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R. Bownds Author News 

Merry Christmas 2025

 When I was a child there were three important days at the end of the year and beginning of the next. Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day.
Christmas day was the highlight, presents wrapped under the tree not to be opened until after all chores and breakfast was finished. The youngest would have the honour of handing out the presents while everyone sat around.
The Christmas tree was always a pine Dad sourced, cut down and brought home, we'd decorate it with glass baubles, ornaments, tinsel, an angel for the top and these little birds with wire claws that we'd clamp to the branches. Tinsel garlands would stretch across our ceiling from corner to corner and along the walls.
Santa came early sometime through the night, we'd try to stay awake but unfortunately drop off to sleep before the big man arrived and left presents on the foot of our beds. He'd eat the slice of Christmas cake and drink the milk left out for him and be gone without us knowing.
My mother always baked the Christmas cake and iced it with white icing and green coloured icing piped around the edges. The words Merry Christmas piped using icing of either green or red colouring. There was a small nativity scene and pieces of holly for decorations.
She also made the Christmas pudding, boiled in a cloth in the old traditional way. She'd make this two or three months before the big day, I remember it hanging from the kitchen rafters wishing Christmas would come earlier so we didn't have to wait. It contained sixpence and threepence which were considered good luck if you found one in your slice. Not so good for your teeth if you bit into one as my brother found out once.
Christmas dinner was always a big roast meal despite the summer heat in Australia. Duck or Chicken sometimes we'd have roast pork with crackling, accompanied by roast potatoes, roast pumpkin and green peas or beans.
Boxing day, we always referred to as picnic day because that's what it was, Christmas leftovers, packed up and we'd trundle off in the car to some picturesque spot, spread out the blankets and enjoy a cold picnic lunch.
Come New Year it started again, another cake, another pudding in the cloth and the big roast meal.
After all this my mother would take a photo of us children around the tree as a memory before the decorations were removed and the tree taken away.
In later years, the old fashioned values of these days and the trimmings that went with them changed and my mother began serving salads although still with the roast meat. Boxing day became just another day the same as New Year without celebrations although Dad still insisted on sitting up to see the old year out and the new year in.

On that note.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or however you say it in your neck of the woods for 2025.
Also a happy and prosperous New Year for 2026.

 

Tracking Jacky

Ever wondered about Detective Bannon's tracking skills? This short story will help to solve the mystery.

Young Mark Bannon and his girlfriend Rita return to the homestead after a successful hunt to get a kangaroo for Rita's pop and nan. Rita informs him she is going quondonging with her cousin Jacky and they can practice tracking. Jacky is good at hiding his tracks and has a secret hidden in his backpack he is sure will prevent Mark from finding him.

For those of you who don't know what a quondong is, it's an Australian native fruit tree that grows throughout the outback of South Australia. The fruit when ripe is ruby red, luscious and tart.

This would be one of the first stories I wrote many years ago now. I'm surprised it survived the many house moves on paper and eventually on floppy disk then transferred to computer to again survive crashes, until I found it in a dusty archive on an external hard drive while sorting out some files.

Well here it is, tidied up, polished and fit for publication.

Get it for FREE here now
 

 

The Lion’s Den

First the Goats. Then the Women. It Started with a Big Cat. It Ends with The Devil.

In the remote Australian outback of north-west Victoria, a farmer dies confronting a predator stalking his livestock. Constable Madeline Kerne calls it in to Sergeant Michael Ryan, who along with homicide detective Mark ‘The Devil’ Bannon are enjoying a quiet weekend gathering at local farmer Joe Cooke’s property.

What starts as a routine stock theft investigation turns sinister when women vanish from the community. Then Constable Kerne herself disappears, and journalist Condamine Baxter … Detective Bannon’s love interest.

Rural whispers of conspiracy harden into grim reality.

Bannon assembles an unlikely team: methodical Sergeant Ryan, stoic Senior Constable Scott Jackson, and eager rookie PC Caleb Jones. Together they hunt a predator who knows the mallee scrub around Mara better than they do … one who understands that out here, people disappear and questions go unanswered.

To catch a predator this cunning, Bannon must become what the outback already believes him to be. The man behind the legend. The monster they whisper about when darkness falls.

The Devil is coming.

And he doesn’t play by the rules.

Some hunters become the hunted.
Some crimes require a monster to catch a monster.
In this forgotten corner of Australia, a killer is about to meet their match.

This is the third book in the Mara Mysteries Series.

Pre-order Ebook now available. 

 Five days to go to ebook pre-order day. Excitment's growing. 😀

 

 Pre-order release day for The Lion's Den is getting closer. Just over three weeks away. 😱
Am I ready? Almost, I hope. All edits going well, I'm not up to the final read through and a few small touch ups that could be needed.

If you haven't started reading The Mara Mysteries yet why not start now with book one, Enter The Devil available through Amazon as ebook, paperback or Kindle Unlimited.

 

 If you've read Enter The Devil and Skeletons In The Closet you'd know who this is.
If you guessed Constable Richard Parry you're correct.

Parry left at the end of Skeletons In The Closet. Will we see him again?

No spoilers here! What happens to Parry you'll have to wait and see.