From Hades and Persephone to Kali, from Loki to Inanna, this anthology explores retellings of myths across cultures and civilizations. Featuring award-winning and critically acclaimed writers such as Seanan McGuire, Naomi Novik, Rebecca Roanhorse, JY Yang, Alyssa Wong, Indrapramit Das, Carlos Hernandez, Sarah Gailey, Ann Leckie, John Chu, Ursula Vernon, Carmen Maria Machado, Stephen Graham Jones, Arkady Martine, Amal El-Mohtar, Jeffrey Ford, and more, The Mythic Dream is sure to become a new classic.

    In "The New Daughter," a father comes to suspect that a burial mound on his land hides something very ancient, and very much alive; in "The Underbury Witches," two London detectives find themselves battling a particularly female evil in a town culled of its menfolk. And finally, private detective Charlie Parker returns in the long novella "The Reflecting Eye," in which the photograph of an unknown girl turns up in the mailbox of an abandoned house once occupied by an infamous killer. This discovery forces Parker to confront the possibility that the house is not as empty as it appears, and that something has been waiting in the darkness for its chance to kill again.

    His humor and short fiction appear in various publications throughout the Southeast.

    Explore heartache, happiness, and horror in this collection of short stories by Mark Tullius, the author of 25 Perfect Days, named one of IndieReader's Best Indie Books for 2013. This collection is composed of all the stories in Each Dawn I Die, Every One's Lethal, and Repackaged Presents, plus two bonus stories. Experience chills as you read these stories and more: • A pornographer's horrific early morning ritual. • A beautiful baby boy who knows what he wants. • An engineer sees life on the other side of the tracks. • A drug run goes awry. • A family's unique Christmas tradition. • An artist whose paintings become reality. • A man who longs to rid himself of an annoying companion. • A child terrified by things that slither and ooze in the night. • Come join a soldier on the run in the jungle. • An old man's quest for the perfect photo. • A woman who sniffs out killers. • A life coach whose own brand of “therapy” goes way beyond cruel and unusual. • A young man who can't let go of the past.

    Searching these sinister stacks you will find:A church picnic at a haunted reservoir where only a twelve year-old boy is aware that something waits in the water…A burnt-out teacher that finds a friend… in his cancer…The secret to surviving the zombie apocalypse…An inoculation for Lycanthropy which may be more horrible than the disease…Young lovers that, on the eve of World War II, partake of a most forbidden fruit…A haunted carnival ride which delivers its passengers into the unexpected…21 tales of night terror, night madness, nightmares, night woe and night wonder…Welcome to The Night LibraryBe warned: The late fees are killer!

    It is the JFK assassination, Area 51, the moon landing, the surveillance state. It is a French spy posing as Abraham Lincoln, it is a video game designed by the CIA, it is "Suicide Mickey." It is Adolf Hitler and it is Elvis Presley. In this short story collection, today's top fiction authors pull back the curtain on the biggest conspiracies of all time. Who really killed JFK? What happened in Roswell, New Mexico? Is Elvis still alive? With stories that run the gamut from touching to thrilling to utterly deranged, Tinfoil will take you on a tour of paranoia you won't soon forget. Twelve short stories, twelve conspiracy theories, twelve twisted rabbit holes.Hold on to your hats.

    Now, in Stay Awake, Chaon returns to that form for the first time since his masterly Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award.In these haunting, suspenseful stories, lost, fragile, searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection—and find themselves in unexpected, dire, and sometimes unfathomable situations.A father’s life is upended by his son’s night terrors—and disturbing memories of the first wife and child he abandoned; a foster child receives a call from the past and begins to remember his birth mother, whose actions were unthinkable; a divorced woman experiences her own dark version of “empty-nest syndrome”; a young widower is unnerved by the sudden, inexplicable appearances of messages and notes—on dollar bills, inside a magazine, stapled to the side of a tree; and a college dropout begins to suspect that there’s something off, something sinister, in his late parents’ house.Dan Chaon’s stories feature scattered families, unfulfilled dreamers, anxious souls. They exist in a twilight realm—in a place by the window late at night when the streets are empty and the world appears to be quiet. But you are up, unable to sleep. So you stay awake.

