Christoffer Petersen

Authentic Arctic Thrillers

Christmas

Christmas on the Moor – a poem

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Christmas on the Moor

© Christoffer Petersen, 2021

I paint a shepherd this tar whistling night
trudging lonely moor, through the kissing gate
a long stone wall – frosted wool tufts in the cracks
faithful dog out front sniffs the cold path home

the hearth is warming, and the fire is lit
soot-black kettle on the boil with a plate
of stew and clay apple dumplings tonight
before the evening smoke wisps from spent coals

frost-stiff cuffs and ice in the sweater weave
much stamping of snow on the wire hemp mat
jacket hung, she settles at the table
the chair creaks – waiting for Christmas morning.

Die Hard – the Christmas movie!

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Jane’s visiting her sister. I have sole possession of the remote control. The sound bar is cranked up, and yes, it’s time for the Christmas movie to beat all Christmas movies.

Die Hard!

I was fifteen when it came out in 1988. It was rated 18 and I remember practising my line for the ticket office if they questioned my age. I trembled up the steps of the entrance to the cinema, and when she asked, I told the woman behind the counter that I was born in 1963.

Yeah, I’m not great with numbers.

Miraculously, she let me in, and Die Hard will forever remain the first movie I snuck in to see illegally. I’m not sure it was illegal, per se, but I was very impressed by the movie and it remains a firm favourite to this day.

I realised just how impressed I had been when I watched Die Hard last Christmas. During my teaching career kids always asked me why I wore my watch backwards, i.e. with the face facing in to my body. I said I had always done it.

Then I saw Die Hard last year and realised when I turned my watch backwards.

Of course, there’s something about action heroes and their watches in violent movies – John Wick wears his watch the same way.

And with that, it’s time to pop some Christmas popcorn!

Chris

And… coming soon! Part 2 of Yule at Aurora Station! Grab Part 1 for FREE here!

The Starlighter kindle countdown deal

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It’s snowing! Finally! Yes, it’s just turned midnight and I wanted to write this post about The Starlighter, but just thought I’d take a look outside to see if the promised snow has arrived. And yes! It has! It’s thick and wet, the absolute worst kind of snow, but I’ll take it! Because, you know, snow and Christmas and all that! 🙂

But what about The Starlighter?

Aha, well, it’s enrolled in a Kindle Countdown Deal right now in the US and the UK, starting at 0.99 and going up the ways. So, it pays to be quick if you’re curious about reading my “other kind of book”.

The Starlighter has had a checkered life. It got stalled by me using different pen names, and then Amazon’s algorithms pushing it to crime readers when I settled on my crime pen name – yeah, should have seen that coming. Then two years in obscurity as editors at big publishers read it during corona, and finally, me pulling it back to publish it myself.

But forget all that.

If you want a fun read aimed at a younger audience that is guaranteed (almost) to make you cry (but in a good way), then The Starlighter is for you.

It’s one of my favourite books, just because it is so damned different to what I normally write, and because of the plucky, determined heroes trying to save the earth from extinction at Christmas!

I could go on.

I won’t.

But if you’re curious, you can find it on Amazon here.

Right, back to the snow…

Chris

Christmas Decorations

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I know, there’s still one day before December, but I was looking through my photos – seven year’s worth – and found these fuzzy photos from November 30. Now, interior design is not my forte, but I had a go. The first photo is a little of everything, and a few books from the shelves for those of you wondering what Jane and I were reading in Greenland.

The next photo is of a bit of whale bone I found on the beach. I couldn’t tell you what whale exactly, but I’m guessing the bone is part of the spine.

And the last photo is of a sealskin heart. Sealskins are often dyed for commercial use, and this one is, of course, rather festive. Jane made some in craft classes in the evenings, but we bought this one. Jane also made the tiny stars – you can get kits for these. I have yet to make one successfully.

These decorations are not typical of what you will find in Greenland. They are simply what we put up at the time. The small Christmas dolls are, however, very Scandinavian, and are meant to be nisser – Christmas elves, not necessarily helpful, but all over Denmark right now!

Now that I think about it, flags are a part of both Danish and Greenlandic decorations. We have some very tired and much-loved paper Greenlandic flags draped over a frame in the living room.

