My Life as a White Trash Zombie


Diana Rowland - 2011
    Now on probation for a felony, it seems that Angel will never pull herself out of the downward spiral her life has taken.That is, until the day she wakes up in the ER after overdosing on painkillers. Angel remembers being in a horrible car crash, but she doesn't have a mark on her. To add to the weirdness, she receives an anonymous letter telling her there's a job waiting for her at the parish morgue—and that it's an offer she doesn't dare refuse.Before she knows it she's dealing with a huge crush on a certain hunky deputy and a brand new addiction: an overpowering craving for brains. Plus, her morgue is filling up with the victims of a serial killer who decapitates his prey—just when she's hungriest!Angel's going to have to grow up fast if she wants to keep this job and stay in one piece. Because if she doesn't, she's dead meat.Literally.

Stalking The Unicorn


Mike Resnick - 1987
    As he cheerlessly reflects on the passing of a lousy year, which saw his business partner run off with his wife, he assumes the bourbon is responsible for the appearance of a belligerent elf. This elf informs him that he needs the detective's help in searching for a unicorn that was stolen from his charge.When Mallory realises the little green fellow is not going to disappear with the passing of his inebriation, he listens to the elf's impassioned plea that the stolen magical beast must be returned to his care by daylight or his little green life will be forfeited by the elves' guild. Join detective Mallory on a New Year's night of wild adventure in a fantasy Manhattan of leprechauns, gnomes, and harpies as he matches wits with the all-powerful demon The Grundy in a race to find the missing unicorn before time runs out!

Trick of the Light


Rob Thurman - 2009
    Creatures that would steal your soul. You might hide under your covers at night and pretend all’s right with the world, but you know. Even if you don’t want to admit it…Las Vegas bar owner Trixa Iktomi deals in information. And in a city where unholy creatures roam the neon night, information can mean life or death. Not that she has anything personal against demons. They can be sexy as hell, and they’re great for getting the latest gossip. But they also steal human souls and thrive on chaos. So occasionally Trixa and her friends have to teach them manners.When Trixa learns of a powerful artifact known as the Light of Life, she knows she’s hit the jackpot. Both sides-angel and demon-would give anything for it. But first she had to find it. And as Heaven and Hell ready for an apocalyptic throw-down, Trixa must decide where her true loyalty lies-and what she’s ready to fight for. Because in her world, if you line up on the wrong side, you pay with more than your life…

The Sorcerer's House


Gene Wolfe - 2010
    He writes letters to his brother and to others, including a friend still in jail, to whom he progressively reveals the intriguing pieces of a strange and fantastic narrative. When he meets a real estate agent who tells him he is, to his utter surprise, the heir to a huge old house in town, long empty, he moves in. He is immediately confronted by an array of supernatural creatures and events, by love and danger. His life is utterly transformed and we read on, because we must know more. We revise our opinions of him, and of others, with each letter, piecing together more of the story as we go. We learn things about magic, and another world, and about the sorcerer Mr. Black, who originally inhabited the house. And then knowing what we now know only in the end, perhaps we read it again.

