In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity.A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

    A divorced mother has a secret love affair with a travelling priest. A widower miraculously finds a three-minute video recorded by his wife before she died. A tree lopper's heart falls in a forest. A working mum contemplates taking the photographs of her late husband down from the fridge. A girl writes her last letter to the man she loves, then sets it on fire. An ageing gigolo regrets the one that got away. A palliative care nurse helps a dying woman converse with the angel at the end of her bed. A renowned 100-year-old scientist ponders the one great earthly puzzle he was never able to solve: 'What is love?'Endless stories. Human stories. Love stories.Inspired by a personal moment of profound love and generosity, bestselling author – and one of Australia's finest journalists – Trent Dalton spent two months in 2021 pounding city pavements, speaking to Australians from all walks of life and asking them one simple and direct question: 'Can you please tell me a love story?' For two straight weeks he sat at a desk with a sky-blue 1960s Olivetti typewriter, on the bustling corner of Adelaide and Albert streets, Brisbane, with a sign saying, 'Sentimental writer collecting love stories. Do you have one to share?'The result is Love Stories – a warm, wise, poignant, funny and moving book about love in all its guises, including stories, observations and reflections on lovers in parks; people in cemeteries, hospital wards, pubs and bingo halls; and newlyweds walking out of registry offices. There will be stories of people falling into love, falling out of love, and never letting go of the loved ones in their hearts. And woven through it all will be remembrances of Trent's own special moments, and of the people whose love stories have made him the man and writer he is today.A heartfelt, deep, funny, wise and tingly tribute to the greatest thing we will never understand and the only thing we will ever really need: love.

    A mission. No memories. Nameless is back to hunt down an architect of chaos in #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz’s return to a landscape of hard-won justice.In a forgotten Cold War bunker, a cold-blooded arms dealer counts his cash and watches from a distance as cities collapse into violence. Pledged to stop him is a man without a past, guided by a teenage boy through the tunnels under the corrupted port city. With each stealthy move toward their target, the path ahead grows ever darker.From #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz comes The Lost Soul of the City, part of Season 2 of Nameless, a gripping collection of stories about a man in search of the truth, the past, and those who owe a debt of blood. Follow him through each story, which can be read or listened to in a single sitting.

    The scene of the chapter "the whispering room" in chain of gold, from James's POV.

    And more! From seventeen acclaimed Black male and non-binary authors comes a vibrant collection of stories, comics, and poems about the power of joy and the wonders of Black boyhood.Contributors include: B. B. Alston, Dean Atta, P. Djèlí Clark, Jay Coles, Jerry Craft, Lamar Giles, Don P. Hooper, George M. Johnson, Varian Johnson, Kwame Mbalia, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Tochi Onyebuchi, Julian Randall, Jason Reynolds, Justin Reynolds, DaVaun Sanders, and Julian Winters

    Released on 21 September 2021 with the paperback of Harrow the Ninth, As Yet Unsent chronicles Judith Deuteros, Coronabeth Tridentarius, and Camilla Hect's time with Blood of Eden directly following the events of Gideon the Ninth.

    The Penultimate Hours also contains two special extras: a letter from Lucie to Cordelia and a letter from Ragnor to Magnus. All collected here for your reading delight!

    and Canada dance, sell beadwork and books, and celebrate friendship and heritage. They are the heroes of their own stories.Featured contributors: Joseph Bruchac, Art Coulson, Christine Day, Eric Gansworth, Dawn Quigley, Carole Lindstrom, Rebecca Roanhorse, David A. Robertson, Andrea L. Rogers, Kim Rogers, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Monique Gray Smith, Traci Sorell, Tim Tingle, Erika T. Wurth, and Brian Young.

    They break the news to the victim’s ex-wife and learn the estranged couple’s five-year-old daughter was supposed to have been with him. What starts as a murder investigation quickly morphs into a desperate search for a missing child. The case stirs memories of Bree’s own traumatizing childhood. To find the little girl, Bree will have to relive her own terrifying past.

    These intimate portraits of people and relationships scour and soothe and blast a light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, consumption, and what we may, or may not, owe one another. A thirteen-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter—whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family’s church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their father’s ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them.Wise and subversive, spiritual and seductive, Milk Blood Heat forms an ouroboros of stories that bewitch with their truth.

    A young, probably gay, boy named Gordo puts on a wrestler's mask and throws fists with a boy in the neighborhood, fighting his own tears as he tries to grow into the idea of manhood so imposed on him by his father. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, watches his father's drunken fights, and discovers even his own documented Mexican-American parents are wary of illegal migrants. Fat Cookie, high schooler and resident artist, uses tiny library pencils to draw huge murals of graffiti flowers along the camp's blank walls, the words "CHICANO POWER" boldly lettered across, until she runs away from home one day with her mother's boyfriend, Manny, and steals her mother's Panasonic radio for a final dance competition among the camp kids before she disappears. And then there are Los Tigres, the perfect pair of twins so dark they look like indios, Pepito and Manuel, who show up at Gyrich Farms every season without fail. Los Tigres, champion drinkers, end up assaulting each other in a drunken brawl, until one of them is rushed to the emergency room still slumped in an upholstered chair tied to the back of a pick-up truck. These scenes from Steinbeck Country seen so intimately from within are full of humor, family drama, and a sweet frankness about serious matters - who belongs to America and how are they treated? How does one learn decency, when laborers, grown adults, must fear for their lives and livelihoods as they try to do everything to bring home a paycheck? Written with balance and poise, Cortez braids together elegant and inviting stories about life on a California camp, in essence redefining what all-American means.

    These 15 original pieces delve into everything from ghost stories and superheroes, to memories in the kitchen and travels around the world, to addiction and grief, to identity and anti-Blackness, to finding love and speaking your truth.Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed features bestselling and award-winning authors as well as new, up-and-coming voices, including:Elizabeth AcevedoCristina ArreolaIngrid Rojas ContrerasNaima CosterNatasha DiazKahlil HaywoodZakiya JamalJanel MartinezJasminne MendezMeg MedinaMark OshiroJulian RandallLilliam RiveraIbi ZoboiFull of both sorrow and joy, Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed is an essential celebration of this rich and diverse community.

    Illustrated with Adam de Souza’s brooding art, this book’s style is a totally original blend of nineteenth-century Gothic engravings meets moody film noir graphic novels. Headlined by the Korean tale of a carnivorous child, The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers is a truly thrilling gift for brave young readers.

    Like many well-to-do Upper East Siders over the age of 65, esteemed art appraiser Percival Skinner had planned to spend his retirement living off his savings. But a market correction has left him living below his prior means. One day he’s visited by a dapper fixer in search of a famous work by the Renaissance master Giuseppe Didomenico. Skinner knows the work well: The original was owned by his ancestor, and was passed down through his family over the generations. If, as an intermediary, he can coordinate a sale, a small fortune awaits. Problem is, he might not be the only one on the make. Told with the quixotic energy of a classic Henry James tale and the gleeful absurdity of drawing-room comedy, this playful and effortlessly heartwarming story from one of America’s most gifted writers is a welcome reminder that sometimes what we find is more valuable than what we are looking for.

