Authentic Arctic Thrillers
The final installment of Yule at Aurora Station is LIVE!
The story concludes in typically dramatic style and then continues over the last few days from the fourth Advent Sunday to Christmas Eve.
Has Luui saved Christmas?
Is there hope for the Arctic?
And what happens next?
Grab your copy today and find out!
You might prefer the complete edition, also available via Payhip or Amazon.
And we’re live with Yule at Aurora Station, Part 3!
Things are heating up for Luui in the far north, as the stakes get higher and the magic bigger, badder (if that’s a word), and beyond her control.
Yule at Aurora Station is a fantastic blend of Greenlandic myth, climate change, greed, and friendship. I’ve gone all in with beasts and spirits and I’m good with that. I’m just not entirely sure how Luui is going to get out of this one.
Will she save Christmas?
Honestly, with everything that’s going on, Christmas is the least of her worries!
If you’re joining me on this journey each Advent Sunday, or waiting to grab the entire story once it is done (something Jane prefers), I just want to say thanks. I’ve added bonus material in the form of another desktop wallpaper.
Oh, and slight spoiler alert, someone from Luui’s past turns up in this one.
It’s ready! The second installment of Yule at Aurora Station is live on Payhip!
Before I tease a little about the story, let me just add that I am selling the stories on Payhip first to try out a range of possibilities I don’t have when selling on other platforms.
For example, you can get 25% off your purchase if you share the sale on social media.
Also, and even more exciting from my point of view, I can add bonus (digital) material to the sale. So, with Yule at Aurora Station, for example, I am adding a JPEG download of the artwork (6000×3000) suitable for desktop wallpaper.
I can’t do this on other platforms. So while I realise that for some readers who often buy my books on other platforms (thank you!) it might be a bit irritating to buy from a new platform, I’m hoping that the discounts and the bonus material will make up for that.
I will be releasing the bundled Yule at Aurora Station in one volume, about 100+ pages, later in December for $2.99. But if you want to read along each advent, and grab the bonus material, then I hope you might be tempted with Payhip.
But. back to the story!
Luui, as you might have guessed, is in trouble.
No spoilers, but if you grabbed the free copy of Part 1 (now with additional bonus material which you can grab, even if you already downloaded it) you’ll know Luui is protecting the last known female polar bear in the Arctic, together with the help of her tiny friends Kalaagi and his sister, Naaluk, and the big, friendly helper spirit Âmo.
Yes, it’s that kind of story!
But hey, it’s a Christmas story.
That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it!
Anyway, polar bears, a container cabin, resupply via parachute, and a nefarious big corporation hunting for the bear … or Luui … I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
Well, and here’s the kicker, you’ll have to read it to find out. 🙂 But like any Christmas story, it will be resolved by Christmas Eve!
I’ll leave you with the promise of the next installment “dropping” on the third Advent Sunday this Christmas: December 12. You can always check the Yule at Aurora Station page on this website for updates.
Merry Christmas! (Kind of early, but hey…)
Chris
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
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:
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.
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