When Carroll Sydney learns she has lots of lost time to make up for, she tries to tempt the baddest boy in Missoula, Montana-too bad he's made a promise to be "good"...Leandra Logan spins a scintillating contemporary tale of desire and betrayal: as her marriage to a shady Hollywood movie producer dissolves, Andrea Doanes uses a sexy stranger to turn the tables in a most delicious way...Anne Marie Winston sends a loveless cookbook author and a seductive rogue to spend a few days together in a rustic cabin in Maine-and to discover that passion can simmer under the most unlikely circumstances...Most of the good things in life are...Naughty, Naughty.

    WuMorning Terrors — Peter CrowtherMisadventures in the Skin Trade — Don D’AmmassaCircle of Lias — Lawrence C. ConnollyWatching the Soldiers — Dirk StrasserOne in the A.M. — Rachel DrummondA Side of the Sea — Ramsey CampbellPainted Faces — Gerard Daniel HournerMonotone — Lawrence GreenbergDead Leaves — James C. DobbsFrom the Mouths of Babes — Bentley LittleThe Late Mr. Havel’s Apartment — David HerterUnion Dues — Gary BraunbeckEarshot — Glenn IsaacsonFee — Peter Straub

    A sequel to a #1 bestselling horror anthology Don't Scream, featuring hideous doppelgangers, terrifying apps, lurking monsters, and more. Read... if you dare.

    Her wry, often darkly funny voice describes the repressed underside of a range of middle-class characters living in the South.

    From the painted faces of a child's nightmare to discovering what we really put in our bodies in the name of health. Here are 10 tales to read with the light on.TALE #1 - "Roll up, Roll up"TALE #2 - "Late Shift"TALE #3 - "You call that music?"TALE #4 - "Whose face is this anyway?"TALE #5 - "Pink Bow"TALE #6 - "Careful what you wish for"TALE #7 - "Recycling can be hazardous to your health"TALE #8 - "Mommy's little soldier"TALE #9 - "Trick or Treat"TALE #10 - "You are what you eat"

    With rich and vibrant worldbuilding, readers are transported to antiquated realms to witness noble sacrifices and astonishing wonders. Gathering a comprehensive survey of beloved stories from the genre, this compilation includes stories by such luminaries as George R.R. Martin, Melanie Rawn, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robin Hobb, and Tad Williams, with a foreword by author Brent Weeks. Inspiring and larger-than-life, these tales offer timeless values of courage and friendship in the face of ultimate evil and express mankind's greatest hopes and fears.Stories:01 - Robin Hobb, Homecoming02 - Ursula K. Le Guin, The Word of Unbinding03 - Tad Williams, The Burning Man04 - Aliette de Bodard, As the Wheel Turns05 - Paolo Bacigalupi, The Alchemist06 - Orson Scott Card, Sandmagic07 - Patrick Rothfuss, The Road to Levinshir08 - Brandon Sanderson, Rysn09 - Michael Moorcock, While the Gods Laugh10 - Melanie Rawn, Mother of All Russiya11 - Kate Elliott, Riding the Shore of the River of Death12 - Mary Robinette Kowal, The Bound Man13 - N.K. Jemisin, The Narcomancer14 - Carrie Vaughn, Strife Lingers in Memory15 - Trudi Canavan, The Mad Apprentice16 - Juliet Marillier, Otherling17 - George R.R. Martin, The Mystery Knight

    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.

    Featured writers include Ellen Hart, Judith Guest, William Kent Krueger and Carl Brookins. This is a must-have for mystery buffs.

    Hapless mortals have invoked monstrous entities from beyond through foul magicks, incantations and rituals. When will they learn that here can be no profit nor joy to be gained through relations with the insidious old ones? These sixteen tales of depravity, sorcery and madness may offer some illumination, but ultimately there can be no salvation for those who dabble in The Dark Rites of Cthulhu.

