A Very Southern Christmas

By Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris

Meet Eliza D. Braun, a freshly appointed agent with a knack for unraveling mysteries. In this steampunk adventure, Braun is dispatched to scorching Australia to join forces with the seasoned operative, Agent Bruce Campbell. They battle the heat and each other as they race against time to locate missing children and bring them back home in time for Christmas.

Tales from the Archives are short stories set in the world of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences. They explore events mentioned in the novels, characters seen and unseen and may include novel teasers of things to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ImagineThat Studios
• Release date: Jan 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370363506

Pip Ballantine

Born in New Zealand, Philippa (Pip) Ballantine has always had her head in a book. A corporate librarian for thirteen years, she has a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Library and Information Science. She is New Zealand's first podcast novelist and has produced four podiobooks. Many of these have been shortlisted for the Parsec Awards, and she has won a Sir Julius Vogel Award. She is also the author of Geist and the soon-to-be-published Spectyr. While New Zealand calls, currently Philippa calls America home.

Book preview

A Very Southern Christmas

A VERY SOUTHERN CHRISTMAS

PIP BALLANTINE

ALSO FROM PIP AND TEE

The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series

Phoenix Rising

The Janus Affair

Dawn’s Early Light

The Diamond Conspiracy

The Ghost Rebellion

Operation Endgame

Verity Fitzroy and the Ministry Seven

The Curse of the Silver Pharaoh

The Mystery of Emerald Flame

The Secret of the Monkey God

Steampunk Anthologies

The Books and Braun Dossier

Magical Mechanications

Ministry Protocol: Thrilling Tales from the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

From Pip Ballantine

Books of the Order

Geist

Spectyr

Wrayth

Harbinger

The Chronicles of Art

Chasing the Bard

Digital Magic

The Shifted World

Hunter and Fox

Kindred and Wings

Eliza D Braun stepped down off the airship gangplank and looked around. She’d got a good view of Cooktown coming in from under the clouds, and the greenness had surprised her. In her imaginings Australia was always burnt orange and dusty. This was as green as home though instead of the ferns of New Zealand there was the lush foliage of the tropics. The north of Queensland was quite the eye-opener.

The moist heat wrapped its around her as soon as her foot touched the ground, and she was glad to have dressed in khaki for the occasion. It wasn’t really Christmasy, but those that worked for the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences didn’t get to choose the timing of their assignments. When the strange called it couldn’t be simply put off. Though she would miss her mother’s Christmas pudding, that was the sacrifice she had signed up to make.

Still she would have quite liked a look around if possible, but she was here to help not act the tourist, and a voice calling out her name reminded her of that fact.

Miss Braun! She whirled around