Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction--stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013--as well "Black Dog," a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection.Trigger Warning explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves. Here is a rich cornucopia of horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry that explore the realm of experience and emotion. In "Adventure Story"--a thematic companion to The Ocean at the End of the Lane--Gaiman ponders death and the way people take their stories with them when they die. His social media experience "A Calendar of Tales" are short takes inspired by replies to fan tweets about the months of the year--stories of pirates and the March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother's Day card that portends disturbances in the universe. Gaiman offers his own ingenious spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale "The Case of Death and Honey". And "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" explains the creaks and clatter we hear when we're all alone in the darkness.A sophisticated writer whose creative genius is unparalleled, Gaiman entrances with his literary alchemy, transporting us deep into the realm of imagination, where the fantastical becomes real and the everyday incandescent. Full of wonder and terror, surprises and amusements, Trigger Warning is a treasury of delights that engage the mind, stir the heart, and shake the soul from one of the most unique and popular literary artists of our day.

    

    On a spur of the moment decision, John leaves his suburban married life to spend six months in an abandoned house in the quiet eerie town of Cafeville, where secrets lurk in every corner. The town's biggest source of gossip is the Greens who live right next door. As John attempts to put his finger on what it is about the house that has everyone steering clear, he finds himself captivated by the seductively charming Eva Green who is as dangerous as she is irresistible. A gruesome story begins to take form in his mind. As the lines between fiction and reality become blurred, something sinister emerges from the shadows and demands to be heard...

    ask your mother to stop pointing the gun at your head. Steven is a writer, by all accounts of self-proclamation. But no artist can be expected to work under serious pressure, especially not when the pressure consists of his own mother indenting his tender skull with the muzzle of the pistol held in her hand. Suddenly, it's write or die for Steven. He better tap away on that typewriter or expect to be extracted from the land of the living before he's had the opportunity to finish anything he's ever written. Not to mention that his recently departed Father lying on the floor beside him should supply enough motivation. When Steven manages to frustrate his murderous mother to no end, his wish made under duress actually comes true. Mother's vanished... along with all evidence of the foregoing incident ever having taken place. Is his beloved father really dead? Is his own mother now a criminal on the run? Can he truly never cure his lifetime disease of writer's block? Only one person can uncover the truth and set the world to rights again. That would be Tim, Steven's much more successful, though younger, brother. If only Tim would actually believe Steven's retelling of the frightful situation he's just managed to survive. Someone's got to fix the latest family faux pas. And everyone in the family knows it can't be Steven. In the dead of night, two brothers battle sibling rivalry, serious mother issues, one heinous surprise after another, and a lifetime of family strife to get to the bottom of it all and uncover what's been lying beneath all along. Start Reading Now... What are you waiting for? chuckle-worthy dark comedy, murder mystery, delicious sibling rivalry and family issues, the cure for writer's block, and so much more await you. About the Author Justine Avery Is a Genre-Breaker, a Writer of Delicious Story Above All Else Justine Avery is an avid reader of all genres, weaves her own stories among them all, and sets out to surprise her readers at every opportunity. She's an acutely observant introvert with an insatiable yearning to explorer, a risk-taker who's based in reality, a wanderer with a mission, and a grownup blessed with childlike wonder at the world. Her stories reflect the same, and readers can't get enough of them. Avery writes genre-breaking fiction with universal appeal, emphasizing enticing story above all else. She writes powerful, affecting stories accessible to all readers, regardless of what your own favorite genres happen to be. She writes the tales all readers are drawn to, the stories capable of changing your view of the world around you, the narratives that will become a part of you. Go ahead—take a peek. Use the Look Inside feature above, and start reading Point Blank now.

    A desperate race. So much at stake. Erick Wynn is about to be a new father. He and his wife, Amy, have prepared for nationwide financial collapse, but they never planned for coordinated EMP and Cyber Attacks to leave them separated, without power, communications or transportation. Erick had just arrived at the airport to head off on a business trip when the lights went out. Now, he must fight his way through the violent streets of Chicago to make it home to his wife and unborn child before the violence reaches them. Could you survive sudden chaos storming through the windy city to get home to your family? Sudden Chaos is a post-apocalyptic EMP survival short story of The Days of Want Series and contains a FREE two-chapter preview of Turbulent, book one in the series.

