The Midnight Queen


Sylvia Izzo Hunter - 2014
    But what dazzles can also destroy, as Gray Marshall is about to discover… Gray’s deep talent for magick has won him a place at Merlin College. But when he accompanies four fellow students on a mysterious midnight errand that ends in disaster and death, he is sent away in disgrace—and without a trace of his power. He must spend the summer under the watchful eye of his domineering professor, Appius Callender, working in the gardens of Callender’s country estate and hoping to recover his abilities. And it is there, toiling away on a summer afternoon, that he meets the professor’s daughter. Even though she has no talent of her own, Sophie Callender longs to be educated in the lore of magick. Her father has kept her isolated at the estate and forbidden her interest; everyone knows that teaching arcane magickal theory to women is the height of impropriety. But against her father’s wishes, Sophie has studied his ancient volumes on the subject. And in the tall, stammering, yet oddly charming Gray, she finally finds someone who encourages her interest and awakens new ideas and feelings. Sophie and Gray’s meeting touches off a series of events that begins to unravel secrets about each of them. And after the king’s closest advisor pays the professor a closed-door visit, they begin to wonder if what Gray witnessed in Oxford might be even more sinister than it seemed. They are determined to find out, no matter the cost…

Shades of Milk and Honey


Mary Robinette Kowal - 2010
    Norrell. It is an intimate portrait of a woman, Jane, and her quest for love in a world where the manipulation of glamour is considered an essential skill for a lady of quality.Jane and her sister Melody vie for the attentions of eligible men, and while Jane’s skill with glamour is remarkable, it is her sister who is fair of face. When Jane realizes that one of Melody’s suitors is set on taking advantage of her sister for the sake of her dowry, she pushes her skills to the limit of what her body can withstand in order to set things right—and, in the process, accidentally wanders into a love story of her own.

New Amsterdam


Elizabeth Bear - 2007
    She makes scandalous liaisons with inappropriate men, and if in her youth she was a famous beauty, now she is both formidable--and notorious. She is a forensic sorceress, and a dedicated officer of a Crown that does not deserve her loyalty. She has nothing, but obligations.Sebastien de Ulloa is the oldest creature she has ever known. He was no longer young at the Christian millennium, and that was nine hundred years ago. He has forgotten his birth-name, his birth-place, and even the year in which he was born, if he ever knew it. But he still remembers the woman who made him immortal. He has everything, but a reason to live.In a world where the sun never set on the British Empire, where Holland finally ceded New Amsterdam to the English only during the Napoleonic wars, and where the expansion of the American colonies was halted by the war magic of the Iroquois, they are exiles in the new world--and its only hope for justice.

Unnatural Creatures


Neil GaimanGahan Wilson - 2013
    Nesbit, Diana Wynne Jones, Gahan Wilson, and other literary luminaries. Sales of Unnatural Creatures benefit 826DC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students in their creative and expository writing, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

Wild Cards


George R.R. MartinBrian Bolland - 1986
    Most victims die, others experience physical or psychic changes: aces have useful powers, deuces minor maybe entertaining abilities, jokers uglified, disabled, relegated to ghettos.

Snow White, Blood Red


Ellen DatlowNeil Gaiman - 1993
    But no longer.You hold in your hands a volume of wonders -- magical tales of trolls and ogres, of bewitched princesses and kingdoms accursed, penned by some of the most acclaimed fantasists of our day. But these are not bedtime stories designed to usher an innocent child gently into a realm of dreams. These are stories that bite -- lush and erotic, often dark and disturbing mystical journeys through a phantasmagoric landscape of distinctly adult sensibilities... where there is no such thing as "happily ever after." The "Snow White, Blood Red" Collection #1. Snow White, Blood Red #2. Black Thorn, White Rose #3. Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears #4. Black Swan, White Raven #5. Silver Birch, Blood Moon #6. Black Heart, Ivory Bones

The Anubis Gates


Tim Powers - 1983
    But while attending a lecture given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1810, he becomes marooned in Regency London, where dark and dangerous forces know about the gates in time.Caught up in the intrigue between rival bands of beggars, pursued by Egyptian sorcerers, and befriended by Coleridge, Doyle somehow survives and learns more about the mysterious Ashbless than he could ever have imagined possible...

In the Forest of Forgetting


Theodora Goss - 2005
    The table of contents has been slightly modified: "Phalaenopsis" has been replaced by "Her Mother's Ghosts," which first appeared in 2004 in The Rose and Twelve Petals and Other Stories, released by Small Beer Press."The Rose in Twelve Petals""Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold""The Rapid Advance of Sorrow""Lily, With Clouds""Miss Emily Gray""In the Forest of Forgetting""Sleeping with Bears""Letters from Budapest""The Wings of Meister Wilhelm""Conrad""A Statement in the Case""Death Comes for Ervina""The Belt""Her Mother's Ghosts""Pip and the Fairies""Lessons with Miss Gray"