    Aliens. The occult. Zombies. Starships.This baroque collection of stories explores the darkness that waits ahead of us, from the monster lurking around the next corner to sweeping dystopian visions of the future. It includes multiple stories by J.L. Bryan, three drabbles by Michael Crane, two shorts by Amanda Hocking, the entire "Day of Sacrifice" novella by S.W. Benefiel, and additional contributions from paranormal/horror authors Joel Arnold, Robert J. Duperre, Vicki Keire, and Daniel Pyle.

    It's even more savage inside the twisted minds of murderers who conceal their malevolence behind smiling masks and strike out without pity. This spine-tingling collection contains 23 new stories of suspense from some of the bestselling authors in the genre. Authors include Clive Barker, Lawrence Block, David Morrell, Ray Bradbury, and many more.CONTENTSThe dripping / David Morrell --The wringer / F. Paul Wilson --A season of change / Richard T. Chizmar --Good vibrations / Richard Laymon --The Tulsa experience / Lawrence Block --Trolls / Christopher Fahy --Small deaths / Charles de Lint --White lightning / Al Sarrantonio --Hitman / Rick Hautala --Vympyre / William F. Nolan --And eight rabid pigs / David Gerrold.Bringing it along / A.R. Morlan --Redemption / Jack Ketchum --The graveyard ghoul / Edward D. Hoch --The rings of Cocytus / Katherine Ramsland --Late last night / John Maclay --Beasts in buildings, turning 'round / J.N. Williamson --Dark side of the moon / Babara Collins --Honor bound / J.M. Morgan --The instrumentalist / William Relling Jr. --Corpse carnival / Ray Bradbury --The book of blood / Clive Barker.

    There's flirting and romance from Rachael Lippincott, a tale of a determined girl with a mask-making business from Erin Hahn, and a music-inspired love connection from Sajni Patel. Brittney Morris turns enemies to lovers with the help of a balcony herb garden, Jennifer Yen writes an unconventional romance that starts outside a hospital, and Natasha Preston's teens discover each other--and their love story--in a storybook oak tree.Romantic, realistic, sweet and uplifting, TOGETHER, APART is a collection of finding love in unexpected places during an unprecedented time . . . each with the one thing we all want: a guaranteed happy ending.

    Kevin Brockmeier's fiction has always explored the space between the fantastical and the everyday with profundity and poignancy. As in his previous books, The Ghost Variations discovers new ways of looking at who we are and what matters to us, exploring how mysterious, sad, strange, and comical it is to be alive--or, as it happens, not to be.

    Dating back to ancient Assyria, folkloric tales of mermaids, sirens, rusalka, nymphs, selkes, and other seafolk are found in many cultures, including those of Europe, Africa, the Near East and Asia. Dangerous or benevolent, seductive or sinister - modern masters of fantasy continue to create new legends of these creatures that enchant and entertain us more than ever. Gathered here are some of the finest of these stories. Immerse yourself in this wonderful - and sometimes wicked - watery world!

    Army Ranger, until an unfortunate incident forced him out of the service. He is soon hired by the Foundation for Undocumented Biological Investigation and given a new mission, to search for cryptids, creatures whose existence has not been proven by mainstream science. Teaming up with the daring and beautiful wildlife photographer Karen Thatcher, they must stop a sea monster's deadly rampage along the Jersey Shore. But that's not the only danger Rastun faces. A group of murderous animal smugglers also want the creature. Rastun must utilize every skill learned from years of fighting, otherwise, his first mission for the FUBI might very well be his last.

    Elegantly structured, these stories span the globe and beyond, from small-town America and sunny Caribbean islands to the Arctic Ocean and the very gates of Heaven itself. And though some of the stories are steeped in mythology, they remain grounded in universal experiences: loss of identity, leaving home, parenthood, joy, and longing.Crisscrossing the pages of Awayland are travelers and expats, shadows and ghosts. A girl watches as her homesick mother slowly dissolves into literal mist. The mayor of a small Midwestern town offers a strange prize, for stranger reasons, to the parents of any baby born on Lenin's birthday. A chef bound for Mars begins an even more treacherous journey much closer to home. And a lonely heart searches for love online--never mind that he's a Cyclops. With her signature tenderness, Ramona Ausubel applies a mapmaker's eye to landscapes both real and imagined, all the while providing a keen guide to the wild, uncharted terrain of the human heart.

    The results range from the heavenly to the monstrous. Deeply thoughtful, poignant, horrifying, and action-packed, Arwen Elys Dayton's Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful is groundbreaking in both form and substance.