How did Cinder first arrive in New Beijing? How did the brooding soldier Wolf transform from young man to killer? When did Princess Winter and the palace guard Jacin realize their destinies? With nine stories—five of which have never before been published—and an excerpt from Marissa Meyer’s novel, Heartless, about the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, Stars Above is essential for fans of the bestselling and beloved Lunar Chronicles. CONTENTSThe Keeper: A prequel to the Lunar Chronicles, showing a young Scarlet and how Princess Selene came into the care of Michelle Benoit. Glitches: In this prequel to Cinder, we see the results of the plague play out, and the emotional toll it takes on Cinder. Something that may, or may not, be a glitch…. The Queen’s Army: In this prequel to Scarlet, we’re introduced to the army Queen Levana is building, and one soldier in particular who will do anything to keep from becoming the monster they want him to be. Carswell’s Guide to Being Lucky: Thirteen-year-old Carswell Thorne has big plans involving a Rampion spaceship and a no-return trip out of Los Angeles. After Sunshine Passes By: In this prequel to Cress, we see how a nine-year-old Cress ended up alone on a satellite, spying on Earth for Luna. The Princess and the Guard: In this prequel to Winter, we see a young Winter and Jacin playing a game called the Princess and the Guard… The Little Android: A retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” set in the world of The Lunar Chronicles. The Mechanic: In this prequel to Cinder, we see Kai and Cinder’s first meeting from Kai’s perspective. Something Old, Something New: In this epilogue to Winter, friends gather for the wedding of the century…

    P. Barnaby – END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT (First Love )*Sarah Black – SUCKER-PUNCH (Athlete/Hurt-Comfort )Scarlet Blackwell – BREAKING WAVES (Surfing/Angst )Penny Brandon – FINDING JACK (Cowboys/Mild BDSM )Lee Brazil – BE A BAD BOY (First-Time/Family Drama )Cardeno C. – WOMAN WITH A DILDO (Friends to Lovers )L.C. Chase – OPEN TACKLE (Friends to Lovers )*Kim Dare – MASOCHISM 101 (BDSM/Friends to Lovers )S.J. Frost – A LITTLE BIT COUNTRY (Musicians/Rivals to Lovers )Jeanette Grey – HEART AND SOUL (Friends to Lovers )Jambrea Jo Jones – WILD BLUE YONDER (Military )*Pender Mackie by DOG DAYS OF SUMMER (Blue Collar/First Date )JL Merrow – BEAR NAKED (First-time/Bears )M.J. O'Shea – BRIDGES (First Love )*Neil S. Plakcy – PHOTO BOOTH (Cowboys/FBI )Dustin Adrian Rhodes – STORM OF PASSION (Friends to Lovers )Jaime Samms – MOURNING (Hurt/Comfort )*Justin South – REFLECTIONS (First Love/Hurt-Comfort )Zach Sweets – LUSCIOUS LOVE (Coming out/Food Kinky )Piper Vaughn – WANTING (First Love )*Silvia Violet – TIME TO TELL (Military/Friends to Lover)Deanna Wadsworth – UNSCHEDULED MAINTENANCE (Office Sex )Stuart Wakefield – THE ELEMENTS OF LOVE (Sci-Fi/Ménage )Alex Whitehall – HOLD ME TIGHT (Hurt-Comfort/BDSM Light )Lisa Worrall – JUST ONE KISS (Gay-for-You/Cops )Connor Wright – GONE TO PIECES (Sci-Fi/Mild BDSM )

    These stories feature clockwork hearts, lascivious queens, paper men, island circuses, and a flooded world.• On the island of Skye, an antlered girl and a tiger-tailed boy resolve never to be friends – but can they resist their unique connection?• In an alternative 19th-century Paris, a love triangle emerges between a man, a woman, and a coin-operated boy.• A teenager deals with his sister’s death by escaping from their tiny Scottish island – but will she let him leave?• In 1920s New Orleans, a young girl comes of age in her mother’s brothel.Some of these stories are radical retellings of classic tales, some are modern-day fables, but all explore substitutions for love.