 

Which also reminds me, that even with the glare from the camera flash, you can see the print we have framed on the wall. The artist is Emmanuel A. Petersen (1894-1948) – no relation – from Denmark. You can read more about him on Nuuk Art Museum’s page.

I went a bit nuts on my first visit to Nuuk (and subsequent visits) and bought quite a few Petersen prints. They’re still hanging on our walls, although the frames have been changed after taking on a little too much water from Baffin Bay. More on that story another time.

The goose is just a goose … although, cue one of my favourite photos from one summer in Qaanaaq:

I love the way mum and dad are looking out for the kids!

Chris

Yule at Aurora Station – 1st Advent, Part 1

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Things always take longer than expected, and it doesn’t help when I suddenly want to experiment with a new cover idea.

And see, I’m waffling already, when I what I should be doing is introducing you to a new story set on the first Advent Sunday of Christmas now available to download.

I explain more about the story on the page for Yule at Aurora Station, but I just thought I’d talk around it here.

As I’ve mentioned before, December in Greenland is incredibly dark, i.e. no sun. So celebrating Advent, especially if it fell in November, was an opportunity to get the decorations up fast to beat back the winter dark. This really worked in Uummannaq, with a red or green paper star lit with a light bulb in the window of nearly every house in that tiny town on a remote island in the Arctic. The snow reflected the Christmas colours and the Northern Lights blazed in the sky.

Romantic?

You betcha!

So, with that in mind, you might better understand my love of Christmas and the reason why I am often compelled to write a Christmas story.

Yule at Aurora Station is a Christmas story in four parts, one for each Sunday this Christmas.

It’s a little different than my usual crime novels and novellas, and with that in mind I’m giving away the first part for free via a link to my payhip store. (Please note, you will be asked for an email address to register the “sale”, but you are not being added to a mailing list.)

Readers of my Greenland Missing Persons series will be familiar with a certain five-year-old, and she’s back, but she’s all grown up. Luui Angakkuarneq stars in this cute, fantastical story about a pregnant polar bear – the last polar bear in a rapidly diminishing Arctic.

Die-hard crime readers have bailed at this point, and I don’t blame you. 🙂

But if you want to read something a little different this Christmas, then each short instalment of Yule at Aurora Station might be just what you need. It’s packed with Arctic goodness, goons, and mythical creatures. And a little magic, of course.

As I said, Part 1 is free, so you can try before you buy. Each part thereafter will be $0.99 and bundled for $2.99 later in December. Yule at Aurora Station is about 100 pages long in total. I will release the parts via links in a blog post and on the book page on this website.

Here’s a quick overview:

  1. Sunday November 28 Yule at Aurora Station – Part 1 (FREE)
  2. Sunday December 5 Yule at Aurora Station – Part 2
  3. Sunday December 12 Yule at Aurora Station – Part 3
  4. Sunday December 19 Yule at Aurora Station – Part 4

I hope you enjoy Part 1 as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Have a great Sunday! Oh, and apologies to readers from Australia, as I’m pretty sure it’s Monday already.

Advent Eve

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It really is a thing – Advent Eve. Rather, it’s the night before the first Advent of Christmas 2021.

Full confession, I’m not religious. I did find my baptism certificate the other day, but that’s as close as I get.

So the whole Advent “thing” is really just extended Christmas for me.

It’s also something that has stuck from Greenland.

December is incredibly dark in northern Greenland. In Uummannaq we had an hour or so of grey twilight. In Qaanaaq we had nothing. If there was no snow or ice on the ground to reflect the moonlight, we had less than nothing. One Christmas it rained, and the snow melted, resulting in super dark.

Not pleasant.

What is pleasant in Greenland over Christmas is the way every house – every house – has a coloured paper star with a light bulb hanging in the window. There are more lights, candles, decorations of all kinds all over the villages and settlements.

In the towns too, but I spent most of my winters in the more remote parts of Greenland.

Greenlanders celebrate Christmas with light to push back the dark. And then, at Christmas, there’s even more cause for celebration as we know the light is on its way back. It’ll take some time, but just knowing it’s coming is a huge boost to winter morale.

So, I hope you’ll celebrate with me this Advent Eve because tomorrow I’ll post the first of Luui’s Advent stories.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a link for the first part of Yule at Aurora Station.

Chris