Unbound


Shawn SpeakmanJohn Marco - 2015
    Free. Like Unfettered before it, the contributing writers of Unbound were allowed to submit the tales they wished fans of genre to read—without the constraints of a shackling theme. The result is magical. Twenty-three all-original stories are sure to captivate you—some will move you to tears while others will keep you turning the pages long into the night. The power of Unbound lies in its variety of tales and the voices behind them. If you are a fan of discovering new writers or reading the works of beloved authors, Unbound is for you. Return to Landover with Terry Brooks. Go to trial with Harry Dresden and Jim Butcher. Enter the Citadel and become remade with Rachel Caine. Survive a plague with John Marco and his robot companion Echo. Be painted among the stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. These tales and the others that comprise the anthology are only bound by how enchanting and enthralling they are. Unbound is filled with spectacularly wonderful stories, each one as diverse as its creator. You will be changed upon finishing it. And that is the point. Like Unfettered before it, the contributing writers of Unbound were allowed to submit the tales they wished fans of genre to read—without the constraints of a theme. It is an anthology filled some spectacularly wonderful stories, each one as diverse as its creator.Here is the Unbound line-up: Terry Brooks (intro) | Kristen Britain | Jim Butcher | Rachel Caine | Harry Connolly | Delilah S. Dawson | David Anthony Durham | Jason M. Hough | Mary Robinette Kowal | Mark Lawrence | John Marco | Tim Marquitz | Seanan McGuire | Peter Orullian | Kat Richardson | Anthony Ryan | Shawn Speakman | Brian Staveley | Michael J. Sullivan | Sam Sykes | Mazarkis Williams“Madwalls” by Rachel Caine“Stories Are Gods” by Peter Orullian“River and Echo” by John Marco“A Dichotomy of Paradigms” by Mary Robinette Kowal“Son of Crimea” by Jason M. Hough“An Unfortunate Influx of Filipians” by Terry Brooks“The Way into Oblivion” by Harry Connolly“Uncharming” by Delilah S. Dawson“A Good Name” by Mark Lawrence“All in a Night’s Work” by David Anthony Durham“Seven Tongues” by Tim Marquitz“Fiber” by Seanan McGuire“The Hall of the Diamond Queen” by Anthony Ryan“The Farmboy Prince” by Brian Staveley“Heart’s Desire” by Kat Richardson“The Game” by Michael J. Sullivan“The Ethical Heresy” by Sam Sykes.“Small Kindnesses” by Joe Abercrombie“The Rat” by Mazarkis Williams“The Siege of Tilpur” by Brian McClellan“Mr. Island” by Kristen Britain“Jury Duty” by Jim Butcher“The Dead’s Revenant” by Shawn Speakman

Sacrament


Clive Barker - 1996
    This dark fantasy tale is unlike Clive Barker's other recent ones: it is more tightly plotted, and more of this world. In a sequence of well-executed stories within stories (comparable to Russian dolls), Barker unfolds a compelling examination of what it means to be human, to be a man, and to be a gay man--on a planet where aging, disease, and death bring "the passing of things, of days and beasts and men he'd loved." A satisfying long novel packed with vivid images, memorable characters, and a melancholy mood that reaches for hope.

The Witching Hour


Anne Rice - 1990
    and The Witching Hour begins.It begins in our time with a rescue at sea.  Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery—aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches—finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life.  He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him.As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and—in passionate alliance—set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, the novel moves backward and forward in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a château in the France of Louis XIV.  An intricate tale of evil unfolds—an evil unleashed in seventeenth-century Scotland, where the first "witch," Suzanne of the Mayfair, conjures up the spirit she names Lasher... a creation that spells her own destruction and torments each of her descendants in turn.From the coffee plantations of Port au Prince, where the great Mayfair fortune is made and the legacy of their dark power is almost destroyed, to Civil War New Orleans, as Julien—the clan's only male to be endowed with occult powers—provides for the dynasty its foothold in America, the dark, luminous story encompasses dramas of seduction and death, episodes of tenderness and healing.  And always—through peril and escape, tension and release—there swirl around us the echoes of eternal war: innocence versus the corruption of the spirit, sanity against madness, life against death.  With a dreamlike power, the novel draws us, through circuitous, twilight paths, to the present and Rowan's increasingly inspired and risky moves in the merciless game that binds her to her heritage. And in New Orleans, on Christmas Eve, this strangest of family sagas is brought to its startling climax.

Vampire$


John Steakley - 1990
    You don't just kill vampires for the money, you do it for the satisfaction. You do it because somebody has to. You do it no matter what it does to you. And you drink'a lot. Some jobs just suck. This one bites.But nobody does it better than Jack Crow, the leader of VAMPIRE$ Inc. His crack team of hunters takes down the blood suckers with a lethal combination of cojones and crossbows.After members of Jack's team are ambushed and slaughtered; however, the survivors need to rethink their strategy. With a new recruit from the Vatican? A priest who's not afraid to wield a stake'and a sharpshooter loaded up with silver bullets, it's payback time. The only problem is that the vampires have no intention of going down easy. They have their own hit list, and Jack Crow's name is scrawled in blood right at the top.

