Showing results by narrator "Gail Shalan" in All Categories

Welcome to a very special issue of Weird Tales. This issue celebrates the Bram Stoker Awards, the “Oscars” of the horror trade. They are presented every year by the Horror Writers Association (horror.org), a group founded in 1985 (and incorporated in 1987) by a collective of masters of that genre, including Joe R. Lansdale, Karen Lansdale, Robert McCammon, and Dean Koontz. This issue is packed with short stories, flash fiction, poems, and an essay—all written by past winners of the Bram Stoker Award.

Colin has spent all summer solving mysteries with his friend Nevaeh. But they’ve only ever dealt with other people’s mysteries—ones that are safe for Colin to think about. He’s still stuck on the mystery surrounding his own father, who his mother refuses to talk about and he can’t remember meeting. Then one morning Colin finds a shoebox on his porch with a note on top: “Your father wanted you to have this.” Inside the box is a key. This new clue makes Colin even more determined to find out the truth about his dad and why his parents split up when he was a baby.

Ginger Davies is on the boring and predictable track to take over the family business in London, but she craves so much more from life. Rhys Baker is a DJ from America, incapable of staying still anywhere, loving his vagabond lifestyle but restless and unsatisfied, always seeking more adventure. When the two meet by chance in Paris their bond is instantaneous. Living worlds apart, their daily contact becomes the brightest spot in both their lives.

Ice-skater Mina is on a one-track path to Olympic gold and glory—that is, until she totally wipes out at her biggest competition, and is kinda-sorta-kidnapped by undead kids on roller skates. Sucked into the high stakes world of Paranormal Roller Derby, she finds herself "recruited" by a squad of vampires who need a human player to complete their team—just in time to save the league from losing it all.

Danielle Silver is a Philadelphia high school senior at the dawn of the ’90s. Ever since her parents split up, she has known her father was gay, but she never expected to be hit with the bombshell that he is HIV positive. As he sickens, and AIDS starts to claim the lives of his friends, Danielle searches for silver linings while trying to balance paralyzing fear, grief, her social life, and schoolwork—capturing all the feelings as adolescence and some hard facts collide.

Colin and Nevaeh are great at finding things. After all, they found each other and became best friends—even though their parents are business rivals. They also found hidden boxes of secret letters, which led them to unravel mysteries about kids from the 1970s. But when they started Mystery Solvers Inc., they didn’t expect to be asked to find a ghost. Ree recruits them to investigate a series of old, spooky photos left behind in her family’s new house. The photos show a boy who looks totally see-through. And in some, he’s in a coffin.

Larken survived the Starveling, but her greatest battles are yet to come. Haunted by memories of the flames that nearly took her life and desperate for Finder to heal her, she plots to rescue him from imprisonment in Shadeshelm. Larken searches for allies within the other courts of the faery realm, but she finds that without the Starveling, the court rulers are consumed by their own political games.

In the Little Book of Dog Care, life-long dog lover and deathcare veterinary practice owner Ace Tilton Ratcliff delivers a must-have primer for every dog parent. What should you do when your dog is scared during a thunderstorm? How can you make clipping their nails less miserable? When do they like to eat? What can’t you feed them? Endless questions, expert-certified answers.

In thirteen fascinating chapters, Charlotte Van den Broeck goes in search of buildings that were fatal to their architects-architects who either killed themselves or are rumored to have done so. They range across time and space from a church with a twisted spire in seventeenth-century France to a theater that collapsed mid-performance in 1920s Washington, DC, and an eerily sinking swimming pool in the author's hometown.

All science classrooms discuss animals that hibernate during winter months, but few know about animals that estivate—a prolonged sleep during hot or dry periods. Learn about the reasons estivating animals become dormant—whether it's because warm weather threatens food supply or to avoid increased body temperatures. From the ladybug to the salamander, from the lungfish to the desert hedgehog, twelve estivating animals and their habits—both when sleeping and awake—are explained clearly and elegantly.

