Literature Anthology

In Fairview Heights, there’s one rule everyone knows. Don’t cross the Black Rose gang. Not if you want to live. My father broke that rule. Now he owes the notorious Black Roses a favor, and to make sure he pays up, they’re taking me as collateral. Until Dad completes whatever job they gave him, three gang members will be my keepers. Sloan, Rory, and Levi. The boss’ son. The man with a secret. The flame from my past. They’re all dominant, cocky, and hot as hell, and I know from personal experience that one of them is a damn good lay.

From the authors of the best-selling series "CHERRINGHAM". This compilation contains episodes 4-6: "MURDER WORE A MASK": Lavinia's annual Masked Ball at Mydworth Manor is a highlight of the season - but the lavish party comes to a full stop when one of the guests is found dead down by the lake. Harry and Kat suspect that the dead man was the victim of a clever case of murder. And the killer's work is not yet done... "DEADLY CARGO": Mydworth's Excelsior Radio Company is world-famous for its expensive radio-phonographs.

Detective stories existed for centuries before the concept of the detective itself—amateur or professional— was fully formulated, and tales of mystery and intrigue have been thrilling readers since ancient times. The Lock and Key Library is the classic overview of the history of the mystery genre, at once a rousing listen for fans of the unsolved and unknown as well as an essential literary resource for those seeking to understand the roots of modern pulp fiction. This volume is sure to delight and enthrall armchair detectives and fans of classic mysteries alike.

In ancient Greece, a skilled marble sculptor has been blessed by a goddess who has given his masterpiece—the most beautiful woman the town has ever seen—the gift of life. After marrying her, he expects Galatea to please him, to be obedience and humility personified. But she has desires of her own and yearns for independence. In a desperate bid by her obsessive husband to keep her under control, Galatea is locked away under the constant supervision of doctors and nurses. But with a daughter to rescue, she is determined to break free, whatever the cost.

All the stories in this collection from Stephen King are related to the Vietnam War. King fans will recognize echoes of The Dark Tower series in the collection's first story, "Low Men in Yellow Coats." As the characters develop over the next four stories, King's version of the Vietnam War becomes one of his most frightening tales ever.

New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry presents a quirky collection of five stories starring a whole cast of the ever-popular undead. Here you will find a semi-sequel to Dead of Night in which four army reservists are assigned to hold a small rural bridge during the early days of the zombie apocalypse; a comedic story involving a couple of idiot moonshiners, a comet, gangsters, zombies, and the Great Chicago Fire; a downbeat psychological drama set in the bleak wastelands a few years after the zombie apocalypse; and more.

Whether weaving family life and history into dark fiction or writing speculative Afrofuturism, American Book Award winner and Essence best-selling author Tananarive Due’s work is both riveting and enlightening. In her debut collection of short fiction, Due takes us to Gracetown, a small Florida town that has both literal and figurative ghost; into future scenarios that seem all too real; and provides empathetic portraits of those whose lives are touched by otherness. Featuring an award-winning novella and 15 stories, Ghost Summer: Stories is sure to haunt and delight.

In Smoke and Mirrors, Gaiman's imagination and supreme artistry transform a mundane world into a place of terrible wonders - where an old woman can purchase the Holy Grail at a thrift store, where assassins advertise their services in the Yellow Pages under "Pest Control," and where a frightened young boy must barter for his life with a mean-spirited troll living beneath a bridge by the railroad tracks.

Mercy Thompson’s world just got a whole lot bigger... A collection of all-new and previously published short stories featuring Mercy Thompson, “one of the best heroines in the urban fantasy genre today” (Fiction Vixen Book Reviews), and the characters she calls friends...

This book contains 26 of the greatest science fiction stories ever written. They represent the considered verdict of the Science Fiction Writers of America, those who have shaped the genre and who know, more intimately than anyone else, what the criteria for excellence in the field should be. The authors chosen for the Science Fiction Hall Fame are the men and women who have shaped the body and heart of modern science fiction; their brilliantly imaginative creations continue to inspire and astound new generations of writers and fans.

From sorcerous bridges that link worlds to the simple traditions of country folk; from the mysterious natures of twins to the dangerous powers of obligation and contract. Laden with perils for both the adventurous and the unsuspecting, magic is ultimately a contradiction: endlessly powerful but never without consequence, and rigidly defined by rules of its own making. Award-winning Jonathan Strahan brings together some of the most exciting and popular writers working in fantasy today to dig into that contradiction.

A seventeen-year-old boy, bullied and heartbroken, hangs himself. And although he felt terribly alone, his suicide changes everyone around him. His parents are devastated.

Joyce's first major work, written when he was only 25, brought his city to the world for the first time. His stories are rooted in the rich detail of Dublin life, portraying ordinary, often defeated lives with unflinching realism. He writes of social decline, sexual desire and exploitation, corruption and personal failure, yet creates a brilliantly compelling, unique vision of the world and of human experience.

From the master of crime fiction comes an unexpectedly whimsical short story about this San Diego surfer whose life plan is working perfectly until he meets a wealthy woman at an art gallery opening (the hors d’oeuvres), falls in love, and then has to masquerade as an upstanding member of society.

Claire Keegan continues her outstanding work with this new collection of quietly wrenching stories of despair and desire in modern-day Ireland. A writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll's old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder whose ulterior motives emerge as the night progresses. A priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage—and battles his memories of a love affair that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life. And a man seeks solace at the bottom of a bottle as he mourns both his empty life and his lost love.

The Dark Yorkshire Series are fast-paced crime fiction stories featuring DI Nathaniel Caslin. Books four to six in this best-selling series are brought together for the first time in a great value collection. Includes: Blood Money, Fear the Past, and The Sixth Precept.

In this new anthology, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction--stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013--as well as "Black Dog", a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection.

From the moment John Varley burst onto the scene in 1974, his short fiction was like nothing anyone else was writing. His stories won every award the science fiction field had to offer, many times over. His first collection, The Persistence of Vision, published in 1978, was the most important collection of the decade and changed what fans would come to expect from science fiction.

Hailed as "one of the most fully realized worlds of modern science fiction" ( Booklist>), Majipoor is a planet unlike any other, with countless untold stories. Now, available for the first time in one volume, Silverberg presents seven tales that chronicle thousands of years of Majipoor’s history, from the arrival of the settlers of Old Earth to the expansion of vast cities to the extraordinary life of Lord Valentine. Within these stories lie the secrets of Majipoor - a wondrous world of incredible imagination.

In A Gladiator Dies Only Once, the second collection of his award-winning stories featuring Gordianus, Saylor more than meets his own high standards. Set between the events of his novels RomanBlood and Catilina’s Riddle, these nine stories of previously untold adventures from the early career of Gordianus - when his adopted son, Eco, was still a mute boy and his wife, Bethesda, was but his slave - will delight Saylor’s many fans while illuminating details of the ancient world like no other writer can.