Fantasy Realism

"You should be here; he's simply magnificent." These are the final words a biologist hears before his Margaret Mead-like wife dies at the hands of Godzilla. The words haunt him as he studies the kaiju (Japan's giant monsters) on an island reserve, attempting to understand the beauty his wife saw. Every story in the collection turns to the fantastic, the mysticism of the past, and the absurdities of the future to illuminate the spaces we occupy when we are at our most vulnerable."

Alec began his 18th birthday with the temple monks. By day's end, he discovers he possesses magical abilities. Except his magic is unique. He doesn't require grimoires and incantations to cast spells. Alec's magic is entirely natural. He can, somehow, absorb the elements from objects and manipulate them according to his will. This power is incredible, but difficult to master. If he's going to learn how to use his natural magic, it'll take the tutelage of Archmage Diamondspear, one of the most adept magic users in the kingdom.

As children, Goldie, Liyana, Scarlet, and Bea dreamed of a strange otherworld: a nightscape of mists and fog, perpetually falling leaves and hungry ivy, lit by an unwavering moon. Here, in this shadowland of Everwhere, the four girls, half-sisters connected by blood and magic, began to nurture their elemental powers together. But at 13, the sisters were ripped from Everwhere and separated. Now, five years later, they search for one another and yearn to rediscover their unique and supernatural strengths.

Living in a peaceful, prosperous African-American neighborhood in Los Angeles, Mack Street is a mystery child who has somehow found a home. Discovered abandoned in an overgrown park, raised by a blunt-speaking single woman, Mack comes and goes from family to family, a boy who is surrounded by boisterous characters and yet deeply alone.

Lucy Scarborough is 17 when she discovers that the women of her family have been cursed through the generations, forced to attempt three seemingly impossible tasks or to fall into madness upon their child's birth. How can Lucy succeed when all of her ancestors have tried and failed? But Lucy is the first girl who won't be alone as she tackles the list. She has her fiercely protective foster parents beside her. And she has Zach, whose strength amazes her more each day. Do they have enough love and resolve to overcome an age-old evil?

It's been one year since graduation, and Beatrice Hartley has mixed feelings about joining her friends a weekend reunion. She's right to be worried. After a night out, they narrowly avoid a collision with a car on a deserted road. Or so they believe... Back at the mansion where they are staying, a mysterious man knocks on the door during a raging storm. He tells them that they must make a choice: one of them will live, and the rest will die. And the decision must be unanimous.

Tens of thousands of crows invading Auburn, Pennsylvania, is a problem for everyone in town except 17-year-old Leighton Barnes. For Leighton, it’s no stranger than her house, which inexplicably repairs itself every time her father loses his temper and breaks things. Leighton doesn’t have time for the crows - it’s her senior year, and acceptance to her dream college is finally within reach. But grabbing that lifeline means abandoning her sisters, a choice she’s not ready to face.

Launching into new territory that the author hadn’t mapped out when he embarked on the series, Nekomonogatari (White) tells the tale of heroine Tsubasa Hanekawa from her own perspective, in her own voice - if that can hold true for a damaged soul who, depending on who you’re asking, suffers from a split personality or a supernatural aberration.

Master storyteller David Almond presents a beautiful collection of short fiction interwoven with pieces that illuminate the inspiration behind the stories. May Malone is said to have a monster in her house, but what Norman finds there may just be the angel he needs. Joe Quinn's house is noisy with poltergeists, or could it be Davie's raging causing the disturbance?

Xavier T. Fletcher is an Odd Duck. At least, that’s what everyone in his sleepy little suburb seems to think. Luckily, birds happen to be the aspiring naturalist’s favorite things, so he doesn’t mind the label quite as much as you might expect. But when Xavier’s father loses his job, everything changes. His family is forced to move to his Nana Susan’s farm. There, he meets Clementine, a strange, messy girl who doesn’t see him as an Odd Duck at all. Too bad she has the unfortunate habit of using her slingshot to hunt the birds he loves.

Eleanor Zarrin has been distanced from her family for years. When she returns home after a violent incident at boarding school, trying to fit back into the space she left becomes even more difficult when their headstrong matriarch unexpectedly dies. Eleanor's bloodthirsty family is left unchecked for the first time in decades, and when her Grandmere arrives to help the family adjust, it's clear that something dark is lurking beneath her genteel exterior.

A startlingly remarkable novel set in 1984 where a group of teenagers begin to discover powerful secrets about themselves, and learn that the only way to create their own future is to break away from previous generations.They call it the plague. A generation of children born with extreme genetic mutations. They call it a home. But it's a place of neglect and forced labor. They call him a freak. But Dog is just a boy who wants to be treated as normal. They call them dangerous. They might be right.

The downtown core of Toronto is being consumed by Elysium, a drug that allows its users to slip through the permeable edges of this world into the next, before consuming them utterly. Peddled by the icy Srebrenka, few have managed to escape the drug and its dealer. But Maggie has. Years after beating her addiction, Maggie is dismayed by the reappearance of Srebrenka in her life. Although she resists temptation, she quickly learns her brother, Kyle, has been ensnared by Srebrenka's beguiling.

As the long-awaited invasion of human forces looms, Jason, Koren, and Elyssa struggle to alert the soldiers to an unforeseen menace on the planet of Starlight—a deadly illness has been released, one that already has Koren in its grip. Starlighter Cassabrie harbors a secret she believes can counter the devastation being unleashed by dragon king Taushin’s latest maneuverings, but she can disclose little of her risky plan. As Cassabrie fights to save her people, the dragon Magnar works to move the Starlight prophecy in his favor.

A richly funny and fantastical novel about the strangeness at the heart of even the most ordinary lives, from one of South Korea’s most acclaimed novelists.

Ophelia Castellan will never be just another girl at Elsinore Academy. Seeing ghosts is not a skill prized in future society wives. Even when she takes her pills, the bean sidhe beckon, reminding her of a promise to her dead mother. Now, in the wake of the Headmaster's sudden death, the whole academy is in turmoil, and Ophelia can no longer ignore the fae. Especially once she starts seeing the Headmaster's ghosts - two of them - on the school grounds.

A winter’s night, Venice, 1815. A 217-year-old dog is searching for his lost master. So begins the journey of Tomorrow, a dog who must travel through the courts and battlefields of Europe - and through the centuries - in search of the man who granted him immortality. His adventures take him to the London Frost Fair, the strange court of King Charles I, Versailles, the golden age of Amsterdam, and to 19th-century Venice. Tomorrow befriends both animals and humans, falls in love (only once), marvels at the human ability to make music, despairs at their capacity for war....

Set in the time of Charlemagne and narrated by a nun with her own secrets to keep, The Nonexistent Knight tells the story of Agilulf, a gleaming white suit of armor with nothing inside it. A challenge to his honor sends Agilulf on a search through France, England, and North Africa to confirm the chastity of a virgin he saved from rape years earlier.

Having lost his mother and been shunned by his father, Zabor grows up in the company of books, which teach him a new language. Ever since he can remember, he has been convinced that he has a gift: If he writes, he will stave off death; those captured in the sentences of his notebooks will live longer. Like a kind of inverted Scheherazade saving his fellow men, he experiments night after night with the delirious power of the imagination.

James is living the life he always wanted. He has his own rustic cabin in the countryside, peace, quiet, and some lovely companions to share his joy with. But there is much left to do! James will need to expand his cabin to make it more comfortable for his—ahem—lady friends. Also, harvest is coming up for the redheaded farm girl, and she might need a hand or two around the farm.