She does not have a talking cat. She does, however, have a place in a community where she is called upon to help release the trapped soul of a dead man … oh, and a cat that’s trapped halfway up a tree. Yes, halfway. She unravels the mystery by unpicking the myth itself, exploring the old Welsh language and the complicated connections between cats, snakes and dragonflies. This short story is based on the characters that appear in The Celtic Witch Mysteries, a complete series of eight books. Jackie is a domestic witch living in a cottage overlooking the sea. She hears the Yow-Yows calling out at night, luring people to their watery doom, and the very next day, a young woman is dead. But why would they target this popular, vivacious artist? Jackie joins forces with her friend Gloria to expose the real killer. It all goes wrong as her meddling unleashes the Hurricane Curse and she is soon fighting for her own life… This short story is based on the characters that appear in The Everyday Witches of Wildham-on-Sea, a complete trilogy. This collection includes two previously published short stories. Harkin and the Snake’s Servant appeared in the now-unavailable anthology “Seven Pets for Seven Witches”. It’s Always Night at the Bottom of the Sea appeared in the now-unavailable anthology “Spell or High Water.” Both are 10,000-15,000 words long, and complete stories. You do not need to have read anything else by Molly Milligan to enjoy these stories.

    Perfect for any gift-giving occasion.

    Correk is recovering on Oriceran and no one seems to be in the mood for Christmas. But with the help of the regulars… and an unexpected artifact… plus a certain troll, donuts and Hagan, plus the magical community from the Jackalope this just might be a very Merry Christmas after all. ​ Merry Christmas everyone! Welcome to the Magical World of Oriceran. Because Magic is Real.

    Some readers noticed his nimble blending of humor with painful truths reminded them of George Saunders. His creativity and fresh voice reminded others of Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. But with his new collection, Jodzio creates a class of his own.Knockout is the unified collection of stories that create flawless portraits of deeply flawed figures on the edge of the American Dream. A recovering drug addict gets tricked into stealing a tiger. A man buys a used sex chair from his neighbor. A woman suffering from agoraphobia raises her son completely indoors. An alcoholic runs a bed and breakfast with the son from his deceased wife's first marriage. These people will admit that their chances have passed them by. These people know they were born on the wrong side of the tracks, and their dreams will remain unreachable, but that doesn't stop them from dreaming. Yet readers won’t be fooled by the funny premises —Jodzio steers these stories into deeper places, creating a brilliant examination of those on the fringes of modern life.With its quirky humor, compelling characters, and unexpected sincerity, Knockout by John Jodzio is poised to become his breakout book, drawing a wide readership to this provocative and talented young writer.

    Long a celebrated West Coast cult figure, Kate Braverman now gives voice to Squandering the Blues, a distinctive and uncompromising collection of characters living out urban fairy tales and nightmares in the highly atmospheric landscape of Los Angeles.

    Sionil José's prodigious production in the last decade, are a moving commentary on the Filipinos. "Waywaya" recreates pre-Hispanic Philippine society and should also be read as allegory. In Sionil José's own language, Ilokano, "Waywaya" means freedom. The last story in the collection, "Progress", has been anthologized abroad and regarded as contemporary social document as well.

    His father is an abusive drunk with muddled religious views, and his mother, as hard as she tries to defend her son, only ever ends up delaying the inevitable. Things take a turn for the worse one Friday when Bobby brings home a black eye from school. The following day his father brings him out into the woods on a mission to do “God’s Work” and bring him into adulthood. A coming-of-age story about the sins of a father and a son’s chance to absolve himself from them.

    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.

    They navigate the obstacles that come with mixed-race identity and instabilities in social class, and they use their liminal positions to leverage power. They employ rage and tenderness and logic and sex, but for all of their rationality they're drawn to self-destructive behavior. Shepard’s stories explore what we do to lessen our burdens of sadness and isolation; her characters, fiercely true to themselves, are caught between their desire to move beyond their isolation and a fear that it’s exactly where they belong.

    Seemingly unfazed while I was on the verge of shattering from shame, a broken spirit and crushed pride. I thought it hurt so much because I loved Rodney, but the past six months have shown me that it wasn't my heart that took the biggest beating. It was my pride." - Parker Graham It took six months for the ice around Parker's heart to freeze. Can Kane warm her up to his love in one week? Or will he be yet another source of pain that causes the ice and disappointment that can only be felt because of love to remain? *Please note: This is a novella with explicit content and language.*

    You won’t find it in books. And you certainly won’t find it in the neighborhood. This is just the beginning of Joy Castro’s unmoored life of searching and striving that she’s turned to account with literary alchemy in Island of Bones. In personal essays that plumb the depths of not-belonging, Castro takes the all-too-raw materials of her adolescence and young adulthood and views them through the prism of time. The result is an exquisitely rendered, richly detailed perspective on a uniquely troubled young life that reflects on the larger questions each of us faces in a world where diversity and singularity are forever at odds. In the experiences of her past—hunger and abuse, flight as a fourteen-year-old runaway, single motherhood, the revelations of her “true” ethnic identity, the suicide of her father—Castro finds the “jagged, smashed place of edges and fragments” that she pieces together to create an island all her own. Hers is a complicated but very real depiction of what it is to “jump class,” to not belong but to find one’s voice in the interstices of identity.

    The Folly of Loving Life features linked stories examining an array of characters at their most vulnerable and human, often escaping to somewhere or trying to find stability in their own place. These stories display the best of what we love about Monica’s writing — the sly laugh-out-loud humor, the sharp observations, the flawed but strong characters, and the shadowy Van Sant-ish Portland settings.

    Serena, Frankie, Raffa, and Nat collide and break apart like pool balls to come back together in an imagined post-divorce future. Through the gritty, unraveling truths of their lives, they find themselves in the bed of an overdosed lover, through the panting tongue of a rescue dog who is equally as dislanguaged as his owner, in the studio apartment of a compulsive liar, sitting backward but going forward in the galley of an airplane, in relationships that are at once playgrounds and cages. Homeless Men is the collective story of women whose lives careen back into the past, to the places where pain lurks and haunts. With riotous energy and rage, they run towards the future in the hopes of untangling themselves from failure to succeed and fail again.

    In “Books and Roses” one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers’ fates. In “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” involves a “house of locks,” where doors can be closed only with a key—with surprising, unobservable developments. And in “If a Book Is Locked There’s Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think,” a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason).  Oyeyemi’s tales span multiple times and landscapes as they tease boundaries between coexisting realities. Is a key a gate, a gift, or an invitation?

    When they clash with bewitching creatures from the big blue, magical hi-jinx are sure to follow! A group of your favorite paranormal cozy writers have teamed up to bring you mystery-filled tales of summer fun. Authors include: Kathi Daley, Heather Hamilton, Molly Milligan, Morgana Best, April Aasheim, Tegan Maher, Elle Adams, Heather Horrocks, Danielle Garrett, Samantha Silver, A. Gardner, ReGina Welling and Erin Lynn