Erotica is no longer under-the-covers reading; it's thrilling literature that showcases the best writing around. In Best American Erotica 2006, Bright chooses stories that toy with desire in excerpts from some of the most sexually charged and fearless writing of the year. John Updike's story recalls his narrator's first love and how they began to have sex. David Sedaris takes us into his strip poker card room. Tom Perrotta portrays a bored married man whose wife busts him as he navigates his Internet swinger life. Helen Walsh's diary shows a college student in England who drifts from a promising academic career into the arms of prostitutes. In Best American Erotica 2006, today's most popular writers add their voices to a collection for any reader -- straight, gay, curious -- seeking memorable sex and riveting storytelling. Contributors

    Ghosts, ghouls, incubi: all have one thing in common. They know Booth for one of their own . . .

    Seventeen all-new stories illuminate the steampunk world of fog and fear!Modern masters of the supernatural weave their magic to revitalize the chilling Victorian and Edwardian ghostly tale: here are haunted houses, arcane inventions, spirits reaching across the centuries, ghosts in the machine, fateful revelations, gaslit streets scarcely keeping the dark at bay, and other twisted variations on the immortal classics that frighten us still.

    Years later, the writer’s stepson reflects upon his stepmother and the strange stories she used to tell him. Meanwhile, a surgeon’s lover vows to kill him if he does not leave his wife. Before she can follow-through on her crime of passion, though, the surgeon will cross paths with another remarkable woman, a cabaret singer whose heart beats delicately outside of her body. But when the surgeon promises to repair her condition, he sparks the jealousy of another man who would like to preserve the heart in a custom tailored bag. Murderers and mourners, mothers and children, lovers and innocent bystanders—their fates converge in a darkly beautiful web that they are each powerless to escape.Macabre, fiendishly clever, and with a touch of the supernatural, Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge creates a haunting tapestry of death—and the afterlife of the living.

    A small town's strange illness seems to stem from the local cemetery. Two boys make a grim discovery about death and decay when they sneak into a funeral parlor. AT THE CEMETERY GATES: YEAR ONE is an entertaining and eerie short story collection for fans of the strange, macabre, and supernatural.Cover art by Chad Wehrle

    Through the lens of Link's vivid imagination, nothing is what it seems, and everything deserves a second look. From the multiple award-winning The Faery Handbag, in which a teenager's grandmother carries an entire village (or is it a man-eating dog?) in her handbag, to the near-future of The Surfer, whose narrator (a soccer-playing skeptic) waits with a planeload of refugees for the aliens to arrive, Link's stories are funny and full of unexpected insights and skewed perspectives on the world. Her fans range from Michael Chabon to Peter Buck of R.E.M. to Holly Black of Spiderwick Chronicles fame. Now teens can have their world rocked, too!

    A student plagiarizes a paper and holds fast to her alibi until she finds herself complicit in the resurrection of one professor's shadowy past. A dinner party becomes the occasion for the dissolution of more than one marriage. A woman is hired to find a wife for the one true soulmate she's ever found. In all, Rebecca Lee traverses the terrain of infidelity, obligation, sacrifice, jealousy, and yet finally, optimism. Showing people at their most vulnerable, Lee creates characters so wonderfully flawed, so driven by their desire, so compelled to make sense of their human condition, that it's impossible not to feel for them when their fragile belief in romantic love, domestic bliss, or academic seclusion fails to provide them with the sort of force field they'd expected.

    What could possibly go wrong?This short story in the USA Today bestselling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series features one of the most beloved characters in the series, as well as giving the reader a tour of the boardinghouse itself. Chronologically, this story come soon after the events in Scholarly Pursuits, so if you don't like spoilers, you might want to wait to read it until you have finished that book.

     Follow Holmes and Watson as they traverse the streets of London and take on cases from the most unlikely of clients in these thirteen short mysteries.    In Val Andrews’  Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Dozen  you will find marvellous tales of intrigue and mystery....      The Lobster Quadrille Colonel Archibald Fanshawe, from Watson’s Afghanistan days, bumps into his old comrade and proceeds to invite Watson and Holmes for dinner with him and his wife. As the dinner is in full swing and the main course gets underway it is apparent to Holmes that something is afoot after Fanshawe falls gravely ill at dinner…   The Gantry Point Wreckers Take a trip away from Baker Street whilst Holmes recuperates on doctor’s orders and has some well-earned rest in the North Devon town of Bideford. Not too long after arriving in the town Holmes’ rested mind begins to work overtime as he soon begins unravelling the mystery of sinking ships in the next town along.   Sherlock Holmes and the Gypsy Switch Mrs Joan Moran’s trip out to Streatham to ogle at Middle Eastern oddities culminates in a new case for Holmes and Watson. They must discover how her husband, who has been dead for some time, is able to gift her with gold coins from beyond the grave in this chilling tale.   The Kinema Mystery In an unusual case Holmes must save the owner of several kinemas from a thief who is able to walk through walls and disappear without a trace. Leaving in their wake a series of robberies targeting the kinema owner and stealing valuable objects, Holmes must use all his nous to solve this case.   The Baker Street Conjurer George Dean, proprietor and owner of the tavern ‘Cold Cut and Tankard’ requires the help of Holmes and Watson to ascertain how a conjurer who entertains his paying guests may or may not be magically stealing his earnings from right under his nose.   Plus many more stories. Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Dozenis a new collection from Val Andrews that is packed full of vibrant tales of London’s finest detective.     Val Andrews (15 February 1926 – 12 December 2006) was a music hall artist, ventriloquist and writer. Andrews was a prolific writer on magic, having published over 1000 books and booklets from 1952. He also authored Sherlock Holmes pastiches and Houdini's novels.  Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    