    A church steeped in taboos against almost everything, but especially against homosexuality. She has been brought up to make her mother proud – marry, have children, and bring no shame on the family.She marries Scott, the son of a Southern Baptist minister who is the choir director of his dad’s church; Mandy is the director of the Young People’s Department. The church is full of nosy old busy bodies. It is impossible to do anything outside the ordinary without the pack of gossipy old vultures tearing you to pieces. Mandy and Scott, unable to have children, adopt a baby boy and are seemingly happy.However, Mandy unexpectedly encounters her true destiny, a graduate student and also a member of her church, Kathleen Crutchfield. Kathleen brazenly makes a pass at Mandy forever changing her life. Feeling new, deliciously different emotions, Mandy, struggles with the implications of what has happened.Knowing that her life will never be the same, Mandy tries to see if there were clues in her life that should have alerted her to her hidden forbidden identity.Kathleen captures Mandy’s heart and rules her body with a passion she has never known before. They are made only for each other. They know they must find a way to be together, but how will they get the courage to escape Mandy’s marriage, the church, and Kathleen’s powerful family?

    Naked. Guys. Reading.When the sexiest Top 30 Under 30 men agree to pose naked for the "Expose Yourself To A Good Book" charity calendar, their hot bodies aren't the only thing that gets EXPOSED. Nine brand new romances with M/F, M/M, F/F and menage pairings from bestselling and award winning authors, there's something for everyone in this limited release anthology.Annabeth AlbertLEVEL UPWhen Landon, a genius physicist, is picked for a charity calendar, he must deal with an inconvenient attraction to Bailey, his rising-star photographer. Can he slay enough demons from his past to ensure a future together with him?Karen BoothWISHINGJobless and painfully single, Samantha agrees to drive musician Duncan to a photo shoot. He’s in town for only five days, so sexy, and she’s eager for a no-strings fling. But Duncan shoots straight for the heart, making her unsure how she’ll ever survive his goodbye.Amy Jo CousinsKATE LIKES GIRLSGarden center manager Kate Rhee is on a mission. No more hook ups with women or second-guessing her recent break up with an unavailable man. Too bad the foxy, pink-haired bar owner she meets at a naked calendar photo shoot has sworn off girlfriends. Because Kate isn’t doing casual. She can totally resist that temptation. Totally.Robin CovingtonGHOSTOliver Burns publicly bragged he’d sign the reclusive artist “G”- creator of the First Nations graphic novel, Ghost Warriors - to his comic publishing company. But that gets tough when “G” is Gareth Rain – the man he pulled a post-one-night-stand runner on years ago and the man he’s never forgotten.Vanessa NorthRIGGEDFor Kaitlyn, seeing her best friend Gordon naked is no big deal—until watching Sean tie him up changes everything.Tamsen ParkerTHROWN OFF TRACKTeague has been License to Game’s bassist for over a decade, during which time he’s slept with almost everyone in his path. But it’s always felt like going through the motions. Until he sees his bandmate Christian naked at a charity photoshoot and suddenly, he knows what it is to want.Roan ParrishNATURAL ENEMIESWhen buttoned-up botanist Stefan Albemarle meets freewheeling urban gardener Milo Rios, it’s hatred at first sight. But hatred quickly turns to lust as Milo shows him how exquisite it can feel to lose control. When opposites attract, love blooms in unexpected places.Tiffany ReiszTHE WATERMARKJason "Still" Waters' life looks perfect from the outside—money, fame, and the words "World Champion Bull-Rider" after his name. But Jason has a secret, one he never planned on telling anybody...until he meets Simone. She's the kinky girl of his dreams...and his conservative family's worst nightmare.Karen StivaliLEGAL BRIEFSWhen organizing a naked charity calendar puts Rose's tenure bid in jeopardy, the last person she wants help from is Michael, the gorgeous, arrogant lawyer she butted heads with during his shoot. He'll defend her for free, but if their secrets come out they could both pay with their hearts.This edition does not include contribution by author Santino Hassell. The first edition of ASIN B0788G78CD can be found here.

