Fantasy Realism

Life has gone according to plan for Anna—she stays in the background, letting her sister, Emily, shine in the spotlight. But on Emily’s wedding night, Anna learns that her sister is moving away, abandoning her—and all their shared dreams. Devastated, Anna leaves the reception in the middle of a raging storm, taking shelter in a hotel she’s never seen before: the Houdini. The Houdini is a hotel unlike any other, with sumptuous velvet couches, marble tiled floors, secret restaurants, winding passageways, and an undercurrent of magic in the air.

In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness - save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks. Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self.

It was supposed to be my first summer on my own, but then I meet Seth, Axel, Jasper, and Cody. There's something about them that drew me closer, and they seemed hell-bent on protecting me. I didn't think I needed protecting until people started showing up dead in the woods.

Anthropologist Calliope Santiago awakens to find herself in a strange and sinister wasteland, a shadow of the New Mexico she knew. Empty vehicles litter the road. Everyone has disappeared - or almost everyone. Calliope, heavy-bellied with the twins she carries inside her, must make her way across this dangerous landscape with a group of fellow survivors in search of answers. Long-dead volcanoes erupt, the ground rattles and splits, and monsters come to ominous life. Calliope will be forced to reconcile the geological record with the heritage she once denied.

It has been two years since Violet Eden walked away from the city, her friends, her future and most importantly, her soulmate, Lincoln. Part angel, part human, Violet is determined to stand by the promises she made to save the one she loves.

When 38-year-old Conner O’Rourke returns to Ireland, he’s running from his past. His advertising agency in Sydney is going broke, the bank is foreclosing on his mortgage, and he’s hearing voices in his mind urging him to return to Inis Mór. His grandmother, whom he hasn’t seen in years, has contacted him saying she's critically ill and must speak with him, but when he arrives on Inis Mór, a wild, windswept, rocky little island some 30 miles off the West Coast of Ireland, she’s already passed, leaving him a cottage and a dilapidated sailing boat.

In this fantastically macabre tale, the separate halves of a nobleman split in two by a cannonball go on to pursue their own independent adventures. In a battle against the Turks, Viscount Medardo of Terralba is bissected lengthwise by a cannonball. One half of him returns to his feudal estate and takes up a lavishly evil life. Soon the other, virtuous half appears. The two halves become rivals for the love of the same woman, fight a bloody duel, and achieve a miraculous resolution.

Dark gods and witch girls, name a more iconic duo. Jake works at the newest, and technically oldest, excavation site in America. As a janitor. Not quite an archeology major’s wet dream. But then, an ancient pillar awakens, and Jake switches lives with a doppelganger in another world. This world’s Jake happens to be a top prospect at the magical Aether Academy…and a servant of a dark god who expects repayment for his boon. If he’s going to live long enough to find a way home, Jake will need a little help.

Longing to escape his island home, a boy named Hodaka runs away during his first summer of high school to find a new life in Tokyo. As rain falls for days on end and Hodaka struggles to adjust, he meets a girl named Hina who holds a mysterious power: With a single prayer, she can part the clouds and bring back the sun. But her power comes at a price, and as the weather spirals further and further out of control, they must choose what future they truly want for themselves.

When Nathan goes to visit his grandma, Nali, at her mobile summer home on the Navajo reservation, he knows he’s in for a pretty uneventful summer, with no electricity or cell service. Still, he loves spending time with Nali and with his uncle Jet, though it’s clear when Jet arrives that he brings his problems with him. One night, while lost in the nearby desert, Nathan finds someone extraordinary: a Holy Being from the Navajo Creation Story - a Water Monster - in need of help.

By working together, Henry Sato and Jason Booth have managed to survive their unwanted trip to Ludus, an experiment planet. However, Delvers LLC has made some enemies...if monsters, bandits, mages, criminals, bounty hunters, and even dark cults can be called, "some enemies." After their latest battle, the two have been separated and must adapt or die. Henry in particular faces a trial by fire - perhaps literally - that may be impossible for him to overcome. The two American men will face their greatest challenges yet while working as conscripted Berber Intelligence agents. But even while outnumbered, and most likely outgunned, the former veteran EMT and resilient IT programmer will be armed with modern Earth know-how.

Three magical romances set in the contemporary English countryside and the fight for good versus evil....

When a mysterious entity grants a man who died a chance to be a hero in another life in a fantasy world, he cannot believe his luck. The one condition: he must fight the demon king if he shows up during his new iteration. He accepts and…Wakes in the body of a young female wolf beastkin named Lucia haunted by the memory of orcs ravaging her town. Not the rebirth he was hoping for.

In 1804, shortly before the Caribbean island of Saint Domingue is renamed Haiti, a group of women gather to bury a stillborn baby. Led by a lesbian healer and midwife named Mer, the women's lamentations inadvertently release the dead infant's "unused vitality" to draw Ezili - the Afro-Caribbean goddess of sexual desire and love - into the physical world. As Ezili explores her newfound powers, she travels across time and space to inhabit the midwife's body - as well as those of Jeanne, a mixed-race dancer and the mistress of Charles Baudelaire living in 1880s Paris, and Meritet.

In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty - the opposite of the life she' s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she' d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy' s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white.

Emer is just a woman living in New York City who takes the subway, buys ice cream from the bodega on the corner, has writerly aspirations, and lives with her boyfriend, Con. But is this life she lives the only path she’s on?

In 1976, David is fishing off the island of Black Conch when he comes upon a creature he doesn’t expect: a mermaid by the name of Aycayia. Once a beautiful young woman, she was cursed by jealous wives to live in this form for the rest of her days. But after the mermaid is caught by American tourists, David rescues and hides her away in his home, finding that, once out of the water, she begins to transform back into a woman. Now David must work to win Aycayia's trust while she relearns what it is to be human.

There are two sides to every story, but they can’t both be true, can they? In the second book of the Birthright Series, Bridget E. Baker weaves a tale of bad things done for very good reasons and an unexpected chance at redemption. Judica’s worst nightmare becomes a reality when her twin sister Chancery steals the throne. Her life is over, all her efforts a waste. Judica should be furious, but strangely, she’s relieved. The freedom from her former responsibilities leaves her time to pursue her mother’s killer.

Beck and Vivian never could stand each other, but they always tried their best for their mutual friend, Cassie. After the town moves on from Cassie’s murder too fast, Beck and Vivian finally find common ground: vengeance. They memorialize Cassie by secretly painting murals of her around town, a message to the world that Cassie won’t be forgotten. But Beck and Vivian are keeping secrets, like the third passenger riding in Beck’s VW bus with them - Cassie’s ghost.

Two strangers in a foreign city, Thora and Santi meet in a chance encounter. At once, they recognize in each other a kindred spirit - someone who is longing for more in life than the cards they’ve been dealt. Before their friendship can blossom, though, a tragic accident cuts their story short.