    Crammed with stories new and old by the masters of the macabre, including Clive Barker, Robert Bloch, Graham Masterston, Ramsey Campbell, Hugh B. Cave, and others.INTRODUCTION: THE DEAD THAT WALK Stephen Jones SEX, DEATH AND STARSHINE Clive Barker RISING GENERATION Ramsey Campbell THE SONG OF THE SLAVES Manly Wade Wellman THE GHOULS R. Chetwynd-Hayes THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR Edgar Allan Poe STICKS Karl Edward Wagner QUIETLY NOW Charles L. Grant THE GREY HOUSE Basil Copper A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS M.R. James THE CRUCIAN PIT Nicholas Royle THE DISAPPROVAL OF JEREMY CLEAVE Brian Lumley HERBERT WEST—REANIMATOR H.P. Lovecraft TREADING THE MAZE Lisa Tuttle OUT OF CORRUPTION David Riley THE TAKING OF MR. BILL Graham Masterton SCHALKEN THE PAINTER J. Sheridan Le Fanu CLINICALLY DEAD David Sutton THEY'RE COMING FOR YOU Les Daniels MISSION TO MARGAL Hugh B. Cave LATER Michael Marshall Smith MARBH BHEO Peter Tremayne THE BLOOD KISS Dennis Etchison NIGHT AFTER NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD Christopher Fowler THE DEAD DON'T DIE! Robert Bloch PATRICIA'S PROFESSION Kim Newman ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE CADILLAC DESERT WITH DEAD FOLKS Joe R. Lansdale

    But Rose still refuses to set a date for their wedding. Now, at what’s supposed to be a happy celebration of Liam’s fifth birthday, a secret threatens everything… Note: This is a super sweet “happily ever after” bonus short story for the full length, steamy, science fiction romance novel Onyx Dragons: Jasper. YOU REALLY MUST READ THAT BOOK FIRST!!!

    All things unknown and unknowable are coming to light... Strange creatures wander the dark canopies of Germany's Black Forest. A young boy harbors something both dark and divine within him. A man learns to control his dreams, only to find an ancient evil imprisoned within them. Something lurks in the shadows of a woman's house, and it wants her baby. All of these things and more in this riveting new collection of 18 terrifying cosmic and paranormal tales. Get it now and discover the terrors that lurk within.

    And in the title story, a stunning meditation on imagination, memory, and loss, a middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over the course of a fateful morning, gives the dying man a final chance to recall who he really is. A hapless, deluded owner of an antique store; two mothers struggling to do the right thing; a teenage girl whose idealism is challenged by a brutal brush with reality; a man tormented by a series of pharmaceutical experiments that force him to lust, to love, to kill—the unforgettable characters that populate the pages of Tenth of December are vividly and lovingly infused with Saunders' signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation.Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human.Unsettling, insightful, and hilarious, the stories in Tenth of December—through their manic energy, their focus on what is redeemable in human beings, and their generosity of spirit—not only entertain and delight; they fulfill Chekhov's dictum that art should "prepare us for tenderness."

    Fleeing from a motorcycle gang, alienated, middle-aged Spanish Barrman escapes into a hidden cave and finds himself entombed in an underground labyrinth inhabited by the wondrous Skook.

    For recent apocalyptic cult escapee Wynter Roth, it’s the end she’d always been told was coming.When Wynter Roth is turned out of New Earth, a self-contained doomsday cult on the American prairie, she emerges into a world poised on the brink of madness as a mysterious outbreak of rapid early onset dementia spreads across the nation.As Wynter struggles to start over in a world she’s been taught to regard as evil, she finds herself face-to-face with the apocalypse she’s feared all her life—until the night her sister shows up at her doorstep with a set of medical samples. That night, Wynter learns there’s something far more sinister at play and that these samples are key to understanding the disease.Now, as the power grid fails and the nation descends into chaos, Wynter must find a way to get the samples to a lab in Colorado. Uncertain who to trust, she takes up with former military man Chase Miller, who has his own reasons for wanting to get close to the samples in her possession, and to Wynter herself.