Sure, I hate how everyone was over the moon about her TikTok fame. And I suppose I got a little bit carried away with vengeance when she tried to ruin my life. But seriously, when my friend gave me that leather journal, I’d never had so much power in my life. It was intoxicating. Who wouldn’t have done what I did to Eva? Now everyone thinks that just because she vanished in the forest after a party, that I killed her. That the blood on the jackets is proof. Or the text messages. The slightly weird thing I had with Eva's dad. The fire.

Piper Franklin has big plans. First, she’ll win the Academic Decathlon with her best friend, Tallulah. Then, she’ll finish her life’s work: Metaphorical Math. And in the meantime, she and Tallulah will maintain their secret, El Jardin Muerto. Nothing can stop Piper . . . except for puberty.

Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit is a beautifully written novel in verse loosely based on author Colby Cedar Smith’s maternal grandmother. The story follows Mary as she and her family emigrate from Greece to Detroit in the 1930s, creating a historically accurate portrayal of life as an immigrant during the Great Depression, hunger strikes, and violent riots. Mary lives in a tiny apartment with her immigrant parents, her brothers, and her twin sister, and she questions why her parents ever came to America.

When recent NYC-transplant Liz Brinkley and her husband are invited to an exclusive soiree by their neighbor, Liz’s immediate thought is hell no. And yet she RSVPs anyway, trying to extend an olive branch to her withdrawing husband, who seems desperate to get in with the cliquey elite. They’ve barely made it through their first round of champagne when a “red alert” comes through their phones: strange atmospheric masses, reported to look like “glimmering clouds,” have been spreading through major U.S. cities and killing anyone they touch.

When Ellie accidentally overhears that her family deli is most likely going to close, she does the only thing she can think of. She makes a wish on matzo ball soup. Eleven-year-old Ellie is feisty, determined, and a little bit anxious. She considers Lukshen Deli part of the family—after all, it’s been around for four generations, ever since her great-grandmother opened it.

Fifteen-year-old Layla Freeman likes to pretend her life is fine. After all, her mother is about to celebrate thirty days sober, and yeah, they’ve moved into a homeless shelter, but it’s only temporary, right? Her mom will get better, and in the meantime, it’s important that no one at school finds out where she’s been living for the past month. Layla has worked hard to build her reputation as a girl who doesn’t care what others think of her, but the truth is she does care—deeply—and she’s tripping over her own lies, especially to her best friend, as she tries to pretend nothing’s wrong.

Four girls from very different backgrounds are making their way to the mysterious Rosenholm Boarding School from different corners of the country. The one thing they have in common is the strange offer they have received to apply for a place at what will turn out to be a school for magic, deeply embedded in Nordic mythology, nature magic, and shamanism. The girls have been invited to apply for a reason that is as yet unknown to themselves, but already during the unorthodox application tests, it becomes apparent that a spirit is trying to establish contact with the girls.

The stories in this anthology range from quietly strange to ambitiously speculative. Humans transform into cosmic energy or sentient algae. A man wakes up in a new body in a world with continents cut out, months absent from the calendar year, and souls misplaced. Students at a high school regularly vanish without a trace. A woman descends into the depths of the ocean and encounters all-knowing creatures who may have the answers to her deepest questions.

Grace Deming didn't want to uproot her family to care for her difficult mother-in-law, but she's determined to make the best of it for the sake of her daughter Shyla's future. Their new home is enormous; the neighborhood, prestigious. If the worst of it is that Althea dislikes her, she can cope. After all, Althea Deming is a sweetheart. Everyone says so—her husband, the neighbors. And soon, so does Shyla, the once vibrant and happy child now a shadow of her former self. What's wrong with Grace that she can't trust her? But all her instincts are screaming at her that Althea is dangerous.

Alberto's life isn't easy: He's an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who lives with his sister's abusive boyfriend-but he'd always accepted his place in the world. Until he starts hearing the voice of a man called Captain America, a voice that wants him to achieve more, no matter the cost.