Fantasy Realism

Tonya Maitland learned early that life could either be an adventure or a tragedy. She left the tragic part of her life behind a long time ago and is now focusing on the adventure! Her attempt to be one of the best investigative reporters of all time is taking a bit longer than she had planned, but all of that changes when she travels to the small, sleepy town of Yachats, Oregon. Ashure Waves, King of the Pirates, is also the Keeper of Lost Souls. Despite all the souls within him, the emptiness he feels is suffocating. The "gift" that was passed down to him feels more like a curse.

Deep beneath the sea, off the cold Irish coast, Gaia is a young mermaid who dreams of freedom from her controlling father. On her first swim to the surface, she is drawn towards a human boy. She longs to join his carefree world, but how much will she have to sacrifice? What will it take for the little mermaid to find her voice? Hans Christian Andersen's original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens, with the stunning, scalpel-sharp writing and world building that has won Louise her legions of devoted fans.

Shifters and magic collide. Remi is just beginning to understand her powers when a new face enters her life. Meena from the Broken Wand Academy enters Remi's life, and she's not alone.

In 1986, humanity experienced the Reaping - a nationwide slaughter of six-year-old children by their parents - one of the country's most horrific tragedies. From that day forward, the world would never trust another cryptid. Now, Delilah Marlow and a rogue group of cryptids are on the run. One morning, Delilah wakes up with dried blood all over her hands. Though she has no memory of it, she obviously went somewhere - and possibly killed someone - in her sleep. More killings follow, and there is something connecting her victims - perhaps something as dangerous as another Reaping.

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?

Treasure and her mother lost everything when Treasure’s father died. Haggling for scraps in the market, Treasure meets a man who promises to change their fortunes, but his feet are hovering just a few inches above the ground. He’s a spirit, and he says he can bring Treasure’s beloved father back to life if she’ll do one terrible thing for him first.

Moonlight Bay is a magical place—or it was once. After a tragic death mars the town, the pink and lavender waters in the bay turn gray, and the forest that was a refuge for newcomers becomes a scourge to the townspeople. Almost overnight, the entire town seems devoid of life and energy. The tourists have stopped coming. And the people in the town are struggling.

Jane and Vincent have finally gotten some much-needed rest after their adventures in Italy - then Vincent receives word that his estranged father has passed away on one of his properties in the West Indies. His brother, who manages the estate, is overwhelmed, and no one else in his family can go. Grudgingly, out of filial duty, the couple decide to go.

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.

"We'd had to be cut free of our mother's womb. Abby and I were fused, you see. But here's the real kicker; Abby had the magic, I didn't." Now adults, Makeda and Abby still share their childhood home. The surgery to separate the two girls left Makeda with what feels like an even worse deformity: no mojo. The daughters of a celestial demigod and a human woman, Makeda and Abby were raised by their magical father. Today, Makeda has decided it's high time to move out and make her own life.

Grace, as her friends call her, has a Ford Motor Company tattoo running down her leg and grease worked deep into her hands. She works at Sanchez Motorworks customizing hot rods. Finding the line in a classic car is her calling. Now Grace has to find the line in her own life. Grace loves John, and John loves her, and that would be wonderful, except that John, like Grace, has unfinished business: He's haunted by the childhood death of his younger brother. He's never stopped feeling responsible.

Ever since his mother was killed, 17-year-old Cayder Broduck has had one goal - to see illegal users of magic brought to justice. People who carelessly use extradimensional magic for their own self-interest, without a care to the damage it does to society or those around them, deserve to be punished as far as Cayder is concerned. Because magic always has a price. So when Cayder lands a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to apprentice under a premier public defender, he takes it.

Lauren Pailing is born in the '60s, and a child of the '70s. She is 13 years old the first time she dies. Lauren Pailing is a teenager in the '80s, becomes a Londoner in the '90s. And each time she dies, new lives begin for the people who loved her - while Lauren enters a brand new life, too. But in each of Lauren’s lives, a man called Peter Stanning disappears. And, in each of her lives, Lauren sets out to find him. And so it is that every ending is also a beginning. And so it is that, with each new beginning, Peter Stanning inches closer to finally being found....

Acclaimed fantasist Mary Robinette Kowal has enchanted many fans with her beloved novels featuring a Regency setting in which magic--known here as glamour--is real. In Valour and Vanity, master glamourists Jane and Vincent find themselves in the sort of a magical adventure that might result if Jane Austen wrote Ocean's Eleven. After Melody's wedding, the Ellsworths and Vincents accompany the young couple on their tour of the continent. Jane and Vincent plan to separate from the party and travel to Murano to study with glassblowers there, but their ship is set upon by Barbary corsairs while en route. It is their good fortune that they are not enslaved, but they lose everything to the pirates and arrive in Murano destitute.

In the burned-out, futuristic city of Empire Island, three young people navigate a crumbling metropolis constantly under threat from a pair of dragons that circle the skies. When violence strikes, reality star Duncan Humphrey Ripple V, the spoiled scion of the metropolis' last dynasty; Baroness Swan Lenore Dahlberg, his tempestuous, death-obsessed betrothed; and Abby, a feral beauty he discovered tossed out with the trash; are forced to flee everything they've ever known.

Scott McKenzie's father killed his mother and himself. Scott vowed to do anything in his power to stop similar murders. He longed to be a police officer, but a tour in Vietnam in 1970 derailed that career. Two years later, wounded in body and soul, Scott died. He didn't go on to what was next, though. Instead, he woke up with a chance to live his life over and over until he got it right. Murderers will never see him coming. But, by using violence to save others, is he losing his own soul?

In the world of speculative fiction… Your favorite authors… Have selected best new voices of the year.

Everyone else knows the truth about you. Now you can know it, too. That's the slogan. The product: a junky contraption that tattoos personalized revelations on its users' forearms. It's an old con, playing on the fear that we are obvious to everybody except ourselves. This particular one's been circulating New York since the 1960s. The ad works. And, oddly enough, so might the device....

“My Legacy” by Geromin Reyes, a captivating tale of soul discovery and celestial revelation, is part 2 of the Kharak & Ter series. The story follows Maly’s soul, embarking on a transcendent journey alongside Kharak & Ter, Dark & Dess, and other mystical beings in the soul realm. However, an unexpected event shatters their unity when Maly vanishes in a bolt of lightning during a crucial ceremony.

Lou feels like she is stuck on the wrong path: alone, in a city far from home, watching other people be happy. When the man she’s in love with announces his engagement to someone else, Lou is consumed by what-ifs. That’s when she finds herself slipping back in time to a night two years ago, where one small decision changed everything …