Word Count: 47053
Summary: It’s the last straw when three prudish pigs play a nasty trick on the set. So where else would Wolf go to plan the perfect payback, but Harry’s Behind the Scenes Bar, Baths & Grill? Soaking wet when he arrives at the back door, Harry’s dragon-magick fireplace soon gets Wolf’s fur mostly dry. Shifting to his human, silver-hair-to-his-bare-butt self, he’s almost done when the door opens again. And what to his wondering eyes does appear but a trio of boorish boar brothers—without a single reindeer!—all in a row from short to not-very-tall: Guy, Gresham and Grant Graham. Wolf’s idea is so brilliant, it’s definitely dawn coming up like thunder, “outer China ‘crost the Bay.” (Wolf really likes Kipling). A maybe mean, surely sneaky, snake-in-Eden idea. Payback is a dish best served hot...and hard. Join the fun as payback plays out. There’s help from Tom Thumb, fine food, expensive bottles of Harry’s Dragon’s Own Special Reserve wine (the only thing which gets a shifter drunk), Death by Chocolate, Lady Flame, a private tour of the baths. Plus rooms of straw and sticks and bricks, and an Easter Egg, which might be hiding in Manhattan. Fair warning: there’s a lot of huffing and puffing as part of the plan. Just not at doors. 47,053 words in the story
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Summary: It was the fall of 1892 and we were two days out of Las Palmas in the Canaries. All the passengers we ferried out of the Congo were gone, off to the aerodrome or looking for other passage to Europe, and we were just Red again, and there was no reason I should have felt that way. We escaped from the Congo, we got away. Better than got away. We had our cargo and money. We won, even though they lost. They all lost everything, even their lives. I could feel the water moving past the hull, the surge of the waves, and the blessed creaking of the mast in her step, and I knew that I was home, and my Ma and Pa were there. And Knockers. She's meowed. I could see the whole crew and even Mme. Verbeeck’s ghost standing on the ladder. She looked worried.
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Summary: In one night, change comes with the strike of a match as Leo Riley loses everything. Giacomo Bianco's hitmen burned his home to the ground with his family inside. Leo will pay any price for his revenge. He will need power. Oguina, the mythical woman turned monster, can give it to him. But at what cost? Bianco gazes into an abyss that stares back. His fall to madness is a one-way trip Leo aims to stop at all costs before Bianco kills again. In his quest for vengeance, Leo teeters over that same cliff. Monster and Mafioso fight for dominance over Fall River's streets. Bianco’s got more up his sleeve than anyone suspects, including the means to make his power absolute. Even new powers and strange allies might not be enough to ensure Leo’s victory. Who is the real monster? Bianco, Oguina, or Leo himself?
Word Count: 84000
Summary: Edmund is heir to the throne of Thalassa and a wielder of Water magic. Devoted to his kingdom and his duty to it, Edmund can do nothing but acquiesce to an arranged marriage with the queen of a neighboring kingdom. The marriage and the child it is required to produce will seal an alliance between Thalassa and Aither that is vital to Thalassa’s safety, and far more important than Edmund’s personal misgivings. Arden is the younger brother of Aither’s queen and a wielder of Air magic. Raised in the politics of the court to support his sister’s rule, he understands the alliance is important to Aither, even as he worries about his sister marrying someone she’s never met. When Edmund arrives in Aither to prepare for the wedding, Arden is tasked with helping him settle in at court. As they spend more time together, Edmund and Arden develop a close friendship, then stronger feelings, but with Edmund’s wedding approaching, they must hide their feelings, even from themselves. When someone tries to assassinate the queen, Edmund is blamed, and Arden rescues him before he can be executed for a crime he didn’t commit. To prevent a war between their kingdoms and protect them from a dangerous enemy, Edmund and Arden will have to discover who wants to pit Aither and Thalassa against each other and mend relations between the two kingdoms as they evade those searching for them—all while finding a way to be together.
Word Count: 85788
Summary: Kris Starr used to be famous. Rock and roll. Sold-out shows. Literal magic. Empathic talents and screaming fans. But he has a problem or two. He's having a hard time writing new music. It's Midwinter, which means he's surrounded by depressing holiday cheer. And he's in love with Justin, his manager, who has a talent for rescuing almost- or once-famous bands ... and who's hiding secrets of his own. Justin Moore, on the other hand, is very good at keeping those secrets -- he's had to be for years. One secret involves a demonic inheritance that would make him a target of suspicion. Another involves his past. And the third involves Justin's feelings for Kris Starr, rock and roll icon and now his client ... and a powerful empath.