    A woman raised by wolves prepares for her parents’ annual Thanksgiving visit. An aging mutant superhero is forced to learn humility when the mayor kicks him upstairs to a desk job. And in the hard-boiled caper “The Big Nap,” a weary two-year-old detective struggles to make sense of “a world gone mad.” Equal parts silly and sincere, New Teeth is an ode to growing up, growing older, and what it means to make a family.

    . . A woman in an arranged marriage struggles to connect with the son she hid from her husband for years . . . A well-meaning sister unwittingly reunites an abuser with his victims . . . Through the lives of an indelible array of individuals--musicians, housewives and pastors, children and grandparents, the men and women who own the dry cleaners and the mini-marts--Yoon Choi explores the Korean American experience at its interstices: where first and second generations either clash or find common ground; where meaning falls in the cracks between languages; where relationships bend under the weight of tenderness and disappointment; where displacement turns to heartbreak. Suffused with a profound understanding of humanity, Skinship is, ultimately, a searing look at the failure of intimacy to show us who the people we love truly are.

    Featuring six marvellous mini-mysteries, including four original, brand-new and never-seen-before stories:The Case of the Second Scream: set aboard the ship carrying Daisy and Hazel back from Hong KongThe Case of the Uninvited Guest: Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy's wedding is the target for an unlikely threatThe Hound of Weston School: the Junior Pinkertons investigate a mysterious arrival The Case of the Deadly Flat: introducing Hazel's little sister May, who's determined to be the greatest spy everThe Case of the Missing Treasure: the detectives crack fiendish codes to catch a daring thief who is targeting London's famous museumsThe Case of the Drowned Pearl: murder follows the Detective Society wherever they go, even on holiday... The perfect book for all Detective Society fans and avid readers of the Murder Most Unladylike series.Praise for Murder Most Unladylike'Ripping good fun' The Times'Plotting is what sets this book apart' Telegraph'Enormous fun' Irish Times 'A skilful blend of golden era crime novel and boarding school romp . . . Top class' Financial Times 'I absolutely loved it' Susie Day

    Her latest work, A Dream of a Woman, is her first book of short stories since her seminal 2014 collection A Safe Girl to Love. Centering transgender women seeking stable, adult lives, A Dream of a Woman finds quiet truths in prairie high-rises and New York warehouses, and in freezing Canadian winters and drizzly Oregon days.In "Hazel and Christopher," two childhood friends reconnect as adults after one of them has transitioned. In "Perfect Places," a woman grapples with undesirability as she navigates fetish play with a man. In "Couldn't Hear You Talk Anymore," the narrator reflects on past trauma and what might have been as she recalls tender moments with another trans woman.An ethereal meditation on partnership, sex, addiction, romance, groundedness, and love, the stories in A Dream of a Woman buzz with quiet intensity and the intimate complexities of being human.

    But as the city is thrown into confusion, a different kind of electricity sparks…A first meeting. Long-time friends. Bitter exes. And maybe the beginning of something new.When the lights go out, people reveal hidden truths. Love blossoms, friendship transforms, and new possibilities take flight.Beloved authors—Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon—celebrate the beauty of six couples and the unforgettable magic that can be found on a sweltering starry night in the city.

    With both of them being prominent, successful lawyers, she followed in their footsteps and set out to create a name just for herself. Her career has been the forefront of her life, coming before everything, including her once upon a time longtime friend and lover, Emerald Hampton. Their relationship suffered long ago due to her commitment to school and her career and his rising music stardom. Years have passed and Emerald has returned to claim the woman that was always supposed to be his. However, confronting old feelings means confronting old secrets.Emerald Hampton also known professionally as GEM has had success all over the world with his beautiful vocals. Even with all of his fame and fortune, he still feels like something is missing from his life. That something is Rhyon Capers, the woman he has loved since he was eight years old. After taking some time off from the industry, he ventures home to get his woman. While he knew he would not receive the warmest of welcomes from her, he was prepared to go put in work to make her his again. Will they be able to work through the dormant feelings and past secrets to rekindle a lost love, or will they have to accept that their time has passed?

    It had once belonged to the Lightwoods, a long time ago." - Lord of ShadowsJulian and Emma are on their travel year when the Clave sends him a message - clean up Blackthorn Hall or ownership reverts back to the Clave. Amidst the clutter and disrepair they discover secrets that Blackthorn Hall has kept hidden for years.This is a Shadowhunters novel that takes place between The Dark Artifices and The Wicked Powers. Per Cassandra Clare, it is set about 15 months after the end of The Dark Artifices.The novel follows the characters from The Dark Artifices and delves into the history of those from The Last Hours.Secrets of Blackthorn Hall will be a novel told in serialized format, with illustrations, sound, and more. New entries posted online every Monday beginning August 16, 2021. The project will also feature artwork from artists like Cassandra Jean.No official cover artwork has been posted to date—the artwork used here is from the official Tumblr page that hosts the novel.

    As the children of refugees carve out radical new paths for themselves in California, they shoulder the inherited weight of the Khmer Rouge genocide and grapple with the complexities of race, sexuality, friendship, and family.A high school badminton coach and failing grocery store owner tries to relive his glory days by beating a rising star teenage player. Two drunken brothers attend a wedding afterparty and hatch a plan to expose their shady uncle’s snubbing of the bride and groom. A queer love affair sparks between an older tech entrepreneur trying to launch a “safe space” app and a disillusioned young teacher obsessed with Moby-Dick. And in the sweeping final story, a nine-year-old child learns that his mother survived a racist school shooter.With nuanced emotional precision, gritty humor, and compassionate insight into the intimacy of queer and immigrant communities, the stories in Afterparties deliver an explosive introduction to the work of Anthony Veasna So.

    Intelligent, well-educated, perfectly isolated in his lofty rank, responsibilities, and privilege of the divine Imperial Dynasty. He's the most powerful boy on Atlantis and he's going into the real world for the very first time. . . .Now just another student in Fleet Cadet School, Aeson must learn everything normal people take for granted—including the basics of how to look after himself, how to interact with others his age, how to laugh, and how to make friends.As if that wasn't enough to boggle the mind of a confident but shy boy who's never had a real conversation with anyone but his mother, Aeson has one more lesson ahead . . . what it's like to fall in love.Get inside Aeson's mind and learn his story from the inside out as he forms the bonds that will change him forever—with Elikara, Xelio, Oalla, Keruvat, Erita, and other favorite Atlantean characters, long before they took to the stars as astra daimon! AESON: BLUE is the first in The Atlantis Grail Novella Series.

    An old woman living alone on the edge of a bog gets an unexpected — and unsettling — visitor, throwing her quiet life into a long-buried mystery. An isolated backwoods family stumbles into good fortune for a time with a monstrous discovery in the lake behind their house, but that time is running short. And a misfit little girl, struggling to make friends, meets an understanding soul one day at the beach: but why will he only play with her alone at night? All these lonely souls — and more — have reached out into the darkness, not knowing what they might find.Around the dark edges of reality lurk unknown beings with unknowable intentions — ordinary objects can become cursed possessions, entities who seem like friends can become monstrous, and those who seem monstrous can become the truest companions. In this collection of evocative, unnerving slice-of-life horror, five stories explore what happens when one is desperate enough to seek solace in the unnatural, and what might be waiting for us at the Crossroads at Midnight.

