Featuring new fiction by Sofia Samatar, Rosamund Hodge, Kat Howard, Maria Dahvana Headley, Sarah Pinsker, Emily Devenport, and Fran Wilde, classic fiction by Ellen Klages, essays by Ytasha L. Womack, Amal El-Mohtar, L.M. Myles, and Stephanie Zvan, poetry by C.S.E. Cooney, Jennifer Crow, and M Sereno, interviews with Sofia Samatar, C.S.E. Cooney, and Ellen Klages, by Deborah Stanish, a cover by Carrie Ann Baade, and an editoral by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas.

    Thankfully, Kyra discovers a castle and is hopeful that the kingdom might give her the shelter she desperately seeks. However, as she approaches, a guard arrives with the matching horse from her carriage, Kyra is frightened all over again and cautiously presents herself as a commoner named Marie. The queen is not convinced Marie is merely a commoner and commands her son, Prince David, to entertain and woo the girl until the truth comes out. There is intrigue afoot in the kingdom, and the queen is bound and determined to see if this mysterious girl had anything to do with it. With Prince David gleaning the truth, what could go wrong? No one could have expected him to fall for the bedraggled princess, least of all Kyra!

    In the desert outside Yuan, Gem, a mutant beast, fights to save his people, the Monstrous, from starvation. Neither dreams that together, they could return balance to both their worlds.Isra wants to help the city’s Banished people, second-class citizens despised for possessing Monstrous traits. But after she enlists the aid of her prisoner, Gem, who has been captured while trying to steal Yuan’s enchanted roses, she begins to care for him, and to question everything she has been brought up to believe.As secrets are revealed and Isra’s sight, which vanished during her childhood, returned, Isra will have to choose between duty to her people and the beast she has come to love.

    A rags to riches fairytale full of danger and romance about a lost princess and a maverick young spymaster who foil the plans of an evil magician bent on stealing her throne.Suitable for adults and teenagers.

    After the destruction of the world, the Beasts provide citizens with whatever they need in exchange for the one teenage girl they enslave every week. They call them the Brides, and they never comes back. Iris isn’t the worrying type though; she’s been defying the system since she was ten and never cared for the Beast’s rules.Then she meets Colton Ray, who is not like any other boy she’s ever seen. His confidence and dominance are otherworldly she can’t rationalize the attraction she feels for him. Colton had one slight problem though. It’s rumored he is one of the Beast, and Iris could be the next on the Beast’s list.

    W. Jeter’s "La Valse" forges a fable about love, the decadence of technology, and a gala dance that becomes the obsession of a young engineer—and the doom of those who partake in it.… In "You Will Attend Until Beauty Awakens", national bestselling author and John W. Campbell Award winner Jay Lake tells the story of Sleeping Beauty—and how the princess was conceived in deception, raised in danger, and rescued by a prince who may be less than valiant. The tale of "The Tinderbox" takes a turn into the surreal when a damaged young soldier comes into possession of an intricate, treacherous treasure and is drawn into a mission of mercy in national bestselling author Kat Richardson’s "The Hollow Hounds". In "The Kings of Mount Golden", Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominee Paul Di Filippo tells the story of a young man’s search for his heritage and a mechanical marvel that lies at the heart of a sinister pact in this fascinating take on "The King of the Golden Mountain".ALSO INCLUDES STORIES FROM Steven Harper Nancy A. Collins G. K. Hayes Gregory Nicoll Pip Ballantine

    Her only hope at freedom is to wish for it. But the Godmother rules the illegal wish trade, and the price she demands is steep. Is Elle willing to pay it?~ ~ ~It’s just another night of breaking her stepmother’s rules and sneaking out. Another night of drawing as little attention to herself as possible.Get the job done. Earn a little more Essence. Move one step closer to legitimately purchasing a wish.But when Elle runs face-first into a charming and handsome faerie—and then ends up in the clutches of a vampire—her usual fly-under-the-radar plans are knocked off course.~ ~ ~CITY OF WISHES is an urban fantasy serialized retelling of Cinderella.

    On her eighteenth birthday, she’ll find out her future branch of society and her totem, the animal form she’ll be able to take at will for the rest of her life. Like her brothers, she’s expected to be a brown bear of the religious branch known as Terra. In the Alderwood forests, Blossom’s bear blood is a valuable asset. Any day now, a rival clan leader will step forward and offer her father a hefty bounty in exchange for her hand in marriage. Blossom can do nothing more than sit back and wait to be traded to the highest bidder.Determined to spend her last weeks exploring the Alderwood, Blossom sneaks away and manages to find Kaide Landel, a rising political star of the Pyro branch. Known for his violence and disregard for the religious teachings of the Terra branch, he’s all wrong for the bear clan’s prized daughter. But when the politician uses his wealth and influence to secure her hand, Blossom has no choice but to leave her family and marry him—if she lives that long. A new paranormal romance from RS McCoy, author of The Sparks Saga, The Luminary Chronicles, and The Extraction Files series. Book One of The Alder Tales.

