Monster Fiction

After a devastating car crash wipes out her family, Laura struggles to get her life together. Grieving, she becomes forgetful. She doesn't remember how money got into her purse, or buying that pint of milk....Adam is the perfect boyfriend. He cooks meals. He does the housework. He looks after Laura's every need. He knows everything about her. But Laura has never met Adam. And she knows nothing about him. What turned him into a monster who stalks his victims? How did he become warped from a sensitive boy who adored the fairy tales his gran read to him?

Terrence Mack was born poor, grew up tough, and died hard. Waking up in a sea cave with nothing but the clothes on his back and a new bullet scar was enough to convince him that wherever his death had brought him, it wasn't paradise. His new world quickly proves to be a place of danger, magic, monsters, and - for Terry at least - women. Known on Celestine as a template, Terry's genes are key to the survival of the eldritch races. But the fiercely competitive eldritch don't typically leave their lovers alive long, and aren't accustomed to taking 'no' for an answer.

In a gauntlet-throwing essay at the start of this brilliant assemblage, Cynthia Ozick stakes the claim that, just as surely as critics require a steady supply of new fiction, novelists need great critics to build a vibrant community on the foundation of literary history. For decades Ozick herself has been one of our great critics, as these essays so clearly display. She offers models of critical analysis of writers from the mid-20th century to today, from Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, and Kafka to William Gass and Martin Amis, all assembled in provocatively named groups.

Travel writer Amelia Balfour's dream of touring Egypt is halted when she receives news of a revolutionary new surgery for her grotesquely disfigured brother. This could change everything, and it does...in the worst possible way. Surgeon Graham Lambert has suspicions about the doctor he's gone into practice with, but he can't stop him from operating on Amelia's brother. Will he be too late to prevent the man's death? Or to reveal his true feelings for Amelia before she sails to Cairo?

Nate Ellison's just an ordinary, average college student trying to make the grade in Southern California. Well, definitely not ordinary...and totally not average. You see, Nate's a Troman - a nearly seven-foot-tall guy who's half war troll, half human - and he's working undercover as part of a secret government project, the Monster Exchange Program, to investigate crimes that involve the occult. Once on campus, Nate tries to lay low, struggling to navigate college life while also unraveling a mystery involving the disappearance of several beautiful co-eds.

The game has changed. After receiving a mysterious message from a famous Proxima developer, Chase Knowles takes a step toward an incredible future. With an important tournament coming up, everything seems to be working in his favor. But there are other forces at play, even if some of those forces are internal. Wanting more from his relationship with Lady C., Chase goes to extreme lengths to bring her digital form to New York City through an android shell.

A virus tears across the globe, transforming its victims in nightmarish ways. As the world collapses, dark forces pull a small group of women together. Erin, once quiet and closeted, acquires an appetite for a woman and her brain. Why does forbidden fruit taste so good? Savannah, a professional BDSM switch, discovers a new turn-on: committing brutal murders for her eldritch masters. Mareva, plagued with chronic tumors, is too horrified to acknowledge her divine role in the coming apocalypse, and as her growths multiply, so too does her desperation.

What's it like to be a monster in a town full of monsters, who don't know you're a monster? Complicated and a little scary, but doable. What's it like to be the girl who can't die - that everyone seems to always want to kill? Frustrating as hell. What's it like to accidentally raise a psychotic alpha vampire everyone fears, who drops a lot of bodies on his first day out as a gift for your troubles? Terrifying, if I'm being honest. I really don't know how this stuff keeps happening to me.

Packed full of adventure, this collection features eight of the best-loved stories from the creators of The Gruffalo, read by Julia Donaldson – perfect for listening to at home, in the car, at bedtime or any time at all! Join in the adventure as Mouse wanders through the deep dark wood to meet the Gruffalo, travel the world with the snail and the whale, join the witch as she zooms through the sky on her broom, and much more! Julia Donaldson Reads The Gruffalo and Other Stories features eight treasured tales, from the bestselling picture-book partnership of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

An existence spent being forced to kill others to satiate a monster. Where the only thing to look forward to was the blessed, if brief, period of time between paying that bribe. Except that very same monster is and isn’t Rene. It just happened to live inside his own mind and force him to do what it wanted.

Eleven-year-old Josh and 12-year-old Amanda just moved into the oldest and weirdest house on the block - the two siblings think it might even be haunted! But of course their parents don't believe them. You'll get used to it, they say. Go out and make some new friends. But the creepy kids are not like anyone Josh and Amanda have ever met before. And when they take a shortcut through the cemetery one night, Josh and Amanda learn why.

Using forbidden Marrangha magic and the three stolen vapours, the evil sorcerer Zharradan Marr has created a creature....but for what purpose?

Quinn: After Rowan and I escape Mercer’s hold, we have to get the pack somewhere safe, but my only option is a pride run by a controlling alpha. With everyone safely inside the walls of Winterhaven, Rowan and I attempt to search for the truth, but we’re being hunted and driven further from the answers we need. I want to do everything to protect my mate, but as I learn more about his past, I realize that I might need to protect him from more than just Mercer.

Daisy sees dead people—something impossible to forget in bustling, ghost-packed Toronto. She usually manages to deal with her unwanted ability, but she’s completely unprepared to be dumped by her boyfriend. So when her mother inherits a secluded mansion in northern Ontario where she spent her childhood summers, Daisy jumps at the chance to escape. But the house is nothing like Daisy expects, and she begins to realize that her experience with the supernatural might be no match for her mother’s secrets, nor what lurks within these walls…

The Shape of Water is set in Cold War-era Baltimore at the Occam Aerospace Research Center, which has recently received its most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man captured in the Amazon. What unfolds is a stirring romance between the asset and one of the janitors on staff, a mute woman who uses sign language to communicate with the creature.

Ren is tired of being bullied, but he thinks the bullies are right. He is small and weak. But when his eyes turn golden, and his skin turns scaly, Ren thinks he can finally get revenge on the boys who tormented him. What will he do when he sees what fear looks like?

So . . . I didn't handle the zombie apocalypse well. I used to be a third-grade teacher, but since the Gorging, my life has been . . . kinda rotten. I lost my group to the undead, became indebted to one of the gangs, and now I've been sold as a blood-slave. My new owner is Atlan, one of the vampire warriors who guard Blue City's walls and defend us from the zombies. The vampires are like celebrities around here. It's my job to provide Atlan with a clean blood source and any other services he needs.

After my grandmother passed away, it left me with this feeling of emptiness. I had a dead-end job, no friends or family, and I was trying to navigate this new world while being utterly alone. The perfect solution? Take a once in a lifetime trip to Alaska and reconnect with the wilderness and all the things that make me happy.

When Mike Radley inherited a mysterious old house from a long-lost relative, he wasn't sure what to expect. He didn't expect a sexual encounter with the nymph in his bathtub. He really didn't expect to discover a house full of affectionate monsters. And he definitely didn't expect a pair of witches bent on stealing the home's magic from him. Welcome to the Radley House. Expect the unexpected.

All children grow up, but Peter Pan wanted to be old right away. So he ran off to a magically spooky place to become . . . a mummy! One night in the normal world, Peter overhears Wendy Darling telling her brothers a super scary story, and soon they're all flying off to Mummy Land. But Peter's home is filled with other frightening ghouls, including a skeleton pirate crew who want to put Peter in a tomb once and for all!