    His charming, humane, and side-splitting stories brought the trials and triumphs of Dave, Morley, Sam, and Stephanie to life, and made their memorable circle of friends, family, and neighbours as real as our own.This collection is both timely and timeless, a rich celebration of Stuart McLean's inimitable voice, and of the importance of love, community, kindness, and the healing power of laughter.

    I loved these.” ―Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble“This inventive, enchanting collection reads like the fairy tales of old, hushed stories passed woman to woman, before the Grimms came and wiped away all the blood.” ―Laura Ruby, author of Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All“The writing is as spare and precise as poetry, connected to the darker, edgier elements of fairy-tale conventions. Albert’s rich and tightly focused collection forms the core of the mythology created in her novels, and her fans will be thrilled at this further glimpse into that world.” ―Booklist, starred review “Stories fueled by feminist rage, the frustration of being unnderestimated, and the insatiable longing to experience more mark this collection as timely and universal.” ―SLJ

    Death by Alix E. Harrow- The Niddah by Elana Gomel- Gray Skies, Red Wings, Blue Lips, Black Hearts by Merc Fenn WolfmoorHOLIDAY HORRORS FLASH FICTION WINNER- All I Want for Christmas by Charles PayseurCLASSIC FICTION- The Ace of Knives by Tonya Liburd- Roots on Ya by LH MooreINTERVIEWS- Interview with Author Fargo Tbakhi by Andrea Johnson- Interview with Author P H Lee by Andrea Johnson- Interview with Cover Artist Vicki Be Wicked by Russell DickersonNONFICTION- Story-less: A Forethought by Usman T. Malik- Trapped in Stories by Malka Older- Words for Thought: Short Fiction Review by AC WiseCover art by Vicki Be Wicked.

    Carnival. Rum and coke. To many outsiders, these idyllic images represent the supposed easy life in Caribbean nations such as Trinidad and Tobago. However, the reality is far different for those who live there—a society where poverty and patriarchy savagely rule, and where love and revenge often go hand in hand.Written in a combination of English and Trinidad Creole, Pleasantview reveals the dark side of the Caribbean dream. In this novel-in-stories about a fictional town in Trinidad, we meet a political candidate who sets out to slaughter endangered turtles for fun, while his rival candidate beats his “outside-woman,” so badly she ends up losing their baby. On the night of a political rally, the abused woman exacts a very public revenge, the trajectory of which echoes through Pleasantview, ending with one boy introducing another boy to a gun and to an ideology which will help him aim the weapon.Merging the beauty and brutality of Trinidadian culture evoked by writers such as Ingrid Persaud and Claire Adam with the linguistic experimentation of Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings, Pleasantview is a landmark work from an important new voice in international literary fiction.

    To this mix Adam Thompson manages to bring humour, pathos and occasionally a sly twist as his characters confront racism, untimely funerals, classroom politics and, overhanging all like a discomforting, burgeoning awareness for both white and black Australia, the inexorable damage and disappearance of the remnant natural world.

    Army vet in his seventies who is asked to lead a group of young grand-nieces and grand-nephews on a walk through the hills of California’s Central Coast as wildfires burn far to the north. They don’t know him and don’t want to follow him, and Oisín would love to be anywhere else. But still they walk together, through golden grasses and amid live oaks and manzanitas, coyotes and rabbits, on their way to a discovery beyond any of their expectations. A quietly brilliant story of beauty and possibility, The Museum of Rain is about suddenly finding the world—or at least a small piece of it—as good as you’d hoped.

    Full of dreams and nightmares, Honeycomb is an entrancing mosaic novel of original fairy tales from bestselling author Joanne M. Harris and legendary artist Charles Vess in a collaboration that’s been years in the making. The toymaker who wants to create the perfect wife; the princess whose heart is won by words, not actions; the tiny dog whose confidence far outweighs his size; and the sinister Lacewing King who rules over the Silken Folk. These are just a few of the weird and wonderful creatures who populate Joanne Harris’s first collection of fairy tales.Dark, gripping, and brilliantly imaginative, these magical tales will soon have you in their thrall in a uniquely illustrative edition.

    A Will Darling Adventures interlude.Set a week after the ending of The Sugared Game (so containsmild spoilers for that book).

    The residents have grown used to it. The isolated Australian harbour town of Gulpepper is not like other places. Some maps don’t even show it. And only outsiders use the full name. Everyone who lives there calls it The Gulp. The place has a habit of swallowing people.A truck driver thinks the stories about The Gulp are made up to scare him. Until he gets there. Teenage siblings try to cover up the death of their mother, but their plans go drastically awry. A rock band invite four backpackers to a party at their house, where things get dangerously out of hand. A young man loses a drug shipment and his boss gives him 48 hours to make good on his mistake. Under the blinking eye of the old lighthouse, a rock fisher makes the strangest catch of his life.Five novellas. Five descents into darkness. Welcome to The Gulp, where nothing is as it seems.

    Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant.

    He also knows how to speculate about the what-ifs. Jon’s doing both following the death of his wife, Pax. Driving home late from a volunteer assignment, she plunged off a mountain highway and died. The police find nothing suspicious about the facts: a deer in the road, a blown tire, a broken neck. But the what-ifs are leading Jon down a twisting trail of secrets. After five years of marriage, he is finally getting to know his wife.

      Cutting between clear-eyed realism and tongue-in-cheek magical realism, Chen’s stories coalesce into a portrait of a people striving for openings where mobility is limited. Twins take radically different paths: one becomes a professional gamer, the other a political activist. A woman moves to the city to work at a government call center and is followed by her violent ex-boyfriend. A man is swept into the high-risk, high-reward temptations of China’s volatile stock exchange. And a group of people sit, trapped for no reason, on a subway platform for months, waiting for official permission to leave.   With acute social insight, Te-Ping Chen layers years of experience reporting on the ground in China with incantatory prose in this taut, surprising debut, proving herself both a remarkable cultural critic and an astonishingly accomplished new literary voice.Lulu --Hotline girl --New fruit --Field notes on a marriage --Flying machine --On the street where you live --Shanghai murmur --Land of big numbers --Beautiful country --Gubeikou spirit

    His neighbors have been a great help with his daughter Charlotte, but he can’t work and take care of her properly.The town matchmaker Emma Hilton has the perfect woman to help Bradley with his baby girl.Nanny Shannon Howell loves taking care of children, but she’d also like to find a husband. She’s eager to travel west in hopes of finding a family to call her own. Shannon is happy to help Bradley with baby Charlotte. Unfortunately, Shannon’s former employer is having problems letting her go.Will the man that traveled across the country drag her back to the east?Has Shannon found the place where she can be her true self with Bradley and Charlotte in Lubbock, Texas?Find out in the first book in a brand new series from Bestselling Mail Order Bride Authors Indiana Wake & Belle Fiffer

     The most common word in Chinese, perhaps, a ubiquitous syllable people utter and hear all the time, which is supposed to mean good. But what is hao in this world, where good books are burned, good people condemned, meanness considered a good trait, violence good conduct? People say hao when their eyes are marred with suspicion and dread. They say hao when they are tattered inside.By turns reflective and visceral, the stories in Hao examine the ways in which women can be silenced as they grapple with sexism and racism, and how they find their own language to define their experience.In "Gold Mountain," a young mother hides above a ransacked store during the San Francisco anti-Chinese riot of 1877. In "A Drawer," an illiterate mother invents a language through drawing. And in "Stars," a graduate student loses her ability to speak after a stroke. Together, these twelve stories create an unsettling, hypnotic collection spanning centuries, in which language and children act simultaneously as tethers and casting lines, the reasons and the tools for moving forward after trauma. "You'll come away from this beautiful book changed" (Julia Fine, author of The Upstairs House).