Word Count: 12600
Summary: Carmen is eleven years old and wants to get her dragon. Since she was seven years old, she understood two things. One, she was going to be the strongest Dragon Keeper there ever was. The second was that she was going to marry her best friend, Mattie. As Christmas approaches the magical charms Carmen has to use to fight off her curse are taking a toll on her health. But that can’t stop her from taking her final test to become a Dragon Keeper. If she passes her test she gets her dragon, if not, she has to start all over, relying on different magical charms to fight the curse for her. That is something Carmen doesn’t want to have to go through. The testing is difficult and charms make her sick. Carmen has decided that if she doesn’t get her dragon this Christmas she’s not going to go for a third attempt, even if that means she can’t marry Mattie when she grows up.
Word Count: 85000
Summary: With the world clinging to a fragile peace forced on the Fae by humanity after the Faerie Wars, metalsmith Alex Blackwood is plunged into the world of the half-fae who traffick in illegal magical artifacts. Her best friend’s murder and his cryptic last message place her in the crosshairs of a scheme to reignite the decade-old war between humans and fae. Worse, violent attacks against her and the arrival of a fae knight on a mission force Alex to face a devastating revelation of who and what she is. To catch a killer, retrieve a dangerous artifact, and stop a war, Alex will have to accept that she’s an unregistered fae “halfer” with a unique magical talent—a talent that would change everything she believes about her past, her art, and her future. Her world is crumbling around her, and Alex will have to decide who to trust if she and the world are going to survive.
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Summary: How much must one sacrifice for the sake of friendship? Lady Claire Trevelyan has had to deal with betrayal before, but none is quite so painful as the belief that Gloria Meriwether-Astor deserted her and her friends and left them to die under the waters of Venice. But when she learns that Gloria has vanished, can she do the right thing and attempt to find the missing heiress? Of course she must. But this does not sit well with the gentlemen in her life, who had every reason to believe she planned to settle down at last. Suddenly Claire finds herself without a career, a fiancé, or the confidence in her own abilities that has carried her this far. Worse, Captain Ian Hollys is suffering from the megrims and cannot seem to recover from his dreadful experience as a prisoner. Alice’s dream of captaining her own ship in England is scuttled. Tigg is struggling with a revelation that has turned his life upside down—and may result in a betrayal more harrowing than any the flock has yet seen. Will the bond of friendship that has brought Claire and the flock together be the very thing that separates them for good? Or will love tip the balance and prove that what really defines a gentleman of means is none other than a lady of resources?
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Summary: **Also available in "Guardians of a Giant's Treasure" anthology** For three years, Jeth and Kodie and their soldiers have guarded a hostile mountain pass against the invading Dathians in a war that has waged for decades. Jeth has the blood of giants running through his veins, and it has caused bigotry and death to dog his steps his entire life. After a childhood tragedy shatters his world, it takes the courage and loyalty of his best friend, Kodie, to protect him from himself. Jeth knows he’s a danger to everyone around him and joins the army to control and focus the black rage inherited from his bestial bloodline. Kodie follows his friend into the army, determined to stay close to the one he loves most. He has never revealed his deeper feelings for Jeth, and is ignorant of Jeth’s own feelings. Their bond is too precious for either of them to risk rejection. Yet they might have to take the chance when Kodie’s life is threatened, and their enemy forges an alliance with a giant clan. Jeth must call upon his darker heritage to brave the hostile environment to make an alliance of his own—with a giant clan that knows more about him than he does himself.
Word Count: 86611
Summary: Prince Edmund of Thalassa and Prince Arden of Aither are eagerly anticipating their upcoming wedding, but the danger to their kingdom hasn’t lessened. They have a plan, but they won’t be able to carry it out alone: they need a strong wielder of each Element, whom they can trust implicitly, to carry out the magic. Rhys is a commoner and wielder of Earth magic. He and his sister have made a living from the use of their magic for years and have become highly respected in scholarly circles, though he prefers a more simple life with his plants. When a message from Prince Arden reaches them asking for their help, they don’t hesitate. They stop only to request that Gaz, a strong Fire wielder and the man Rhys has long been enamored of, accompany them on the journey to Thalassa’s royal palace. What no one knows is that Gaz was once known as Prince Gareth of Thalassa and is Edmund’s younger brother, long believed dead. He fled his home after his Fire Affinity made itself known and put him in danger, and he had no intention of ever going back. But he can’t keep himself from going to his brother’s aid, despite the risk of discovery and of the weight of his secrets potentially crushing his fledgling relationship with Rhys. Working against time, they must find a way to come together in a magical working the likes of which none of them has ever imagined, or their homelands will surely burn.
