Books published by Story Of Books
The Constant Companion Tales by Salina Christmas. A collection of serialised short stories of post-colonial horror spanning three generations.
Part One: The Constant Companion Tales
by Salina Christmas
A ghost appears just as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission exhumes the remains of fallen World War 2 soldiers. The soldiers say the wandering spirit that terrorises them is that of a headless soldier executed during World War 2. A captain by rank. How could they tell? By his epaulette and his cypress green uniform. But why does it appear when the Gurkha remains are being exhumed? A ghost story told from the point of view of a nine-year old child, the daughter of an army captain, whose family resides at a very old military camp.
Part Two: The Constant Companion Tales
by Salina Christmas
An elderly relative reveals what their family ‘keeper’ did to the enemy soldiers. The price paid was too high. This is the backstory to the Red-Haired Gurkhas, covering two generations in World War 2 and the Second Malayan Emergency period of the 1980s. The children’s grandfather has a secret after all, one he’s unwilling to burden his family with. But his ghostly servant isn’t the biggest surprise. What was done to the enemy soldiers by the other keeper of his kins was as just as evil as the atrocities committed during the war. Only one person survived the massacre – a boy soldier sent against his wish to a war he wanted no part of.
Part Three: The Constant Companion Tales
by Salina Christmas
Treason comes from within. It’s easier to forgive an enemy. But a kith? A kin? This is the story of traitors, and what their own kins do to the enemy within. An ancient, senile ghostly servant – on his midnight cigarette break – accidentally reveals his horrific true form to the Raden family. The exorcism that follows introduces the Raden children to the flying blades, another ‘surprise’ from their secretive elders. Upon learning their great-grandmother’s past, the children discover that once, not long ago, after the war was over, the British were much exposed to the jungle terrorists. The bitter sacrifices and innocent lives brutally taken meant their kins had no choice but to summon the flying blades for a most calamitous goal.
Part 1, 2 & 3 of The Constant Companion Tales
on Paperback
by Salina Christmas
This is the story of the keeper of my kin. It’s been prescribed a life of violence which is none of its choosing. But master it we must, or else our clan shall perish.
Three separate incidents between World War 2 and the Malayan Emergency period connect the dots to reveal a sinister force haunting three generations of the Raden family.
Now the three haunting stories of the Raden family are combined in a paperback.
• THE RED-HAIRED GURKHAS
• THE TIGER-MAN AND HIS CONSTANT COMPANION
• THE NIGHT OF THE FLYING BLADES
by Salina Christmas
It’s the 1960s. Newly independent Malaysia is in confrontation with Indonesia. The Raden family and the Javanese are asked to betray their country in favour of their ancestral land. Their son, a young soldier, encounters a Tiger-Man. But it’s not theirs. It’s the servant of another. This could spell the end of the Raden family, at the hands of someone who is as dangerous as them.
by Salina Christmas
It’s 1964 and the confrontation drags on. The Malaysians and Indonesians are beginning to tire of the face-off. Someone, somewhere, profits from the suffering and division. Spells and curses are deployed to protect one side from the other. In the desire of peace lies a glimmer of hope. The Raden family can break the generational curse once and for all. But peace demands sacrifice.
After The Rain is a meditation via photography on nature and the lesser-heard inner voices. The visual journals are contemplative observation on our relationship with the environment and sustainability.
by Zarina Holmes
After The Rain: Number 1 is a meditation via photography on nature and the lesser-heard inner voices. It started as a diary to accompany Zarina Holmes’s photography pieces, which is her train of thoughts during a hectic life between London and her seaside home near Pangkor Island. After The Rain also alludes to the feeling of calm and relief after a storm. You could say it’s about a new beginning after a turbulent passage.
by Zarina Holmes
After The Rain: Number 2 came three years after this journal made its debut. We’ve had a pandemic and a global supply chain crisis. In this edition, environmental calamity has a more profound co-starring role. It represents the consequences of the choices we make as humans. Darkness and light, life and death, and pastel and pop interlock with one another. But as this journal alludes, winter always turn to spring. And the rain will stop at some point.