    When a Senegalese man’s coffee sells superbly at the market, some café owners become incensed by the new competition and take matters into their own hands. As a Swiss tourist and a St. Denis native fall in love over the fruit-and-veggie stall, one of their family members takes drastic steps to break them up. A fledgling tour bus business is sabotaged, leading Bruno to take a closer look at a town love triangle. Called in to investigate a case of stolen oysters, our beloved policeman reunites with an old flame to catch the shellfish thieves. In story after story, Bruno settles town disputes, mediates family quarrels, and tracks down lawbreakers in his adored village of St. Denis and its environs. Featured meals in the collection include a fatty Christmas goose, a savory nettle soup with crème fraîche, and a fluffy quiche Lorraine.

    A university professor studying racism by conducting a secret social experiment on his own son. A single mother desperate to buy her first home even as the world hurtles toward catastrophe. Each fighting to survive in America.Tough-minded, vulnerable, and brave, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, “My Monticello,” tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation.In “Control Negro,” hailed by Roxane Gay as “one hell of story,” a university professor devotes himself to the study of racism and the development of ACMs (average American Caucasian males) by clinically observing his own son from birth in order to “painstakingly mark the route of this Black child too, one whom I could prove was so strikingly decent and true that America could not find fault in him unless we as a nation had projected it there.” Johnson’s characters all seek out home as a place and an internal state, whether in the form of a Nigerian widower who immigrates to a meager existence in the city of Alexandria, finding himself adrift; a young mixed-race woman who adopts a new tongue and name to escape the landscapes of rural Virginia and her family; or a single mother who seeks salvation through “Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse.”United by these characters’ relentless struggles against reality and fate, My Monticello is a formidable book that bears witness to this country’s legacies and announces the arrival of a wildly original new voice in American fiction.

    These stories will bury you in the rubble of an earthquake, pull back the veil on a soul's journey into the afterlife, and turn a small Midwestern town into the secret domain of cross-dimensional gods.Combining old-school horror with the modern weird, Philip Fracassi will take you places you've never been before, and show you sights you won't soon forget. The supernatural intrudes upon a wedding; a pier becomes the site of tragedy; a collapsed building is only the start of the nightmare for those trapped in the ruins; a scientist who makes the discovery of a lifetime, only to find out that what he's unearthed has dire consequences not only for himself, but for all of mankind.

    Psychopathy is boring. Coldness is boring. She's interested in feeling, and when her stories turn violent (as they frequently do), it's with a surreal emotional barbarity that distorts the entire world. You can mop up blood with any fabric. Maggie's concern is with the wound left behind, because the wound never leaves-it haunts. As a result, each of these stories leaves a wound of its own. Some weep, watching as you try (and fail) to recover. Others laugh. But never without feeling."-B.R. Yeager, author of Negative Space"And once finished, I felt like my tongue had been misplaced, guts heavy and expanded ... gums numb with a tongue that'd been put elsewhere, my mouth clean around a pipe weaving up through pitch and shadow ... and well past ready, primed for delight, waiting but knowing I had already been filled to skin; crying shit, hearing piss, fingernails seeping bile, pores dribbling blood, soles slopping off and out to meet a drain mid-floor ..."-Christopher Norris, author of Hunchback '88

    It was originally sent out in in S.T. Gibson's newsletter as a subscriber bonus, and can be read for free on Substack. Content guidance: This is a story about long-distance relationships and ethical nonmonogamy. It features tender sadomasochism, vampire bloodplay, breathplay, consensual sex between three adults, and a happy ending.

    

    Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a fly on the wall of a creative agency? No? Well, that’s fine as well. You wouldn’t know you were in an agency anyway; flies have no concept of that kind of thing. All they’re interested in is standing in poo then walking around the rim of your coffee mug.

    It exposes the silences in families and the parts of ourselves we rarely reveal. A daughter asks her mother to shut up, only to shut her up for good; an exhausted wife walks away from the husband who doesn’t understand her; on holiday, lovers no longer understand each other away from home. The underlying themes of loneliness, secrets, family and displacement and also the desire to belong to someone, to some place; a yearning for love, intertwine these stories. The collection includes The Jam Maker, which has just been awarded the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize 2020.

    He's called it Binge because it's impossible to read just one. Imagine feeling 100% alive every moment of every minute of the day! Maybe that's how animals live. Or trees, even. I sometimes stare at the plastic bag tree visible from my apartment window and marvel that both it and I are equally alive and that there's no sliding scale of life. You're either alive, or you're not. Or you're dead or you're not.Thirty years after Douglas Coupland broke the fiction mould and defined a generation with Generation X, he is back with Binge, 60 stories laced with his observational profundity about the way we live and his existential worry about how we should be living: the very things that have made him such an influential and bestselling writer. Not to mention that he can also be really funny.Here the narrators vary from story to story as Doug catches what he calls the voice of the people, inspired by the way we write about ourselves and our experiences in online forums. The characters, of course, are Doug's own: crackpots, cranks and sweetie-pies, dad dancers and perpetrators of carbecues. People in the grip of unconscionable urges; lonely people; dying people; silly people. If you love Doug's fiction, this collection is like rain on the desert.

    And even though the Grants are no longer in their old house, Charlie is feeling the pressure to have the perfect holiday. All her siblings are coming back. Will they be able to re-create their Christmas traditions? Will it even feel like Christmas at all? And why is everyone suddenly sold out of Sir Harry’s Happy Christmas Gingerbread?!In the midst of all of this, Charlie has a decision to make about her future. She’s hoping for a quiet, peaceful holiday so she can sort things through.But HAHAHAHA these are the Grants! This Christmas is going to be anything but a silent night. Between unreliable vans, missing Santas, stolen cars, a greenhouse heist, and far too much time spent on the New Jersey Turnpike, Christmas is threatening to turn into an utter disaster.Will Charlie manage to turn things around before Christmas morning?

    In this new short story collection, Brian Evenson envisions a chilling future beyond the Anthropocene that forces excruciating decisions about survival and self-sacrifice in the face of toxic air and a natural world torn between revenge and regeneration. Combining psychological and ecological horror, each tale thrums with Evenson's award-winning literary craftsmanship, dark humor, and thrilling suspense.

    This collection announces a major new voice in literary fiction for the twenty-first century.