    Tales of their grisly conquests have kept us cowering under the covers, but still turning the pages.Psychos is the first book to collect in a single volume the scariest and most well-crafted fictional works about these deranged killers. Some of the stories are classics, the best that the genre has to offer, by renowned writers such as Neil Gaiman, Jack Ketchum, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Bloch, and Thomas Harris. Other selections are from the latest and most promising crop of new authors.John Skipp, who is also the editor of Zombies, Demons and Werewolves and Shapeshifters, provides fascinating insight, through two nonfiction essays, into our insatiable obsession with serial killers and how these madmen are portrayed in popular culture. Resources at the end of the book includes lists of the genre's best long-form fiction, movies, websites, and writers.

    Because there’s no single definition of crazy, there’s no single experience that embodies it, and the word itself means different things—wild? extreme? disturbed? passionate?—to different people. (Don’t) Call Me Crazy is a conversation starter and guide to better understanding how our mental health affects us every day. Thirty-three writers, athletes, and artists offer essays, lists, comics, and illustrations that explore their personal experiences with mental illness, how we do and do not talk about mental health, help for better understanding how every person’s brain is wired differently, and what, exactly, might make someone crazy. If you’ve ever struggled with your mental health, or know someone who has, come on in, turn the pages, and let’s get talking.

     Within these pages, you’ll find a treasure trove of myths, legends, folktales, urban legends, historical accounts, and stories about horrors, both ancient and modern, that have been hidden, ignored, or forgotten entirely. “The Monsters We Forgot” is a massive anthology of horror stories by an international team of authors ranging from award-winners and bestsellers to visionary newcomers. These stories draw inspiration from the folklore traditions of countries including Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Ireland, Wales, England, Norway, Nigeria, Greece, Poland, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Canada, and the United States, the tales in this three-volume collection range from original folktales and chilling myths to information-age monsters and modern urban legends, and everything in between. Turn on the lights, check the locks, and settle in. You’re about to remember The Monsters We Forgot.

    These stories were then produced as pamphlets, just 1,000 copies, and given to customers of the bookstore as a Christmas present. Now, all seventeen tales have been collected in one volume, showcasing the talents of: Charles Ardai Lisa Atkinson George Baxt Lawrence Block Mary Higgins Clark Thomas H. Cook Ron Goulart Jeremiah Healy Edward D. Hoch Rupert Holmes Andrew Klavan Michael Malone Ed McBain Anne Perry S. J. Rozan Jonathan Santlofer Donald E. WestlakeSome of these stories are humorous, others suspenseful, and still others are tales of pure detection, but all of them together make up a charming collection and a perfect Christmas gift for all ages.

    1. A Questionable Client (Kate Daniels, #0.5) by Ilona Andrews: Kate Daniels guards shifter Saiman, less trustworthy than the enemy.2. Even Hand (Dresden Files, #11.6) by Jim Butcher: "Gentleman" John Marcone, Chicago's most dangerous crime lord, fights water demon with defenses against White Council wizard Harry Dresden. 3. The Beacon by Shannon K. Butcher: Hereditary fighter faces monster that killed his father and town, with a little girl that attracts said monster. 4. Even a Rabbit Will Bite by Rachel Caine: Liesl trains the new Dragonslayer before she faces the last dragon.5. Dark Lady (Vampire Files, #12.75) by P.N. Elrod: Vampire nightclub owner Jack Fleming promises radio to resident ghost.6. Beknighted by Deidre Knight: Artist tries to free knight painted in real gold.7. Shifting Star (Signs of the Zodiac, #4.6) by Vicki Peterson: Skamar, Tibetan for star, newly created tulpa, fights another vicious male of Tulpa. 8. Rookwood & Mrs King by Lilith Saintcrow: Vampire private eye is hired by wife to kill the woman's vampire husband. 9. God's Creatures (Kitty Norville, #0.8) by Carrie Vaughn: Cormac follows a werewolf to convent school.