    When wealthy sorcerer Hollin Parry hires her to do a special act - singing accompaniment to an exquisite piano-playing automaton, Nimira believes it is the start of a new life. In Parry's world, however, buried secrets stir. Unsettling below-stairs rumours abound about ghosts, a mad woman roaming the halls, and of Parry's involvement in a gang of ruthless sorcerers who torture fairies for sport. When Nimira discovers the spirit of a dashing young fairy gentleman is trapped inside the automaton's stiff limbs, waiting for someone to break the curse and set him free, the two fall in love. But it is a love set against a dreadful race against time to save the entire fairy realm, which is in mortal peril.

    A resister. A rebel. Someone who lived to bring an end to the queen who stole my childhood--my mother, my life, my very world. But I'm not. I'm not the good guy. I'm the one who puts the good guys in their graves."Jade was only a little girl when the earthquake struck. Before her eyes, half of New York City disappeared, replaced by a village that seemed torn out of a storybook. Horses and carriages. Cobblestone streets. A towering castle. And, above all, a queen with the magical ability to strip emotions away.Ten years later and Jade has forgotten what it is to feel, to care...even to love. Working as a member of the queen's guard, she spends most of her time on the city wall staring at the crumbling skyscrapers of old New York. But everything changes when the queen's runaway son, Prince Asher, returns. Under his relentless taunts, her blood begins to boil. Under his piercing gaze, her heart begins to flutter. And the more her icy soul begins to thaw, the more Jade comes to question everything she's ever known--and, more importantly, whose side she's really on.

    How is love related to sex, and how is sex related to love--and do love and sex need to be related at all?*This book contains profanity and adult situations

    Series Summary: Cursed as a baby by a malevolent sorceress, Asha is left without the protection of her fairy magic. Her parents, fearing for their daughter’s safety, enlist the help of their three most trusted guards—who whisk Asha into the human world under a blanket of magic. For nearly eighteen years Asha has lived as a normal human, doted on by her three aunts. Without magic.Without her parents. And, without the knowledge of her curse. But that’s about to change. One night, a few weeks before graduation, Asha decides to disobey her aunts’ rules and go to a party. When she arrives, there’s a bonfire, lots of beer, and a mysterious guy named Paxton. No one seems to know who he is. Asha can’t stop staring at him. He’s everything her aunts have told her to stay away from. When Paxton saves her from the overzealous actions of a drunken classmate, their lives become inexplicably intertwined. His touch rouses more than her desire for him. It awakens her long-hidden magic.

    These are but a few of the curiosities collected in this volume of short stories by three acclaimed practitioners of paranormal fiction.But The Curiosities is more than the stories. Since 2008, Maggie, Tessa, and Brenna have posted more than 250 works of short fiction to their website merryfates.com. Their goal was simple: create a space for experimentation and improvisation in their writing—all in public and without a backspace key. In that spirit, The Curiosities includes the stories and each author's comments, critiques, and kudos in the margins. Think of it as a guided tour of the creative processes of three acclaimed authors.So, are you curious now?

    My every wish was a kingdom’s command, my displeasure every man’s worst fear. But then, at the whim of a merciless enchantress, all was stolen from me. My once lavish castle became my dungeon. My once-handsome form became that of a beast. There is no hope of release from the prison of my own body, for the only way to break this curse is to earn the love of another. I, who have never felt a drop of compassion, must hope to inspire devotion. I, who am hideous beyond compare, must hope to inspire passion. After hundreds of years, I have come to accept the truth: I will never know love. There is no escape for me.I am a prisoner.Born to two loving parents and a happy home, I was grateful for my good fortune. Though I was plain and prone to living in my head, forced to live in the shadow of my beautiful sisters, I had everything my heart desired. Then tragedy struck, and I lost my mother and my home. Papa was all I had left in the world, and I was utterly devoted to him. When his thoughtful gesture earned him the wrath of a horrible monster, I sacrificed myself for the sake of the one person I love. Now I am a prisoner in a decaying castle with only a terrifying beast for companionship. But I am determined not to give in to the beast’s wrath, to prove to him that he can never truly ensnare me.

    In fact, up until a couple of days ago, I was the villain. Kidnapped maidens, scared kids, stole magic tchotchkes--until I got into a little scrape with the union. Now I'm cursed with the worst fate in New Never City--no matter what I do, I gotta be nice. So when a head-case princess named Asia barges into my apartment and asks me to find out who whacked her stepsister, Cinderella, I have no choice but to help her. And I'm more than willing to head back to her parents' castle and do some investigating if it means I can get into her black leather cat suit. Except this twisted sister has a family nutty enough to send the Biggest Baddest Wolf running for the hills--and a freaky little curse of her own. . . "More than f***ed-up. Demented. Hilarious." --Mario Acevedo, author of "Werewolf Smackdown"