    In her long-awaited debut story collection, dark, lush, and spellbinding short fiction you will find unexpected detours, dangerous magic, and even more dangerous women.Briar, bodyguard for a body-stealing sorceress, discovers her love for Rose, whose true soul emerges only once a week. An apprentice witch seeks her freedom through betrayal, the bones of the innocent, and a meticulously-plotted spell. In a world powered by crystal skulls, a warrior returns to save China from invasion by her jealous ex. A princess runs away from an arranged marriage, finding family in a strange troupe of traveling actors at the border of the kingdom’s deep, dark woods.Concluding with a gorgeous full-length novella, Marjorie Liu’s first short fiction collection is an unflinching sojourn into her thorny tales of love, revenge, and new beginnings.Sympathy for the bones --The briar and the rose --The light and the fury --The last dignity of man --Where the heart lives --After the blood --Tangleroot palace

    These perspectival, character-driven stories center on the margins and are deeply rooted in New Orleanian culture.In "Beg Borrow Steal," a boy relishes time spent helping his father find work after just coming home from prison; in "Ghetto University," a couple struggling financially turns to crime after hitting rock bottom; in "Before I Let You Go," a woman who's been in NOLA for generations fights to keep her home; in "Fast Hands, Fast Feet," an Army vet and a runaway teen find companionship while sleeping under a bridge; in "Mercury Forges," a flash fiction piece among several in the collection, a group of men hurriedly make their way to a home where an elderly gentleman lives, trying to reach him before the water from Hurricane Katrina does; and in the title story, a young man works the street corners of the French Quarter, trying to achieve a freedom not meant for him.These stories are intimate invitations to hear, witness, and imagine lives at once regional but largely universal, and undeniably New Orleanian.

    Real true crime is not for everyone. The stories in this book represent humanity at its absolute worst. Pure evil. Television crime shows and news articles often skip the gruesome parts of true crime stories. The real details are just too grisly for the average viewer or reader.In my books, however, I do my best to include the details, regardless of how unsettling they may be. Each story requires hours of research. I search through old newspaper articles, court documents, police reports, autopsy results, and first-hand descriptions. Some of the specifics can be disconcerting. I choose to include the details not to shock, but to give the reader a deeper view into the mind of the killer. Although it’s unlikely any of us will understand the motives of a diabolical monster, the level of depravity will keep you turning pages.That being said, if you are overly squeamish about the details of true crime, this book may not be for you. If you’re okay with it… then let’s begin.Volume 7 features: Longer stories, more photos, a bonus chapter, and an online appendix with additional photos, videos, and documents. Volume 7 of True Crime Case Histories features twelve new stories from the past fifty years.A sampling of the stories include:You’ll read about a law enforcement officer that took advantage of the trust associated with his uniform. His brutal reign of terror lasted eight years. It took the bravery of two young women that escaped his grasp to bring him down.There’s the story of the recent law school graduate with a crush on his neighbor. Rather than asking her out on a date, he stalked and spied on his classmate, eventually taking her life. There’s also the heartbreaking story of a single mom, drowning in debt, that did the unthinkable for insurance money.Seven of the stories in this book feature women killers, two of which took the time to meticulously dismember their victims—a task that can take great strength. Another woman manipulated her two teenage boys into killing for her. Yet another woman staged an elaborate hoax to get rid of her loving husband rather than go through the agony of a messy divorce.You’ll also read of a sadistic group of up to twelve killers that took joy in abducting and torturing young men in Australia. Sadly, only one of the mysterious group has been brought to justice.Plus many more disturbing stories.The twelve stories in this volume are shocking and disturbing, but they’re true. These things really happen in the world. We may never understand why killers do what they do, but at least we can be better informed. You may have heard of a few of the stories in this volume, but there are several I’m almost certain you haven’t.

    A former bully becomes a first-kiss prospect. One nonbinary kid searches for an inclusive athletic community after quitting gymnastics. Another nonbinary kid, who happens to be a pirate, makes a wish that comes true--but not how they thought it would. A tween girl navigates a crush on her friend's mom. A young witch turns herself into a puppy to win over a new neighbor. A trans girl empowers her online bestie to come out. From wind-breathing dragons to first crushes, This Is Our Rainbow features story after story of joyful, proud LGBTQIA+ representation. You will fall in love with this insightful, poignant anthology of queer fantasy, historical, and contemporary stories from authors including: Eric Bell, Lisa Jenn Bigelow, Ashley Herring Blake, Lisa Bunker, Alex Gino, Justina Ireland, Shing Yin Khor, Katherine Locke, Mariama J. Lockington, Nicole Melleby, Marieke Nijkamp, Claribel A. Ortega, Mark Oshiro, Molly Knox Ostertag, Aisa Salazar, and AJ Sass.

    Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand and more. A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by, and in tribute to, Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is a seminal writer of horror and mystery fiction, whose legacy resonates globally today. Chilling, human, poignant and strange, her stories have inspired a generation of writers and readers. This anthology, edited by legendary horror editor Ellen Datlow, will bring together today’s leading horror writers to offer their own personal tribute to the work of Shirley Jackson. Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand, Cassandra Khaw, Karen Heuler, Benjamin Percy, John Langan, Laird Barron, M. Rickert, Seanan McGuire, and Genevieve Valentine.

    A new collection showcasing the best of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories including his well-known classics, as featured in 'Hemingway', the magnificent three-part, six-hour PBS documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.

    The uncle of an FBI agent spends his life as sheriff in different cities, living too close to the violent acts of men; a cocktail waitress moves through several desert towns trying to escape the unexplainable loss of an adopted daughter; a drug dealer with a penchant for karaoke meets a talkative lawyer and a silent clown in a Palm Springs bar.Witty, brutal, and fast-paced, these stories expand upon the saga of Chicago hitman-turned-Vegas-Rabbi Sal Cupertine--first introduced in Gangsterland and continued in Gangster Nation--while revealing how the line between good and bad is often a mirage.

    Tense and terrifying, these masterful stories by Eric LaRocca explore the shadow side of love.Contents:You Follow Wherever They Go.Bodies Are for Burning.The Strange Thing We Become.The Trees Grew Because I Bled There.You’re Not Supposed to Be Here.Where Flames Burned Emerald as Grass.I’ll Be Gone by Then.Please Leave or I’m Going to Hurt You.

    She was hoping the girl would not ask.Spells and stories, urban legends and immigrant tales: the magic in Isabel Yap’s debut collection jumps right off the page, from the joy in her new novella, 'A Spell for Foolish Hearts' to the terrifying tension of the urban legend 'Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez'.

    A crowded fairground. A simple sequence of numbers that appear over and over again... and a horrible feeling that something is very, very wrong.Nina Vogel is haunted by a recurring nightmarish vision - but what does it mean?In this powerful short story by Jack Harding, step into this nerve-racking, fast-paced fever dream that blurs the lines between the real and the unreal.

    More than a hundred years from now, an arborist fighting to save the last remaining forest on Earth discovers a secret about the trees—one that changes not only her life, but also the fate of our world.Inspired by the real-life “Future Library,” a long-term environmental and literary public art project currently underway in the Norwegian wilderness.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    It had once belonged to the Lightwoods, a long time ago." - Lord of ShadowsJulian and Emma are on their travel year when the Clave sends him a message - clean up Blackthorn Hall or ownership reverts back to the Clave. Amidst the clutter and disrepair they discover secrets that Blackthorn Hall has kept hidden for years.This is a Shadowhunters novel that takes place between The Dark Artifices and The Wicked Powers. Per Cassandra Clare, it is set about 15 months after the end of The Dark Artifices.The novel follows the characters from The Dark Artifices and delves into the history of those from The Last Hours.Secrets of Blackthorn Hall will be a novel told in serialized format, with illustrations, sound, and more. New entries posted online every Monday beginning August 16, 2021. The project will also feature artwork from artists like Cassandra Jean.No official cover artwork has been posted to date—the artwork used here is from the official Tumblr page that hosts the novel.