    This inaugural volume showcases the best North American fantasy short fiction from the preceding year.Hard truth about waste management / Sumanth Prabhaker --Stolen father / Eric Roe --Saffron gatherer / Elizabeth Hand --Whipping / Julia Elliott --Better angel / Chris Adrian --Draco Campestris / Sarah Monette --Geese / Daniel Courdriet --Chinese boy / Ann Stapleton --Flying woman / Meghan McCarron --First kisses from beyond the grave / Nik Houser --Song of the selkie / Gina Ochsner --Troop [sic] of baboons / Tyler Smith --Pieces of Scheherazade / Nicole Kornher-Stace --Origin story / Kelly Link --Experiment in governance / E.M. Schorb --Next corpse collector / Ramola D --Village of Ardakmoktan / Nicole Derr --Man who married a tree / Tony D'Souza --Fable with slips of white paper ... / Kevin Brockmeier --Pregnant / Catherine Zeidler --Warehouse of saints / Robin Hemley --Ledge / Austin Bunn --Lazy taekos / Geoffrey A. Landis --For the love of Paul Bunyan / Fritz Swanson --Accounting / Brian Evenson --Abraham Loncoln has been shot / Daniel Alarcon --Bit forgive / Maile Chapman --End of narrative (1-29; or 29-1) / Peter LaSalle --Kiss / Melora Wolff

    Stronger. Better. Faster. We will rebuild you.CONTENTSIntroduction by Neil ClarkeCome From Away by Madeline AshbyNo Place to Dream, but a Place to Die by Elizabeth BearMarried by Helena BellA Cold Heart by Tobias S. BuckellHoneycomb Girls by Erin CashierWhat I’ve Seen With Your Eyes by Jason K. ChapmanWizard, Cabalist, Ascendant by Seth DickinsonSeventh Sight by Greg EganNegative Space by Amanda ForrestMercury in Retrograde by Erin HoffmanTongtong’s Summer by Xia JiaGod Decay by Rich LarsonAlways the Harvest by Yoon Ha LeeThe Regular by Ken LiuCoastlines of the Stars by Alex Dally MacFarlaneFusion by Greg MellorMemories and Wire by Mari NessOil of Angles by Chen QiufanThe Sarcophagus by Robert ReedSynecdoche Oracles by Benjanun SriduangkaewTender by Rachel SwirskyThe Cumulative Effects of Light Over Time by E. Catherine ToblerSmall Medicine by Genevieve ValentineCollateral by Peter WattsTaking the Ghost by A.C. WiseMusée de l’Âme Seule by E. Lily YuAbout the AuthorsAbout the EditorCover art by Julie Dillon

    Two sisters share a husband when one fails to produce a child for the longest time. An American diplomat's urgent inquires about the Malaysian treasury’s facilities are hilariously misunderstood. A daring civil servant proposes to a lady in his Ceylonese hometown mere minutes after meeting her, breaking a thousand years of marriage protocol.M. Shanmughalingam's debut collection paints, with gentle wit and humour, the concerns and intrigues of the Jaffna Tamil community in Malaya. Satirical yet deeply empathetic, these fifteen stories explore what happens when we hold on to—and choose to leave behind—our traditions and identities in a changing world.

    Short, sardonic, and dark, these six brief fiction stories and one non-fiction piece are consummate Vonnegut with piercing satire and an eye for life’s obscene inanity. Also available for the first time is an unfinished science-fiction short story, included in the appendix. These stories trace trivial human lives and mundane desires, which is precisely where Vonnegut’s inimitable perspective as a humanist shines, illuminating his alternating hopeful and dismal outlook, although undoubtedly focusing on the latter. Here as in his greatest novels, Vonnegut’s writing takes us to the darkest corners of the human soul and with wit and humor, manages to remind us of our potential to be something greater.

    Ranging from the 19th to the 20th centuries, writers include James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, Richard Edward Connell, Henri Nathaniel Hawthorne, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Jack London, Henri Ringgold Wilmer Lardner, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant and Edgar Allan Poe.

    She changes bodies and fights, again and again. But now the enemy has surrendered. There will be no further deployment. The war is over . . . but not for her.