Kicking It


Faith HunterChris Marie Green - 2013
    BUTCHER * LUCIENNE DIVER * CHRIS MARIE GREEN * CHRISTINA HENRY New York Times bestselling author Rachel Caine has modern-day potions witches Holly and Andrew facing off against a firebrand politician who wears literally killer boots in a Texas-sized rodeo of trouble. Boot-loving Cadogan vampire Lindsey must team up with off-again, on-again vampire partner Luc when a woman from her past is targeted by supernaturals in New York Times bestselling author Chloe Neill’s all-new adventure. And New York Times bestselling author Rob Thurman features Trixa Iktomi from her Trickster series dealing with magical vengeance and magical footwear. Taking kick-ass urban fantasy literally, USA Today bestselling authors Kalayna Price and Faith Hunter bring together the best of the genre to once again prove when you’re fighting supernatural forces, it helps to keep your feet on the ground.

Clean


Alex Hughes - 2012
    Now I work for the cops, helping Homicide Detective Isabella Cherabino put killers behind bars. My ability to get inside the twisted minds of suspects makes me the best interrogator in the department. But the normals keep me on a short leash. When the Tech Wars ripped the world apart, the Guild stepped up to save it. But they had to get scary to do it—real scary. Now the cops don’t trust the telepaths, the Guild doesn’t trust me, a serial killer is stalking the city—and I’m aching for a fix. But I need to solve this case. Fast. I’ve just had a vision of the future: I’m the next to die.

Half-Resurrection Blues


Daniel José Older - 2015
    Usually, it’s something mundane like a suicide gone wrong or someone revived that shouldn’ta been.” Carlos Delacruz is one of the New York Council of the Dead’s most unusual agents—an inbetweener, partially resurrected from a death he barely recalls suffering, after a life that’s missing from his memory. He thinks he is one of a kind—until he encounters other entities walking the fine line between life and death. One inbetweener is a sorcerer. He’s summoned a horde of implike ngks capable of eliminating spirits, and they’re spreading through the city like a plague. They’ve already taken out some of NYCOD’s finest, leaving Carlos desperate to stop their master before he opens up the entrada to the Underworld—which would destroy the balance between the living and the dead. But in uncovering this man’s identity, Carlos confronts the truth of his own life—and death…

Stationary Bike


Stephen King - 2003
     When commercial artist Richard Sifkitz finally gets around to having that physical he'd been putting off for years, and his cholesterol comes back dangerously high, he does what so many thirty-something, junk food-eating couch potatoes have done before him: he buys a stationary bike, and vows to ride it regularly. Unlike many a mid-life exercise convert, however, Richard actually starts to ride his new stationary bike. A lot. Soon he's spending so much time on his bike that he decides to put his artistic talents to use and paint a mural on the wall opposite his stationary bike. But it turns out that Richard's mural is no ordinary picture -- and soon his stationary bike is taking him places he doesn't want to go...and can't stay away from. A riveting riff on artistic frustration, midlife mortality, and hard-won redemption, Stationary Bike is a thrill ride that could come only from the mind of Stephen King.

The Abhorsen Trilogy Box Set


Garth Nix - 2003
    To preserve life, the Abhorsen must enter Death

Something More Than Night


Ian Tregillis - 2013
    It’s a noir detective story starring fallen angels, the heavenly choir, nightclub stigmatics, a priest with a dirty secret, a femme fatale, and the Voice of God.Somebody has murdered the angel Gabriel. Worse, the Jericho Trumpet has gone missing, putting Heaven on the brink of a truly cosmic crisis. But the twisty plot that unfolds from the murder investigation leads to something much bigger: a con job one billion years in the making. Because this is no mere murder. A small band of angels has decided to break out of heaven, but they need a human patsy to make their plan work.Much of the story is told from the point of view of Bayliss, a cynical fallen angel who has modeled himself on Philip Marlowe. The yarn he spins follows the progression of a Marlowe novel — the mysterious dame who needs his help, getting grilled by the bulls, finding a stiff, getting slipped a mickey Angels and gunsels, dames with eyes like fire, and a grand maguffin, Something More Than Night is a murder mystery for the cosmos.