    But if she can't find a way to bring more money into the struggling shelter, the sacrifices she's made will all be for nothing.Then her brother leaves her with an inheritance, with two stipulations: she must work with her estranged mother to host a successful charity event and find a loving home for Peter's dog, Kiwi.But Leslie's not sure she can forgive the woman who cowered in a corner while Leslie's father hit her.Kiwi was severely abused before Peter adopted her. No matter where Leslie places Kiwi, the nervous cockapoo keeps showing up on her doorstep. She seems determined to stay with Leslie, no matter what.Even though Kiwi is terrified of everything, the sweet little dog makes Leslie feel braver. With Kiwi by her side, can Leslie save the shelter, face down the demons of her past, and take the risk of forgiving the mother who let her down when Leslie needed her most?The Kiwi To My Heart is the sixth and final book in the Soul Mutts series, heartwarming stories of lost dogs finding new homes with the humans they were born to heal.

    You’ll see. Draw me just one more time.”No one knows if his mother will come out of her coma, so fourteen-year-old Jordie memorializes her in the only way he knows how: by drawing her. His older brother doesn’t approve of these sketches, but Jordie’s determined to capture the person she used to be. Unfortunately, Jordie must draw her from memory because his mom didn’t keep pictures, and her body in the hospital no longer looks like her. But the images of her are quickly fading, and if he doesn’t get a drawing right soon, the mother he remembers may slip away forever. No matter how close Jordie gets to completing a drawing, his mom’s most vital feature always evades him.Will Jordie capture his mother’s eyes? Or are they and his mother gone forever?Content Warning:SuicideDeathAnimal Death​Reader discretion advised

    Like the landscape studied over eons, change does not have an expiration date for these trans characters, who grow as tall as buildings, turn into mountains, unravel hometown mysteries, and give birth to cocoons. Portland-based author Callum Angus infuses his work with a mix of alternative history, horror, and a reality heavily dosed with magic.

    Obinna is a dutiful and unsophisticated stay-at-home husband and father married to a powerful businesswoman. Eze is single, a cautious rebel from his university days whose arrival soon upsets the balance in Obinna’s life. In a world where men are constantly under surveillance and subject to the whims of powerful women, more than Obinna’s ordered and accustomed routine might be on the line.Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Visit is part of Black Stars, a multi-dimensional collection of speculative fiction from Black authors. Each story is a world much like our own. Read or listen to them in a single sitting.

    In these nine pieces, she captures both the small, luminous moments of daily existence and those instants when life and death hang in the balance, ranging from the death of a beloved dog to a relentlessly readable account of a New York artist trapped inside a burning building, as well as two triumphant, celebrated pieces of short fiction. Here is an unforgettable collection destined to be embraced and debated by readers and writers, teachers and students. Anchored by the title piece––a searing journey through India that brings into focus questions of mortality and love—Festival Days presents Beard at the height of her powers, using her flawless prose to reveal all that is tender and timeless beneath the way we live now.

    Butler used the conventions of science fiction to explore the dangerous legacy of racism in America in harrowingly personal terms. She broke new ground with books that featured complex Black female protagonists—“I wrote myself in,” she would later recall—establishing herself as one of the pioneers of the Afrofuturist aesthetic. In 1995 she became the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, in recognition of her achievement in creating new aspirations for the genre and for American literature. This first volume in the Library of America edition of Butler’s collected works gathers her 1979 masterpiece, Kindred, one of the landmark American novels of the last half century; her final novel, Fledgling; and her collected short stories.In Kindred, Dana, a Black woman whose husband is white, is pulled back and forth between the California present and the pre–Civil War South, where she finds herself enslaved on the plantation of a white ancestor whose life she must save in order to preserve her own. Gripping and suspenseful, the novel uses the conceit of time travel to plumb the mutilating structures of slavery and the terrible cost they continue to exact.A woman wakes up covered in burns in a mountainside cave with no knowledge of who she is or what has happened to her. In time she discovers that she is a vampire, and that there are others like her. Among the long-lived Ina, though, Shori is something new: an experimental birth, containing African American human DNA that gives her brown skin and the feared and fearful ability to go out in sunlight. Part murder mystery, part fantasy thriller, Fledgling is Butler’s incomparable take on the vampire novel.This Library of America volume also includes eight short stories and five essays—including two previously uncollected—as well as a newly researched chronology of Butler’s life and career and helpful explanatory notes by scholar Gerry Canavan. Butler’s friend, the writer and editor Nisi Shawl, provides an introduction.

    

    While hard work, passion and focus emerge as winning lessons, delicate and tender learnings from Dr Mohan's life, such as empathy or spirituality, are not forgotten.Written in Dr Mohan's sagacious and affable voice, and peppered with examples of his bold and unusual ideas such as planning a diabetes expo or conducting a country-wide diabetes study, this book is a behind-the-scenes account of a person honoured internationally for delivering path-breaking care to hundreds of thousands of people with diabetes.

    A daring swashbuckler hunted by an unstoppable assassin. An investigator of the supernatural faced with a corpse that won't stop dancing.Here are eight tales of the Greatcoats, legendary sword-fighting magistrates brought together by an idealistic young king and disbanded after his execution as a tyrant.Follow along through their swashbuckling adventures, their triumphs and defeats, their darkest hours and their moments of shining redemption as they struggle to bring justice to a corrupt kingdom.

    Continuing her life’s work to brighten and enrich American reading lives through the work of legendary Black authors, she now launches her Well-Read Black Girl Library Series with On Girlhood. This meticulously selected anthology features a wide range of unique voices, finally illuminating a distinctly robust sector of contemporary literature: groundbreaking short stories that explore the thin yet imperative line between Black girlhood and womanhood.Divided into four themes—Innocence, Belonging, Love, and Self-Discovery—the unforgettable young protagonists within contend with the trials of coming of age that shape who they are and what they will become. With this tradition in mind, Innocence opens with Jamaica Kincaid’s searing “Girl,” in which a mother offers fierce instructions to her impressionable daughter. This deceptively simple yet profound monologue is followed by Toni Morrison’s first and only published short story, the now-canonical “Recitatif,” about two neglected girls who come together in youth only to find themselves on opposite picket lines in adulthood.In Belonging, Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson” follows rambunctious students on a field trip where they are exposed to a new world of luxury. In Love, Dana Johnson’s “Melvin in the Sixth Grade” captures the yearning of a lovesick teen smitten with the only boy who looks her way. And in Self-Discovery, Edwidge Danticat’s “Seeing Things Simply” charts the creative awakening of Princesse, a young woman with a hunger to be fully seen. These inspiring tales of world builders and rule breakers conclude with Zora Neale Hurston’s “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” a personal essay brimming with wit and strength: “When covered by the waters, I am; and the ebb but reveals me again.”At times heartbreaking and at times hilarious, these stories boldly push past flat stereotypes and powerfully convey the beauty of Black girlhood. In bringing together an array of influential authors—past and present—whose work remains timeless, Glory Edim has created an indispensable compendium for every home library and a soul-stirring guide to coming of age.Featuring stories by Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison, Dorothy West, Rita Dove, Camille Acker, Toni Cade Bambara, Amina Gautier, Alexia Arthurs, Dana Johnson, Alice Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, Edwidge Danticat, Shay Youngblood, Paule Marshall, and Zora Neale Hurston.

