeg
The Thought That Counts ~ Christopher Pulo
Roland’s Merry Christmas ~ Gerry Huntman
Bitterness Of Brugmansia ~ Helen Stubbs
Old Man Christmas ~ Andy Cull
Christmas Presence ~ Matthew R Davis
Yellagonga ~ Shane Jiraiya Cummings
Rescue By Santa ~ Noel Osualdini
A Hellish Christmas ~ Onyx D’Castro-Noack
A Christmas Retribution ~ Silvia Brown
Ghosts Of Christmases Past ~ Darren Gore
The Daughter Of Clay ~ Shaun Taylor
Three Little Words ~ Steve Dillon
The Covenant Guarantee ~ Adam Bertram
Living With Loss ~ Alan Baxter
In A Perfect World ~ Michael Claudius
Deck The Walls ~ Claire Fitzpatrick

Genres: Horror, Christmas

83 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 16, 2016

About the author

Martin Livings (born 1970) is an Australian author of horror, fantasy and science fiction. He has been writing short stories since 1990 and has been nominated for both the Ditmar Award and Aurealis Award. He resides in Perth, Western Australia.

His short fiction has appeared in the award-winning anthology Daikaiju! (Agog! Press), as well as in Borderlands, Agog! Terrific Tales (Agog! Press) and Eidolon, among many others. His work has been listed in the Year’s Best Horror and Fantasy Recommended Reading, and reprinted in Year’s Best Australian SF and Fantasy Volume 2 (MirrorDanse Books, 2006), Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2006 Edition (Brimstone Press, 2006), and The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror in 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2015 (Ticonderoga Publications).

His first novel, Carnies, was published by Lothian Books in Australia in June 2006. Carnies was nominated for an Aurealis Award and won the 2007 Tin Duck Award for Best Novel by a Western Australian. His collection of short stories, Living With the Dead, was released in 2012 by Dark Prints Press, and an original story from the collection, “Birthday Suit”, won the Australian Shadows award for Best Short Fiction that year.

Both Carnies and Living With the Dead are available now through Amazon, along with his techno-thriller novel Skinsongs, horror novel An Ill Wind, his followup collection of short stories, Light Falling From A Long Dead Star, and the novellas Rope and The Final Twist. His newest release, the horror novel The Obituary, is now also on Amazon.

https://amazon.com/author/martinlivings

Reviews

[Frank Errington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review copy

Hell's Bells happens to be one of my favorite tracks from Back In Black arguably the best album from the Australian rock band AC/DC and fits well as the title for this new anthology. Much like the in-your-face rock 'n' roll AC/DC is known for, Hell's Bells, a collection of 40 flash stories of 500 words or less, will leave you rocking.

I've been aware of Australia as a hotbed of horror for a few years now, and this anthology just solidifies that view. In the mix are author's I've read a lot, some I've read a bit, and many I've just read for the first time. While not every story hit the high notes, enough of them did to make this collection worth your time.

There are all kinds of Christmas horror stories among these tales, but my favorites are the Christmas ghost stories, of which there are several. There truly is something for every fan of dark fiction in Hell's Bells. It's not easy to write a complete story in under 500 words, but for the most part that's just what the writers accomplish in this compilation.

As I write this review, it's nearly Summer in the land of Oz and here I was reading these stories in the bitterly cold Northeast United States. So I just imagined myself relaxing out on the deck while me mate grills a thick juicy steak on the barbie. Let me tell ya, that just warmed the cockles of me heart.

Hell's Bells is published by the Australian Horror Writers Association and is currently available for the Kindle. If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited you can read it at no additional charge. Also, if you are an Amazon Prime member you can read it for FREE using the Kindle Owners Lending Library.

[Brendon Lowe · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a slog to get through even though it's only short. Each story in this is 500 words of less which really hampers what the authors can do as that's not much of a word count. The majority of these were totally forgettable and had little to offer.

I am Australian and the only name I knew from this list of authors was Alan Baxter whose story was one of the better ones. I guess it's just the fact each story is only a few paragraphs long which really hampers the overall collection. Not overly festive either.

[Cameron Trost · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a contributor, my rating won't be considered objective, but you ought to know that I've contributed to anthologies that I've given three stars, and others (very few) that I've given five. With this in mind, I do hope the ghost story fan will accept my four-star rating of Hell's Bells. Flash fiction is difficult to write, and good ghost stories are VERY difficult to write; they're up there with mystery in terms of technical complexity. This anthology offers the reader a variety of Christmas ghost stories, from the subtle and haunting to the horrifying and grisly, and they are all very fine examples of flash fiction. There is also a spooky poem. With the festive season approaching, today is the day to ring that bell - if you dare!

[Mark Smith-briggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun collection of Christmas themed flash fiction. Offers plenty of unique takes on the ghost story theme.

[Deborah Sheldon · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great concept for an anthology! (Please note, I have a story in this one, which I'm leaving out of my review.) It's no mean feat to write a story in fewer than 500 words, so congrats to the various writers of "Hell's Bells". This is a fun and entertaining collection of spooky tales.

[Stephen Herczeg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant. Great stories from some up and coming authors.

[Neil Cladingboel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection of festive chills. I am honoured to be a part of it.

[Angela Maher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luscious bites of sinister stories, a ghostly festive treat. Love a Christmas ghost story (or just ghost stories in general)? Don't miss this one!

[exorcismemily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking forward to this one. I read half of the stories, and very few of them were over 2⭐ for me. I know this was meant to be a complete anthology, but it seemed like many of these were included as filler & I wish the book was a little more selective. Many of them didn't even really seem like they could be called horror stories. All right, I'm done.

[lucyreads_]

DNF at 50% - just not wowed by anything in here

[Deb O rah · Rating 4 out of 5]

great collection of short xmas ghost tales. my favorites were

The Christmas Before Night by Neil Cladingboel
O Christmas Tree by Jason Nahrung
Bitterness of Brugmansia by Helen Stubbs