    But far within the walls of lavish estates and in the dark corners of the city lies a world that the aristocracy dares not touch, with rules and risks that glamour cannot overpower. Yet true love has no boundaries, and heiresses and street thieves alike must use their savvy and strength to create new beginnings and happily-ever-afters. Sometimes luck is enough, but every once in a while, a touch of magic may be needed.Deliciously alluring, these thirteen historical romances from a talented array of YA authors will make even the most cynical heart swoon.Table of Contents:“The Dancing Master” by Genevieve Valentine“The Unladylike Education Of Agatha Tremain” by Stephanie Burgis“At Will” by Leanna Renee Hieber“Steeped In Debt To The Chimney Pots” by Steve Berman“Outside The Absolute” by Seth Cadin“Resurrection” by Tiffany Trent“Mrs Beeton’s Book Of Magickal Management” by Karen Healey“The Garden Of England” by Sandra Mcdonald“False Colours” by Marie Brennan“Nussbaum’s Golden Fortune” by M. K. Hobson“The Colonel’s Daughter” by Barbara Roden“Mercury Retrograde” by Mary Robinette Kowal“The Language Of Flowers” by Caroline Stevermer

    They unlock opportunities for wealth and travel, but also create incredible chaos--uprooting populations and blighting landscapes. Work on or around the rails leads to unwelcome discoveries and, in light of the Mythos, dire implications in the spread of the rail system as a whole. A certain path to uncovering unwelcome truths about the universe is to venture beyond our own "placid island of ignorance" and encounter foreign cultures. The Orient Express serves as the perfect vehicle for such excursions, designed as a bridge between West and East. Movement into mystery forms the central action for many stories in this volume. The only limitation placed upon writers for this collection was that their works somehow involve the Orient Express and the Mythos. The last warning whistle has blown, and we are getting underway. Have your tickets at the ready and settle in for a journey across unexpected landscapes to a destination that--well, we'll just let you see for yourself when you arrive. We promise this though: murder will be the least of your problems on this trip aboard the Orient Express!

     It was supposed to be a simple trip into town. Once a year. Get supplies. Ignore the jeers and jibes from townsfolk who didn't want to understand her. Ignore how everything reminded her of Suzanne. She wasn't expecting Jeane. A damsel in distress out on the prairie? A broken down wagon and three men who meant no good closing in on her? Belle knew frontier life could be harsh, and sometimes that meant dealing with rabid animals. Only now she's stuck with Jeane. And the more time they spend together traveling back to her homestead, the more she can't get this woman out of her mind. The more she starts hoping, against all reason and hope, that maybe she can find something like what she had with Suzanne. Two women, alone together on the frontier where they can truly be themselves, learning to love again. Pioneer Hearts is a 68,000 word western about two women coming together to deal with life on the harsh American frontier, and learning that maybe there is more to life than survival!

    We are none of us monsters. Through the work of twenty-six writers, emerging to award-winning and masters of their craft, The Humanity of Monsters plumbs the depths of humane monsters, monstrous humans, and the interstices between. Monstrous heralds of change, the sight of whom only children can survive. Monsters born of the battlefield, in gunfire and frost and blood, clothed in too-familiar flesh. Monsters, human and otherwise, born of fear, and love, and retribution all, wrapped tight and inextricable one from the other: the Fallen outside of time, lovers and monsters in borrowed skin, and creatures from beyond the stars and humans who have travelled to them. Dreams of lost and siren-song depths - of other half-held, half-remembered lives. And the things we have survived, and the things we might yet survive, in the face of greater, eviscerating loss. In stories by turns surreal, sublime, brutal, and haunting, there are no easy answers to be found, no simple nor uncomplicated labels to be had. Only the surety that though there be monsters, you will name them false. And when you meet those who truly are, you will not know them.“Tasting Gomoa” by Chinelo Onwualu“Dead Sea Fruit” by Kaaron Warren“The Bread We Eat in Dreams” by Catherynne M. Valente“The Emperor’s Old Bones” by Gemma Files“The Things” by Peter Watts“muo-ka’s Child” by Indrapramit Das“Six” by Leah Bobet“The Nazir” by Sofia Samatar“A Handful of Earth” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia“In Winter” by Sonya Taaffe“Ghostweight” by Yoon Ha Lee“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman“Night They Missed the Horror Show” by Joe Lansdale“If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” by Rachel Swirsky“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream” by Maria Dahvana Headley“The Horse Latitudes” by Sunny Moraine“Boyfriend and Shark” by Berit Ellingsen“Never the Same” by Polenth Blake“Mantis Wives” by Kij Johnson“Proboscis” by Laird Barron“Out They Come” by Alex Dally MacFarlane“and Love shall have no Dominion” by Livia Llewellyn“You Go Where It Takes You” by Nathan Ballingrud“Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife” by A.C. Wise“Theories of Pain” by Rose Lemberg“Terrible Lizards” by Meghan McCarron