    On the Origin of Species makes available for the first time in English some of Kim's most acclaimed stories, as well as an essay on science fiction. Her strikingly original, thought-provoking work teems with human and non-human beings, all of whom are striving to survive through evolution, whether biologically, technologically or socially. Kim's literature of ideas offers some of the most rigorous and surprisingly poignant reflections on posthuman existence being written today.

    Threaded with magic, transcending time and place, these stories explore what it means to cross borders and break down walls, personally and politically. In one story, suburban families perform oblations to cattlelike angels who live on their roofs, believing that their “thoughts and prayers” will protect them from the world’s violence. In another, inhabitants of an unnamed dictatorship slowly lose their own agency as pieces of their bodies go missing and, with them, the essential rights that those appendages serve. “The Great Escape” tells of an old woman who hides away in her apartment, reliving the past among beautiful objects she’s hoarded, refusing all visitors, until she disappears completely. In the title story, children begin to levitate, flying away from their parents and their home country, leading them to eat rocks in order to stay grounded. With elements of science fiction and fantasy, fabulism and magical realism, Brenda Peynado uses her stories to reflect our flawed world, and the incredible, terrifying, and marvelous nature of humanity.

    Thinking Out Loud is a beauteous conglomeration of various aspects of life, put together with a hint of philosophical perception by renowned author Tapan Ghosh. It is the affiliation that the readers will find in author’s understanding of varied facets of life in this book, which makes it an ideal choice to learn the art of positive response even in challenging situations. With many of his published books in fiction and non-fiction genre, Thinking Out Loud stands apart with its completely unique approach towards life and beauty with which the author connects with his readers.

    It had once belonged to the Lightwoods, a long time ago." - Lord of ShadowsJulian and Emma are on their travel year when the Clave sends him a message - clean up Blackthorn Hall or ownership reverts back to the Clave. Amidst the clutter and disrepair they discover secrets that Blackthorn Hall has kept hidden for years.This is a Shadowhunters novel that takes place between The Dark Artifices and The Wicked Powers. Per Cassandra Clare, it is set about 15 months after the end of The Dark Artifices.The novel follows the characters from The Dark Artifices and delves into the history of those from The Last Hours.Secrets of Blackthorn Hall will be a novel told in serialized format, with illustrations, sound, and more. New entries posted online every Monday beginning August 16, 2021. The project will also feature artwork from artists like Cassandra Jean.No official cover artwork has been posted to date—the artwork used here is from the official Tumblr page that hosts the novel.

    But as a famous curvy singer, I’m tired of being used by guys that just want to further their career.I need a man who doesn’t know my true identity. One who can fall in love with the real me, not the woman on stage.Now I plan to search for love on a dating app where I can stay anonymous. I figure there’s no harm in chatting with the hunk who goes by “hometown hero”.BenI’m here to help my sister fix up her mountain lodge resort. Not have her sign me up for a silly dating app. But everything changes when I get that little ping.I’ve been matched to a woman who won’t show me her real face. But our late-night conversations are intriguing and the more I get to know her, the more I want to meet up in real life.When she shows up at the lodge, I’m determined to convince her we’re meant to be together forever.Searching for your soulmate? Welcome to Curve Connection, a brand-new dating app developed by curvy women for curvy women and the men who love them. Whether you're into executives, sports stars, blue collar workers, rockstars, or billionaires, we deliver guaranteed happily-ever-afters. Swipe left or right to start searching for your soulmate today.

    

    Lust at First Sight: A collection of sexy short stories…*A man meets an incredibly intriguing woman in a lingerie store.*Book lovers connect at a lock and key party.*Two strangers get trapped together on an elevator.*A usually rational woman lets fortune cookies guide her actions with a sexy stranger.

    Superstitions thrive even in the distant future and across the stars when a colony shuttle mounts a witch trial in “Hairy Jack.” And try to “Forgive the Adoring Beast” as it scavenges a world of dead gods for tokens of bloody affection. Including two new short stories and a never-before-published novelette, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy digs deep inside and clings to the beating nightmare heart you always knew was there.

    Valente's dark fantasy tale "L’Esprit de L’Escalier", a Tor.com Original.In this provocative and rich retelling of the Greek myth, Orpheus, the musician son of Apollo and Calliope, successfully rescues his wife Eurydice from Hades after her untimely death.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    From the window of her Wonderful Emporium, at the heart of the pretty Yorkshire town, she watches and waits, weaving plans to bring happiness to all who step through her door. For Miss Moonshine is no ordinary shopkeeper. She may not have what you want, but she will always have what you need…Nine romantic novelists from Yorkshire and Lancashire, including best-selling and award-winning authors, have joined together to create this anthology of uplifting stories guaranteed to warm your heart. This magical collection of contemporary romances will make you laugh, cry and wish for a Miss Moonshine in your own life.

    These uplifting tales of hope and of small, everyday kindnesses are intended to support wider, positive mental health goals and foster wellbeing through the act of reading tales of goodwill inspired by others. Featuring authors across the spectrum of literature, some international bestsellers and award-winning writers amongst them, this is a unique collection of words.All proceeds from the book will be donated to Shelter, a charity that helps millions of people a year struggling with bad housing or homelessness.Authors include: LJ Ross, Adam Hamdy, Alex Smith, Alexander Gordon Smith, Alison Stockham, Anne O’Leary, Barbara Copperthwaite, J.D. Kirk, C.L. Taylor, Caroline Mitchell, Chris McDonald, C.K. McDonnell, Claire Sheehy, Clare Flynn, Darren O’Sullivan, David Leadbeater, Debbie Young, Deborah Carr, Emma Robinson, Graham Brack, Hannah Lynn, Heather Martin, Holly Martin, Ian Sainsbury, Imogen Clark, James Gilbert, Jane Corry, Jean Gill, J.J. Marsh, Judith O’Reilly, Kelly Clayton, Kim Nash, Leah Mercer, Liz Fenwick, Louise Beech, Louise Jensen, Louise Mumford, Malcolm Hollingdrake, Marcia Woolf, Mark Stay, Marcie Steele, Natasha Bache, Nick Jackson, Nick Quantrill, Nicky Black, Patricia Gibney, Rachel Sargeant, Rob Parker, Rob Scragg, S.E. Lynes, Shelley Day, Casey Kelleher, Sophie Hannah, Victoria Connelly, Victoria Cooke, Will Dean.

    It had once belonged to the Lightwoods, a long time ago." - Lord of ShadowsJulian and Emma are on their travel year when the Clave sends him a message - clean up Blackthorn Hall or ownership reverts back to the Clave. Amidst the clutter and disrepair they discover secrets that Blackthorn Hall has kept hidden for years.This is a Shadowhunters novel that takes place between The Dark Artifices and The Wicked Powers. Per Cassandra Clare, it is set about 15 months after the end of The Dark Artifices.The novel follows the characters from The Dark Artifices and delves into the history of those from The Last Hours.Secrets of Blackthorn Hall will be a novel told in serialized format, with illustrations, sound, and more. New entries posted online every Monday beginning August 16, 2021. The project will also feature artwork from artists like Cassandra Jean.No official cover artwork has been posted to date—the artwork used here is from the official Tumblr page that hosts the novel.

