Borderstream Books

News. OUT NOW

The new novel The Girls and the Ghosts of The Old Manse Revisited by Ruth Skilbeck was first published in August 2025. The book is for sale on this website, and is in major online bookshops (distributed by Ingram) and can be ordered into physical bookshops and libraries on request.

The historical fiction novel telling the story of Roxanne and her family, her new friend Margy, and past inhabitants, after they move into a 19th century manse is set in Northern Ireland, and on family road trips. The adventures, perils and challenges facing almost-13-year-old Roxanne, a budding writer, include, over three and a half years, negotiating the conflict of the early 1970s Troubles, a ghostly mystery, and a terrifying van crash in a Swedish blizzard and her subsequent PTSD. It is the third novel in Ruth Skilbeck’s Australian Fugue series of standalone novels which can be read individually or as a set. Their form is recursive, going back in time whilst also moving forward.

Borderstream Books is an independent small publisher based in a suburb of Geelong, in the state of Victoria, Australia. We publish novels, literary studies, and an international anthology journal, Arts Features International. We have two imprints: Borderstream Books and Postmistress Press.

Borderstream Books has published works by about 70 authors and artists in five issues of Arts Features International anthology journal, and Escape Artists Anthology. Several individual works (essays, short stories, poems-and-photographs) were published in the form of pamphlets and short book. Our books can be ordered here with Australia-wide delivery, purchased from Borderstream Books via the shop pages on this website. Our books, including Arts Features International anthology journal are also in major online bookshops (distributed by Ingram), and bricks and mortar bookshops and libraries around the world can order them in on request.

We are not accepting submissions at present.

For enquiries about book purchase and postage please email: info@borderstreambooks.com.au