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Summary: Each unique short story in this supernatural anthology will transport you to a magical interpretation of romance as authors bring to life, uncommon love affairs and out of the ordinary long distance relationships. Escape into the realms of eroticism, fan fiction fables, intergalactic intimacies, lunar love, mythical fantasy, and past lives revisited. Is it fate, is it destiny or is it one of those defining moments where the universe comes to a screeching halt as an epic love appears?
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Summary:
When two sky pirates survive an attempt on their lives, they must ask themselves, who can they trust?
Magda keeps her emotions in check and her life in order. Beneath her cool exterior she battles with personal loss that has her questioning everything and everyone. Ascara’s enthusiasm and passion cannot be contained by the army she once trained with. They became pirates to help people who have no one else, and now, the stakes are much higher. This is a mission they cannot refuse. A notorious slaver has acquired the latest in airship design, an Imperial Condor Class airliner. A ship designed to change the world, and if the slaver transforms it into an advanced warship then no one will be safe, anywhere. Magda and Ascara promise one more mission to free hundreds of slaves and prevent a world at war. Can they rescue the slaves and stop the creation of a super warship? A Hint of Hope is the second prequel in the fantasy adventure Towers of the Earth series. If you like exciting adventures that have you hooked from the start, then you’ll love this imaginative, enthralling story from Nita Round.
Word Count: 24000
Summary: A HISTORY OF TROUBLE A Beacon Hill Sorcerer Collection A collection of brand-new short stories, featuring characters from The Beacon Hill Sorcerer Series by bestselling author SJ Himes. Red Wine and Blood The Blood Wars raged for centuries across Boston. Witness a brief glimpse into the brutal history of the Wars with Ignacio Salvatore and the vampire he loves, Ashwin Metcalfe, in 1897. A History of Trouble Angel was joking when he asked O'Malley if someone resurrected a mammoth. Little did he know that was exactly what someone did. Experience the untold story of what happened that unfortunate night at the Boston Public Museum. A Dragon in the City What happens when Eroch goes adventuring in Beacon Hill without Angel? Chaos, pure chaos. Fae's Gold Daniel is helping the newly-resurrected fae Ruairi Brennan become accustomed to modern-day living. A boring trip to the bank quickly escalates, and Daniel calls Angel for help. The day goes downhill from there but ends in a comfy meal in a pub for an ancient fae warrior and a necromancer's apprentice. This is an collection, featuring vignettes and short stories from the universe of The Beacon Hill Sorcerer series. For full enjoyment, the Beacon Hill Sorcerer Series Books 1 through 3 should be read before reading this collection.
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Summary: Will a daring rescue put a wedding and a future at risk? Lady Claire Trevelyan and renowned scientist Andrew Malvern are looking forward to domestic felicity in London—until a desperate and fugitive Alice Chalmers turns up seeking help. Her ship has been seized in the Duchy of Venice and worse, her navigator Jake has been thrown into the dreaded underwater prison from which no one ever escapes. Even the innocent. Lady Claire is about to embark on her career in Munich at the Zeppelin Airship Works. The Mopsies are beginning their final year at school. Andrew Malvern begins to despair of his fiancée ever choosing a wedding gown. But when help is denied from official quarters, the close bonds of friendship and shared adventure demand that they set sail in the airship Athena. There is a brooding evil waiting for them in Venice … an evil that would put an end to the flock’s interference once and for all. With an innocent friend’s unexpected return and a pair of secret agents who don’t want their help … the situation clearly calls for the inner resources of a lady of integrity.
