Monster Fiction

I'm like a snowball rolling downhill. That's the first thing that pops into my mind when I try to explain my life. I don't know exactly "what'"I am, but I do know who I am. At least...I did. Sometimes life sends things your way that upend everything you thought you knew, and then slings you in another direction without any sort of harness or warning. Sometimes it drops someone like me off in the path of four wildly different monsters, who all used to be best friends, but now sort of hate each other and compete over absolutely everything, including...me.

In the Clandoms, everyone is born with wings, though not all the clans are treated equally. Ellie Meadows longed to become a Goldwing—the knights who protect the people -- but because she came from the humble Sparrow Clan, her dream faced almost insurmountable resistance. Nox Hatcher has it even worse. Nox is a Crow, a shattered clan. They can't own businesses or run organizations, all due to a mistake made hundreds of years ago. Nox has had to steal and scrape just to survive, but a single goal has kept him going, even when it felt like all the Clandoms were against him.

Tessa McCaide has a unique talent for getting into trouble. Then again, it isn’t easy for a girl with psychic visions to ignore what she sees. Luckily Tessa and her family are leaving California and moving halfway across the country, giving her the perfect opportunity to leave her reputation as “Freaky Tessa” behind. But Tessa doesn’t realize that kissing the wrong guy in her new Texas town could land her in far more trouble than she ever imagined. Like being forced to attend St. Ailbe’s Academy, a secret boarding school for werewolves.

Lenny Primrose is a puppet; a temptress sent to make my life bloody miserable. Adored by the public and used for her father’s benefit. Every man wants her, and every woman wants to be her. She’s good for my reputation. That’s the only reason I agree to the little devil’s proposal. I’m game. Willing to play pretend to get what I want. Until what I want is her. Now, there are no rules. I’ll wage a war against the world just to keep her. Even the deadliest men have their vices, and she happens to be mine.

My labyrinth is dying. For my kingdom to survive, I must convince my fated mate to invoke the most ancient of magics—the carnal kind. Too bad my mate's a human who didn't know monsters existed until she saw me.

"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.

Ben has saved the dragonkin women’s island from the ancient, ghostly maldungs, so it’s time for his next adventure. But when he and his crew of women set sail again, they discover the orcs have another enemy. A dangerous, fire-breathing, ship-destroying enemy. And Ben wonders if he can tame it.

When a truck ran down Tyler, he didn't think he'd wake back up...but he did. Now he's in a fantastical world filled with wonder, adventure, and battling monsters tamed by humans like one of his favorite video games.

When everything is on the line, how far will you go to protect those you love? What if the cost of saving them is your soul? Would you pay it? I thought I was prepared for what was coming; that if I made sacrifices, I could win this game. I’m no longer afraid of the darkness or the monsters that hide in the shadows. I’ve become what I feared most, allowing it in to protect those I loved. Sometimes it takes a monster to win. Sometimes to fight monsters, you have to become one. My only fear is....can I come back from it?

"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.

I was protected by the monsters under my bed when I was a kid in the foster system. I have a feeling I could use them again. My time in the foster system wasn’t great. Maybe they were imaginary, but when things got bad, the boogeyman and an imp always came to my aid. If I needed to run, a beautiful white stag would appear at my window to let me know to get out of there. I’ve touched the stag. I know he’s real.

England, 1890. Vampires are alive and well in North Yorkshire, leastwise in the minds of the uneducated. Librarian Rosa Edwards intends to drive a stake through the heart of such superstitions. But gossip flies when the mysterious Sir James Morgan returns to his shadowy manor. The townsfolk say he is cursed. James hates everything about England. The weather. The rumours. The scorn. Yet he must stay. His mother is dying of a disease for which he’s desperately trying to find a cure—an illness that will eventually take his own life.

A psychologically twisted story of the escape of a lifelong prisoner.

Imagine searching your whole life for answers, and then finally finding them. A part of you is excited to know the truth. Another part of you is damaged, because you realize why it was so hard to learn answers. Secrets aren't usually very pretty. In the midst of all of it, the four monsters I've gotten too attached to are about to be reunited with the one woman they all once loved so deeply that they sacrificed everything for an eternity with her. They said they hated Arion, but I never see hatred when they're around him. I see frustration, resentment, anger, and pain, never hatred.

Cryptozoologist Richard Freeman has spent years researching and tracking down mythical monsters. In this book, he recounts riveting monster hunt stories, globetrotting adventures from the dense forests of Sumatra on the trail of a mystery ape known as the orang-pendek, to Tasmania in search of the thylacine or Tasmanian wolf. Every corner of Earth has its own monster—even the traceless Gobi Desert as he searches for the Mongolian death worm. The author provides excellent advice on how to carry out your own cryptozoological expeditions. Join the hunt for mythical animals!

Malem has joined the forces of good and wages war against the vast host of Vorgon, the Balor who has come to destroy the world. Malem has four beautiful women fighting at his side, one of them a former general of Vorgon's army - a night elf tamed by his unique skill. He also has a few hill giants and other monsters ready to follow him to the gates of hell itself.

A town of magic and danger, where what one dons becomes who they are. A desperate priestess in another world calling for a champion, only to receive an unstoppable monster.

Despite all of the odds, Joan achieved the impossible. She reset the timeline, saved her family – and destroyed the hero, Nick. But her success has come at a terrible cost. She alone remembers what happened. Now, Aaron, her hard-won friend – and maybe more – is an enemy, trying to kill her. And Nick, the boy she loved, is a stranger who doesn’t even know her name. Only Joan remembers that a greater and more dangerous enemy is still out there. When a deadly attack forces Joan back into the monster world, she finds herself on the run with Nick – as Aaron closes in.

Since being bitten and cursed to shift into a werewolf every full moon, Aleksandar has lived in exile. Until he receives a letter from Solenne, the woman he promised his heart to years ago. She’s the only thread that keeps him anchored in the chaos, the only memory that keeps him sane. Now she is in danger. He must protect her from creatures that stalk her family, but how can he protect her from himself?

Her name is Sarah. She's blonde, blue-eyed, and Jewish in 1939 Germany. And her act of resistance is about to change the world. After her mother is shot at a checkpoint, 15-year-old Sarah meets a mysterious man with an ambiguous accent, a suspiciously bare apartment, and a lockbox full of weapons. He's part of the secret resistance against the Third Reich, and he needs Sarah to hide in plain sight at a school for the daughters of top Nazi brass, posing as one of them.