    

    A jewel thief falls. A late night wish is tragically granted. And somewhere, on the edge of the dark or in the belly of an unknown machine, stories are born. Stories of heroic chickens and lost demons, dangerous golf games and pies full of fury. Stories of magic and uncertainty. Stories of the unordinary. Come on in and discover them. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe. This world is just like yours. Well, almost. But there’s nothing to fear here. Except maybe the sheep. I’d watch the sheep …Oddly Enough is the first collection of short stories from Kim M. Watt, author of the Beaufort Scales Cozy Mysteries (with dragons) series and the Gobbelino London, P.I., series. These 24 tales are full of the same humour, friendship, and joy as her novels, with the addition of story machines, rubber ducks, dangerous cruises and sock monsters, to name a few. Plus tea and cake, of course.None of the stories contain graphic violence, sex, or strong language, although they do contain blasphemy.Some of the stories have been previously published on Kim's blog or in her newsletter, but there are also five new tales written just for this collection.Happy reading! Just mind the very hungry caterpillar ...

    There’s something in his bag. Something silver and glistening, sparkling with hopes and dreams of a bright and beautiful future. The only thing standing between him and his soon to be fiancée Emma is his arduous, mind-numbing drive home. But something isn’t right. His phone, his hearing, the music, the traffic; everything just seems off and out of sync, and Riley can’t quite put his finger on it.All he has to do is keep his eyes on the road…All he has to do is take it slow…In this brooding and deeply moving short story by Jack Harding, buckle up and settle down for a journey that will stir your senses and pull on your heart strings, keeping you guessing right until the end of the road.

    A woman's adopted mother dies, reawakening childhood memories and grief. A couple's decision to move to an isolated location may just be their undoing. A young woman forms an unexpected connection at a summer school in Hungary.Set in southern Tasmania, these interlinked stories bring into focus the inhabitants of small communities, and capture the moments when life turns and one person becomes another. With insight and empathy, Melissa Manning interrogates how the people we meet and the places we live shape the person we become.

    A woman who receives calls over her cell phone from people who have recently died. A man who suddenly finds strange objects appearing in his life—and just as suddenly disappearing.These characters and more fill the pages of Sharon Shinn’s collection of seven short stories. Romance, mystery, and a little bit of magic follow each of them as they grapple with the past so they can move forward into the future.Chief Executed Officers is never before published. The other six stories have appeared previously in anthologies published 2004 through 2012.The Sorcerer's AssassinIn the House of Seven SpiritsChief Executed OfficersThe Unrhymed Couplets of the UniverseCan You Hear Me Now?The Double-Edged SwordWintermoon Wish

    Beginning with a story of an ex sex-worker drifting through a small rural town in the south, and ending with a young woman’s wedding night, who learns from her new husband what it takes to kill a man, Nash writes across the complications of working class women, rendering their desires with visceral prose and psychologically dissecting the fundamental root that threads her work: craving and the conflicts within.

    These exceptional stories capture the importance of human connection at pivotal moments in our lives, whether those occur because of the loss of a loved one or the uncertainties of childhood. In this collection we witness a young girl struggling to protect her mother from her father’s violence, two teenagers clumsily getting to know one another by way of a shared love of music, and a man mourning the death of his younger brother, while beset by memories and regrets from their shared past. Throughout this powerful collection, Birch’s concern for the humanity of those who are often marginalised or overlooked shines bright.

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    A seventy-four-year-old nun turns to eco-sabotage to stop a fracking project. A woman delivers her own baby in a Nevada ghost town. A young farmer hides her chicken flock from the government during a bird flu epidemic. An ornithologist returns home to care for her rancher father and gets caught up trying to protect a breeding group of endangered Gunnison sage grouse.In lean, lyrical prose, Claire Boyles evokes the bleakness and beauty of our threatened western landscapes. Spanning the decades from the 1970s to a plausible near future, this knockout debut introduces unforgettable characters who must confront the challenges of caregiving and loss alongside the very practical impacts of fracking, water rights law, and other agricultural policies. Site Fidelity is a vivid, intimate, and deeply human exploration of life on the shifting terrain of our changing planet.

    It had once belonged to the Lightwoods, a long time ago." - Lord of ShadowsJulian and Emma are on their travel year when the Clave sends him a message - clean up Blackthorn Hall or ownership reverts back to the Clave. Amidst the clutter and disrepair they discover secrets that Blackthorn Hall has kept hidden for years.This is a Shadowhunters novel that takes place between The Dark Artifices and The Wicked Powers. Per Cassandra Clare, it is set about 15 months after the end of The Dark Artifices.The novel follows the characters from The Dark Artifices and delves into the history of those from The Last Hours.Secrets of Blackthorn Hall will be a novel told in serialized format, with illustrations, sound, and more. New entries posted online every Monday beginning August 16, 2021. The project will also feature artwork from artists like Cassandra Jean.No official cover artwork has been posted to date—the artwork used here is from the official Tumblr page that hosts the novel.

    With works by Francisco X. Stork, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, David Bowles, Rubén Degollado, e.E. Charlton-Trujillo, Diana López, Xavier Garza, Trinidad Gonzales, Alex Temblador, Aida Salazar, Lupe Ruiz-Flores, Sylvia Sanchez Garza, Dominic Carrillo, Angela Cervantes, Carolyn Dee Flores, René Saldaña Jr., Laura Perez, Justine Narro, Daniel García Ordáz, and Anna Meriano.In this mixed-media collection of short stories, personal essays, poetry, and comics, this celebrated group of authors share the borders they have crossed, the struggles they have pushed through, and the two cultures they continue to navigate as Mexican American. Living Beyond Borders is at once an eye-opening, heart-wrenching, and hopeful love letter from the Mexican American community to today’s young readers.

    What One Wouldn't Do for...What?Power? Safety? Love? Revenge?Here's to the lengths one might go to for everything.

    

    . . an abandoned demon . . . a ghost who wants to erase history . . . a killer commandant . . . These are just some of the challenges confronting the young heroes in this highly entertaining anthology.All but one of the heroes previously starred in a popular book from Rick Riordan Presents. You''ll be reunited with Aru Shah, Zane Obispo, Min the fox spirit, Sal and Gabi, Tristan Strong, Nizhoni Begay, Paola Santiago, Sikander Aziz, and Riley Oh. Who is the new hero? Read Rick Riordan''s short story to find out!Ten bestselling and award-winning middle grade authors contributed to this collection: Roshani Chokshi, J.C. Cervantes, Yoon Ha Lee, Carlos Hernandez, Kwame Mbalia, Rebecca Roanhorse, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Sarwat Chadda, Graci Kim, and Rick Riordan, who also served as the editor.The cultures represented by these own-voices stories are: Indian, Mesoamerican, Korean, Cuban, Black American, African, Navajo, Mexican, Mesopotamian, and Celtic.There''s something for everyone in this collection of fast-paced and funny adventure stories that show what it takes to be a hero in any time, setting, and universe.Read more about the heroes in these best-selling books:Rick Riordan Presents: Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani ChokshiRick Riordan Presents: The Storm Runner by J.C. CervantesRick Riordan Presents: Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha LeeRick Riordan Presents: Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos HernandezRick Riordan Presents: Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame MbaliaRick Riordan Presents: Race to the Sun by Rebecca RoanhorseRick Riordan Presents: Paola Santiago and the River of Tears by Tehlor Kay MejiaRick Riordan Presents: City of the Plague God by Sarwat ChaddaRick Riordan Presents: The Last Fallen Star by Graci Kim