Monster Fiction

"Sing, gypsies, sing of your lies." That old song plays in my head as the world turns around me faster than it has ever turned. Monsters and mayhem. That's become my life. Fear and apprehension. That's become the normal for those around me. Dread and distraction. That's what has interrupted my own personal romance story with my mon-star quad. Vengeance and retribution. That was the theme of the monster world long before I landed in it, and it's starting to heat up more than ever. I guess it's time to see if I can handle being in the middle, because that's where I'm about to put myself.

"Perfect deadpan marks the opening of Ali Simpson’s The Monster'" writes Susan Merrell of The Southampton Review in her introduction to this issue of Recommended Reading.

When a strange woman shows up outside our camp in the Wastes with monsters chained up to her RV, it feels like I’m the only one who actually wants to help them. That big, grey-skinned monster with the cage on his head and the chain hanging from his back—something is telling me I need to help him. I need to free him. But I have absolutely no idea how I’m supposed to do that, especially when he can’t even talk to me to tell me how. Collector Mary is finally leaving our camp to head back to her monster menagerie, so I do the only thing I can think of to help him: I go with her.

Goblin Girl Maid Service is expanding. After some help from Mrs. Pennington, GGMS has more customers than ever, and with it comes the need to hire more help! When we start hiring more girls, we quickly find that a growing company comes with new problems of its own. Not only do we start running out of space, but when a new opportunity with the orc mayor of Dragonmont City goes disastrously wrong from the beginning, I need to move quickly to save the day.

Ornery octogenarian Richard, his associate Stanley, and his granddaughter Burke are world-class hunters of all things supernatural. They’ve faced monsters of every ilk, even overcome The Devil Herself, but now they face the most frightening challenge of all—spending the holidays with family.

Giant monsters. Tales of eternal love. The beginning of creation. Pint-sized warriors. Long voyages and insurmountable heroics are only a small piece of the classic myths that have helped shape Japan’s unique and immaculate history. Each story in this audiobook is filled with excitement and adventure that is just waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.

Henry is a little creeped out by his new apartment. For one thing, the previous tenants died a few weeks before he moved in. For another, there's a gas leak somewhere in the building and the smell is starting to seep into his clothes. Just when Henry thinks things couldn't get much worse, one of the former tenants pays him a midnight visit.

I’ve always been a scrapper, so when I was snatched from my world by shadow creatures and hauled to another one, I did as I’d always done. I fought. But I still didn’t know anything about where I was. My luck was in, because I quickly had the good fortune of meeting a sexy prophetess and a gorgeous, blue-skinned, redheaded mage who said she was something called a moonwisp. Yeah, magic was a thing. The problem with that? Everyone in the world had some. Magic, that is. Everyone but me. I guess that’s what I get for coming from a non-magic world.

When it comes to stealing from mafia men, there are three rules. Don't get caught. Don't be seen. And most of all—don't fall in love with them. After being hired to steal a painting, I find myself ensnared. Damon, Minos, and Aaecus are monsters, and they only want one thing: Me. Seven days of sin in exchange for freedom from the Three Fates Mafia. If only it were that easy. The strings of fate have bound the four of us together, and not even gods or monsters can keep us apart.

When my brother steals a treasure from a dragon’s precious hoard, I find myself facing down the monster sent to retrieve the locket. Mateo gives me three days to produce the stolen goods, or he’ll lock me in the dungeon and throw away the key. The catch? He’s not letting me out of his sight. What starts out as a hunt for my wayward brother ends up with me in the sights of a ruthless wizard. My manticore captor-turn-protector is more than the sum of his parts, and I soon realize I’m falling for him. But love means nothing if I can’t get out of this alive.

As a witch in the walled city of Chernograd, Kosara has plenty of practice treating lycanthrope bites, bargaining with kikimoras, and slaying bloodsucking upirs. There’s only one monster she can’t defeat: her ex, the Zmey, known as the Tsar of Monsters. She’s defied him one too many times and now he’s hunting her. Betrayed by someone close to her, Kosara’s only choice is to trade her shadow—the source of her powers—for a quick escape.

1798, France. Nuns move along the dark corridors of a Versailles hospital where the young Sister Perpetué has been tasked with sitting with the patient who must always be watched. The man, gaunt, with his sallow skin and distended belly, is dying: they say he ate a golden fork, and that it’s killing him from the inside. But that’s not all—he is rumored to have done monstrous things in his attempts to sate an insatiable appetite…an appetite they say tortures him still.

Children will laugh at these funny adventure stories from Bill Myers, bestselling author of McGee and Me, all while learning Christian character and godly wisdom. Join Wally on four hilarious, mishap-filled adventures as he faces a bully at camp, gets eaten by an alien in a film, competes in a hot-air balloon race, and plunges over a killer waterfall.

Hannah never wanted to be a werewolf. After over thirty years as a human, she finds her new life on the other side of the species line too full of sudden changes. Especially when those changes risk her band's chance at a world tour. Desperate for a way to slake the cravings and soothe the restless anger that arrives every month like clockwork, Hannah takes the advice of a friend and books a night with the Monster Smash Agency.

My life is out of control. Raphael is now my lover, Mygi is trying everything they can to kill me to get him back, and I’m still a ruler of a dying people with enemies lurking in every shadow. And for all of that, I only have a single lead that could unravel the mysteries of Raphael’s past. His mysteries, which are also the secrets of Mygi, a company very much willing to kill to keep those secrets. All I can do is focus on one problem at a time, follow the threads, and connect the dots. I need to take the fight to them and I won’t be stopped.

Somewhere within a distant constellation, in adrenaline-filled romps through space, aliens are coupling with human heroines. This science fiction romance collection contains Taken to Heimo, Taken to Kor, and Taken to Lemora.

Kacey is the new girl in Broken Falls. When she moved in with her father, she stepped into a brand-new life. A life with a stepbrother, a stepmother, and, strangest of all, an adoring younger half sister. Kacey's new life is eerily charming compared with the wild highs and lows of the old one she lived with her volatile mother. And everyone is so nice in Broken Falls - she's even been welcomed into a tight new circle of friends. Bailey and Jade invite her to do everything with them.

All that stands between rowdy long-haul trucker Jill MacLeod (aka Junkmouth) and her family back in Boston is two thousand miles of asphalt. Well, that and the monstrous game the System has had her playing ever since it descended on Earth. The reward: mana. Jill's goal: kill, score, drive—and stay alive. Behind the wheel of a turreted forty-ton semi named Bertha, Jill hammers east from Montana through a gauntlet of every kind of chomping, hissing, rabid creature imaginable. Barreling forward in her magical soulbound big rig and chalking up a bumper crop of roadkill, Jill isn't alone for long.

Former model and current recluse Jules Lowe would prefer to spend the rest of her life locked inside her apartment doing nothing more than fixating on her empty fish tank and chatting away on a local aquarium forum. But when her online crush sends her an inadvertently suspicious picture, Jules' curiosity gets the best of her. Who or what is Mack Vasser?

Hatched from an egg along with their many brethren, a singular arachnid is driven by a survival instinct to hunt and feed. Unlike their siblings, they remain cautious and observant, aware of the dangers that lurk in the dungeon they call home. They watch as larger and more powerful beasts prey on other reckless, foolish spiders, developing a sense of self-preservation and a cunning intelligence they alone seem to possess.