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Summary: You can choose your friends, but you cannot choose your family ... or can you? Now sixteen, Lizzie and Maggie are educated young ladies who have not been called “the Mopsies” in years … except by their guardian, Lady Claire Trevelyan. With the happy prospect of choosing their own future, the girls can leave their dodgy past behind, and Lizzie can bury her deepest childhood memories where they can do no harm. But is she ready to be separated from Maggie and become the woman she believes she was meant to be? Or will old habits tempt her into defiance—like picking the wrong man’s pocket—and plunge her into disaster? But sometimes disaster leads to dreams coming true—dreams of family and a place in the world. Lizzie must decide whether her true family is the one she was born to … or the one she chose long ago when the Lady of Devices steamed into their lives …
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Summary: You can choose your friends, but you cannot choose your family … or can you? Under normal circumstances, Maggie and Lizzie would be delighted to meet their long-lost relatives and be reunited with those who had believed them dead, but when are the Mopsies’ circumstances ever normal? With her half-brother Claude Seacombe, Lizzie travels to Cornwall to meet her mother’s parents. Maggie goes along, too, since she is part of the family … or so one might assume. But the more time she spends in her grandparents’ clifftop mansion, the more she realizes that something is not right, and the events surrounding her own mother’s death are more mysterious—and dangerous—than anyone alive suspects. For an old nemesis is preying on the weak and proud, and she cannot stand by and watch. Maggie must straighten her spine, plunge into danger for Lizzie’s sake … and prove that no matter the name she bears, she is first and foremost what the Lady of Devices believes her to be … a lady of spirit.
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Summary: Dan Ackerman received the 2018-2019 Rainbow Award for Gay Contemporary General Fiction. Two titles shared the honor: The Things that Come and That Doesn’t Belong Here. Dan is a dominant, innovative, unique voice in LGBTQ fiction. Angels shouldn't pal around with demons, especially not ones they've been sent to assassinate. They shouldn't work with them or cook them dinner, or strike a deal with the Devil for them either. Sunshine probably isn't a very good angel. The demon in question is Felix Specter. He's forgiven Sunshine for stabbing him all those years ago. He's got a lot on his plate: a curse, his mental health, and a questionable love life. Finding out Sunshine owes the Devil a few favors doesn't help. Neither did that kiss, not that Felix will talk about it anyway. On top of everything else, Sunshine and Specter have a case to solve. They handle issues that human detectives can't, like monsters in the sewer, mages doing illegal charms, and runaway witches. But they've always dealt with anything the city has to offer. Would could be different this time?
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Summary: Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award Winner Best Translated Book Award Shortlist “The celebrated Châteaureynaud, who over the course of a distinguished career has created short tales that are not exactly contes cruels but which linger on the edge of darkness and absurdity.” —New York Times Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud is well known to readers of French literature. This comprehensive collection—the first to be translated into English—introduces a distinct and dynamic voice to the Anglophone world. In many ways, Châteaureynaud is France’s own Kurt Vonnegut, and his stories are as familiar as they are fantastic. A Life on Paper presents characters who struggle to communicate across the boundaries of the living and the dead, the past and the present, the real and the more-than-real. A young husband struggles with self-doubt and an ungainly set of angel wings in “Icarus Saved from the Skies,” even as his wife encourages him to embrace his transformation. In the title story, a father’s obsession with his daughter leads him to keep her life captured in 93,284 unchanging photographs. While Châteaureynaud’s stories examine the diffidence and cruelty we are sometimes capable of, they also highlight the humanity in the strangest of us and our deep appreciation for the mysterious. Reviews “Châteaureynaud is a master craftsman, encapsulating weighty themes with pith and heart. In his hands, the short story is a Gothic cathedral whittled from a wine cork.” —The Believer “Châteaureynaud celebrates the quiet, hidden beauties of the world and the objects or knowledge we hold tight like talismans to protect us from its losses and horrors.” —The Quarterly Conversation “Châteaureynaud makes expert thematic use of both light and shadow to reveal his fantastical realms of wonder and fear. His unassuming prose startles as it entrances, holding readers on the edge of elegantly rendered, fantastical dream-worlds while all at once alluding to their more nightmarish qualities. In the style of Kafka and Poe, Châteaureynaud makes the supernatural seem not only present, but ubiquitous, inclined to encroach at any moment on the humdrum lives of unsuspecting mortals. More sinister than fairy tales, yet not quite definable as horror stories, Châteaureynaud’s whimsical writings leave one unsettled and alert, appreciating anew the possibilities of the chilly night air while simultaneously feeling the urge to draw nearer to the fire—just in