    With her bank account depleting, Jessica takes the role expecting the worst.Then she meets her new agent. Brianna is a gorgeous, feisty, compassionate woman who not only believes in Jessica but stirs up desires and emotions she hasn’t felt in years. The next eight months of filming will take these two women on a thrilling ride...

    Find out What Lies Within each of these inspiring stories and watch as the characters learn to accept what makes them special. This collection features a series of fascinating short stories and excerpts for upcoming novels - all written by your favorite authors!M. SinclairL. StarfyreF. EastA.J. MaceyMelody CalderEverly TaylorLara G. ElmoreAshley AmyEileen TroemelPick up your copy today - all proceeds will be donated to Epilepsy Foundation!Contains +18 content.

    The Unlikely Vampire by Scarlet Blackwell2. Sacrifice by J.L. Merrow3. One Last Wish by Josephine Myles4. Mayan Time by Erik Orrantia5. Fire Can Make It Rain by Nix Winter6. The Hunter & the Hunted by Stevie Woods

     Join unimaginable paranormal creatures in epic battles or enjoy a heart-stopping romance that will take your breath away. In this collection of paranormal romance and fantasy novels, witches, wolves, demons, and demigods haunt the pages as they fight against the pull of darkness. But will they succeed? Fans of Ilona Andrews and Deborah Harkness will devour this soul-scorching collection of 24 novels from today’s USA Today bestsellers and talented new authors! Scroll up and one click to secure your copy of this limited edition collection! Featuring stories from: Becca Blake USA Today Bestseller Koko Brown USA Today Bestseller S.C. Stokes Jennifer Ann Schlag JJ King Award Winning Author Maya Daniels Jess Reece Rachel Rawlings Emmy Gatrell Jayelle Morgan Cayce Poponea Zoey Indiana Tiffany Ransier Carly Marino Mimi Milan Dylan Quinn Rosie Wylor-Owen C.A. King Shannon McRoberts Emily Cyr Scarlett Kol James Ransier

    Contains stories such as "The Goose Girl", "Hansel and Grethel", "Cinderella", "The Golden Goose", "The Frog Prince" and many more.

    Lavery comes a collection of darkly mischievous stories based on classic fairy tales. Adapted from his beloved "Children's Stories Made Horrific" series, The Merry Spinster takes up the trademark wit that endeared Lavery to readers of both The Toast and his best-selling debut Texts from Jane Eyre. The feature become among the most popular on the site, with each entry bringing in tens of thousands of views, as the stories proved a perfect vehicle for Lavery’s eye for deconstruction and destabilization. Sinister and inviting, familiar and alien all at the same time, The Merry Spinster updates traditional children's stories and fairy tales with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity, and a keen sense of feminist mischief.Readers of The Toast will instantly recognize Lavery's boisterous good humor and uber-nerd swagger: those new to Lavery's oeuvre will delight in his unique spin on fiction, where something a bit mischievous and unsettling is always at work just beneath the surface.Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night.Bedtime will never be the same.The daughter cells --The thankless child --Fear not: an incident log --The six boy-coffins --The rabbit --The merry spinster --The wedding party --Some of us had been threatening our friend Mr.Toad --Cast your bread upon the waters --The frog's princess --Good fences make good neighbors