Sword of Ice and Other Tales of Valdemar


Mercedes LackeyMark Shepherd - 1997
    Home to the Heralds and their mysterious horselike Companions, the magical Tayledras Hawk-people, and of course, the powerful gryphons, Valdemar has garnered a devoted global following. Now these 17 new tales by fantasy's greatest authors are sure to add their own chapter to the history of this enchanting land.This anthology contains: Introduction by Mercedes Lackey Sunlancer by Philip M. Austin and Mercedes Lackey The Demon's Den by Tanya Huff Ironrose by Larry Dixon and Mel. White Babysitter by Josepha Sherman The Salamander by Richard Lee Byers A Child's Adventures by Janni Lee Simmer Blood Ties by Stephanie D. Shaver ... Another Successful Experiment by Lawrence Schimel Choice by Michelle West Song of Valdemar by Kristin SchwengelThe School Up the Hill by Elisabeth Waters Chance by Mark Shepherd Sword of Ice by Mercedes Lackey & John Yezeguielian In the Forest of Sorrows by John Heifers Vkandis' Own by Ben Ohlander A Herald's Honor by Mickey Zucker Reichert A Song For No One's Mourning by Gary A. Braunbeck Blue Heart by Philip M. Austin and Mercedes Lackey

Burning Girls


Veronica Schanoes - 2013
    In addition to the natural danger of destruction by Cossacks, she must deal with a demon plaguing her family.

My Name is Markham


Jodi Taylor - 2016
    Discovered practising his illegal reindeer dance and poo-dropping routine, our hero, along with fellow disaster-magnets Peterson and Maxwell, is despatched to Anglo-Saxon England to discover the truth about Alfred and the cakes.In his own words, our hero reveals Major Guthrie’s six-point guide to a successful assignment and the Security Section’s true opinion of the History Department. And of historians in general. And of one historian in particular.And, just to be clear, it is time travel, for God’s sake. Forget all that pretentious ‘investigating major historical events in contemporary time’ rubbish.This is history without the capital ‘H’. Because this is the way the Security Section rolls!

The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack


Mark Hodder - 2010
    The two men are sucked into the perilous depths of this moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack, and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End.Their investigations lead them to one of the defining events of the age, and the terrifying possibility that the world they inhabit shouldn't exist at all!

Black Heart, Ivory Bones


Ellen DatlowJoyce Carol Oates - 2000
     As in their previous critically acclaimed volumes of reconsidered fairy tales, award-winning editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling have gathered together remarkable stories that illuminate the more sinister, sensual, and sophisticated aspects of the tales we cherished in childhood; the fables of witches and princes and lost children that we once imagined we knew. "Black Heart, Ivory Bones" showcases twenty beguiling tales for the child-that-was and the adult-that-is, penned by twenty of the most creative artists in contemporary American literature. Here dissected are the darker anatomies of the timeless, seemingly simple stories we have long loved. Here wonder and truth have serious bite. A lovelorn prince seeking his father's blessing concocts a fantastic tale of a witch, a tower, and lustrous long hair... A pair of accursed red boots punishes a beautiful dancer for her pride... A troll-killing, princess-rescuing warrior is compelled to consider events from his adversaries' point of view...In a blistering tell-all memoir, Goldilocks reveals the sordid truth about her brutal foster parent, Papa Bear... Rich, surprising, funny, erotic, and unsettling, these twenty new yarns and poems offer exceptional anew treasures--as they brilliantly reveal lusts and jealousies, foibles, hatreds and dangerous obsessions, the things that slyly lurk in the midnight interior of oft-told tales. The "Snow White, Blood Red" Collection #1. Snow White, Blood Red #2. Black Thorn, White Rose #3. Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears #4. Black Swan, White Raven #5. Silver Birch, Blood Moon #6. Black Heart, Ivory Bones

The Djinn Falls in Love & Other Stories


Mahvesh MuradJames Smythe - 2017
    Eavesdropping and exploring; savaging our bodies, saving our souls. They are monsters, saviours, victims, childhood friends. Some have called them genies: these are the Djinn. And they are everywhere. On street corners, behind the wheel of a taxi, in the chorus, between the pages of books. Every language has a word for them. Every culture knows their traditions. Every religion, every history has them hiding in their dark places. There is no part of the world that does not know them.They are the Djinn. They are among us.With stories from: Nnedi Okorafor, Neil Gaiman, Helene Wecker, Amal El-Mohtar, Catherine King, Claire North,  E.J. Swift, Hermes (trans. Robin Moger), Jamal Mahjoub, James Smythe, J.Y. Yang, Kamila Shamsie, Kirsty Logan, K.J. Parker, Kuzhali Manickavel, Maria Dahvana Headley, Monica Byrne, Saad Hossein, Sami Shah, Sophia Al-Maria and Usman Malik.

The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest


Ellen DatlowPatricia A. McKillip - 2002
    Through the ages and around the world, the Green Man and other nature spirits have appeared in stories, songs, and artwork, as well as many beloved fantasy novels, including Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Now Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, the acclaimed editors of over thirty anthologies, have gathered some of today's finest writers of magical fiction to interpret the spirits of nature in short stories and poetry. Folklorist and artist Charles Vess brings his stellar eye and brush to the decorations, and Windling provides an introduction exploring Green Man symbolism and forest myth. The Green Man is required reading, not only for fans of fantasy fiction but for those interested in mythology and the mysteries of the wilderness.