case.” —Catherine Bailey, Three Percent “The collection will perhaps appeal especially to those who enjoy their fiction short and concise, not to mention intense and decidedly peculiar. If you . . . are interested in dream-logic, fantastic situations, the unexplainable and/or macabre . . . this volume delivers again and again.” —Neon Magazine “Châteaureynaud’s stories are disorienting, bizarre, mythical. The stories don’t end with epiphanies or a tidy wrapping-up. Some of the endings are abrupt, even unsatisfying; they feel more like a beginning. So what? A Life on Paper is fantastic in both meanings: it’s fantastic, as in strange, unreal, weird, imaginary; and it’s fantastic, as in absolutely fucking awesome. People will call A Life on Paper magical realism. A few will call it irrealism. I don’t care what you call it. I just want you to read it.” —Bookslut “Both classic and modern, strange and simple, Châteaureynaud’s stories remind not only of Vonnegut but of Gogol and Kafka. What’s endearing about the stories is the amount of tenderness running through them. Even in stories about bizarre cruelty (the title story tells of a father who had his daughter photographed a dozen times a day for her entire life), affection provides the glue.” —Time Out Chicago “A Life on Paper is a brief selection from more than thirty years of fiction. Châteaureynaud has a backlist for American readers that this book makes enticingly tangible, almost real. His own work is such that it might be subject of one of his stories. This might be all there is, the rest pure fabrication. The unreal, awaiting translation.” —Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column “These 22 curious tales verging on the perverse will strike new English readers of Châteaureynaud’s work as a wonderful find. Beautiful prose featuring ingenuous protagonists and clever, unexpected forays into horror are the hallmarks of these mischievous stories.” —Publishers Weekly “Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud is 63 and has never published a book in English until now. A Life on Paper: Selected Stories, brilliantly translated by Edward Gauvin, opens the door at last. . . . Nothing matters in this book unless it has been told, everything is told. Open this book.” —John Clute, Strange Horizons “Châteaureynaud’s dance steps are so nimble that he seems, without effort, to show us what is best in others.” —Brooklyn Rail “Châteaureynaud has sometimes been called the Kurt Vonnegut of France. However, this collection of 22 of Châteaureynaud’s stories—which are often other-worldly and not infrequently unsettling—may speak to some readers more directly of Kafka.” —Christian Science Monitor “As weird as they are elegant, as delicious as they are unsettling, these fables place Châteaureynaud in the secret brotherhood that has only exemplars, no definition: Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Nathanael West, Aimee Bender. We are lucky indeed to have them, in a very skilled translation.” —John Crowley (Little, Big) Table of Contents Foreword by Brian Evenson
- Fantasy
- Fantasy - Contemporary
- Fantasy - Dark Fantasy
- Fantasy - Faery & Fae
- Fantasy - Fairy Tale / Folklore
- Fantasy - Knights & Castles
- Fantasy - Magical Realism
- Fantasy - Mythic
- Fantasy - Quiet
- Fantasy - Slipstream
- Horror
- Horror - Comedy
- Horror - Fairy Tale/Folklore
- Horror - Ghosts & Haunted Houses
- Horror - Gothic
- Horror - Weird Horror
Word Count: 93700
Summary: A princess on the run. A captain on the hunt for treasure. When their paths cross, will they be each other's salvation? Keola is a mermaid – and bound for marriage to a foreign human prince. Unable to face a life cut off from the ocean with a man she despises, she chooses freedom at a terrible cost. Posing as a human wavesinger to remain hidden from her pursuers, she finds work on the ship of the dashing captain Anaar Kahlani.Anaar is searching for a mythical treasure and believes that Keola is the key to finding it. Amidst the hunt for fame and fortune, Anaar begins to fall for the mysterious wavesinger. Confronted with a secret and a dangerous revelation, she must decide what price she is willing to pay for untold riches – and for love. When Keola’s past catches up with her, can they survive the oncoming storm together, or will the trials ahead demand more of them than they are willing to sacrifice?
Word Count: 66000
Summary: Sarah Wright woke up a few times after parties in strange places―but the morgue’s a first. At eighteen, she’s eager for a taste of independence, moving out of state to attend college. A change of scenery is extra-needed due to a bad breakup with her boyfriend, Scott. However, soon after escaping the body cooler, she makes two startling realizations: vampires are real, and she is one. There’s nothing quite like an untimely death to ruin plans. California’s sunny beaches aren’t the best place for vampires to chill, and worse, not only does she wind up stuck in Seattle, she’s still living (figuratively) with her parents. They take the news surprisingly well―after all, it’s better than burying her―even helping move her bedroom to the basement. A disinterested sire, distraught friends, nosy Men in Black, and awestruck younger siblings complicate her adjustment to the new normal of being an immortal still subject to her parents’ rules. Undeath has its perks, but it also brings enemies. Without a copy of ‘Fangs for Dummies,’ Sarah’s left scrambling for answers when one such new enemy attacks her siblings and friends. If she can’t figure out how to vampire, her attempt to spare her family the grief of losing her may wind up killing them.
