Coralesque and Other Tales to Disturb and Distract

A surfer who becomes horrifyingly one with the sea. A new mother’s devastating search for belonging. A stone gargoyle with a violent history. A fisher boy who discovers the real cost of forbidden love. A farmer whose delight at drought-breaking rain quickly turns to terror. A hedonistic rock star who manifests double trouble. A young girl’s chilling sacrifice for justice. A dirty ex-cop with a dirtier secret. An unscrupulous mayor’s solution to rid her city of the homeless…These are just some of the characters you’ll meet in this collection of dark offerings. From the harsh terrain of the Outback, to the depths of the Pacific Ocean, the wilds of Tasmania, dystopian futures, enchanted lands, and the familiarity of suburbia, Coralesque and Other Tales to Disturb and Distract takes readers on a journey into unsettling, unforgiving, and unforgettable territory.

"This collection of dark and weird tales firmly establishes Rebecca Fraser as a captivating storyteller and a gifted, poetic writer. Her stories and poems are impelled by powerful narratives, and no matter where they take you—the past, present or future; the street around the corner; foreign countries; or magical lands—her deft world building has you living, breathing and tasting her creations, and her characters populate these fictions with believable authenticity so we are drawn into the stories hardly realising their artifice." —Steven Paulsen, author of Shadows on the Wall

Rebecca Fraser is an Australian author who writes genre-mashing fiction for both children and adults. Her short stories, flash fiction, and poetry have appeared in numerous award-winning anthologies, magazines, and journals, and her first novel Curtis Creed and the Lore of the Ocean was released in 2018 (also with IFWG Publishing Australia). Coralesque and Other Tales to Disturb and Distract is her first collection.