Magical Realism Fiction

A father’s devotion. A son’s courage. A timeless bookstore that holds the power to heal lost hearts. The Book Collected invites you into the poignant world of a father and son torn apart by life’s harsh realities—divorce, distance, and dashed dreams.

Deep beneath the sea, off the cold Irish coast, Gaia is a young mermaid who dreams of freedom from her controlling father. On her first swim to the surface, she is drawn towards a human boy. She longs to join his carefree world, but how much will she have to sacrifice? What will it take for the little mermaid to find her voice? Hans Christian Andersen's original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens, with the stunning, scalpel-sharp writing and world building that has won Louise her legions of devoted fans.

If Tipsy Collins learned one thing from her divorce, it’s that everyone in Charleston is a little crazy - even if they’re already dead. Tipsy, a gifted artist, cannot ignore her nutty friends or her vindictive ex-husband, but as a lifelong reluctant clairvoyant, she has always avoided dead people. When Tipsy and her three children move into the house on Bennett Street, she realizes that some ghosts won’t be ignored. Till death do us part didn’t pan out for Jane and Henry Mott, who have haunted the house for nearly a century.

Stormy Morgan left her hometown of Shadow Hills, Michigan, with one goal: To write the great American novel and strike it rich. Now, without a book contract, she’s back at her family restaurant in a one-stoplight town...and she’s convinced things couldn’t possibly get worse. That feeling only lasts until her first shift, when on a trip to the storage building behind the restaurant, she literally trips over a body. Stormy is a woman - or maybe a witch - lost in a sea of magic and despair...but murder might just lead her out of it.

Moored in a coastal fishing town so far north that the highways only run south, the unnamed narrator of The Seas is a misfit. She's often the subject of cruel local gossip. Her father, a sailor, walked into the ocean 11 years earlier and never returned, leaving his wife and daughter to keep a forlorn vigil. Surrounded by water and beckoned by the sea, she clings to what her father once told her: that she is a mermaid.

Justin Talemaker spends his days raiding in his mother's basement: a college dropout with no job, no prospects, and zero charisma. But when a tornado sweeps him to Eyrth, a realm of magic and monsters, a strange voice offers him a second chance: choose your class. Faced with a lifetime of social failure, Justin doesn't pick warrior, wizard, or anything that seems remotely useful. He picks Socialite.

Meshkwadoon is a tale that delves into the minds of a woman, a man, and a boy as they are dragged through an experience of fear, obsession, trauma, and terror. The foundational spirit of the land seeks to fulfill its obligation to an exchange of life for the life of all.

Janina Reston is a language expert, translating fiendishly tricky Arabic and Asian mathematical and scientific texts. Words are her world. But she can’t find any to share with her husband Owen. Instead, she confides in a spider named Gladys (who may or may not be her deceased grandmother). She lives in an ordinary city suburb where extraordinary things happen. Lily’s husband dies in a strange accident with a milk bottle, while Fatima writes biographies of unknown people living seemingly inconsequential lives, and Zosia runs off to Delhi with an Asian Women’s Sewing Group.

The Alehouse at the End of the World is an epic comedy set in the 16th century, where bawdy Shakespearean love triangles play out with shapeshifting avian demigods and a fertility goddess, drunken revelry, bio-dynamic gardening, and a narcissistic, bullying crow, who may have colluded with a foreign power.

Janet Williams is practically invisible. If only she had the pluck to speak up at work, flirt with the handsome barista she sees every day, and realize how special she is. When a magical wig offers Janet a chance to shake things up, will she dare to try a bold new style? The voice in her head - flashy and fierce, with an unbridled southern drawl - tells her to go for it. And once she does, there’s no turning back.

The Death Gate is down and Izzy Sage is at a crossroads. What will happen when they throw the switch and bring it back? She’s all atwitter on the big day...and then things only get more twisted when Zoe Lake-Winters, a powerful mage, walks through the door with her husband and daughter in tow. Two very different worlds are colliding, and Izzy and Zoe are at the center of it. The mystery of the other side is dark and deep and Zoe finds she’s intrigued...even if her methods are a bit extreme for the Grimlocks.

Bay Winchester is at a crossroads in her life. Her powers are growing, her personal life is settled, and there’s a young witch in crisis under her care. Things are...difficult. Bay has no idea what to do. She needs to keep her teenage protégé hidden while uncovering a deadly story of an affair gone wrong and greed run amok. All the while she wonders what will happen if she can’t turn things around for her new teenage responsibility. What will she have to do to protect the people that she loves?

Un homme se retrouve en prison. Brutalisé dans sa mémoire et dans sa chair, il décide avant de mourir de nous livrer le récit de son destin. Écrit dans un élan vertigineux, porté par une langue aussi fulgurante que bienveillante, Le Démon de la Colline aux Loups raconte un être, son enfance perdue, sa vie emplie de violence, de douleur et de rage, d’amour et de passion, de moments de lumière... Il dit sa solitude, immense, la condition humaine. Le Démon de la Colline aux Loups est un premier roman.

Mystic Caravan Circus is heading to Charleston and - per usual - trouble is not far behind. For Poet Parker, who is grappling with saying good-bye to her assistant, she’s looking forward to quiet nights on the beach and quality time with her boyfriend. All that changes when the sea starts giving up its dead...and they appear to be hungry. Under normal circumstances, zombies wouldn’t be a big deal. They’re slow, lumbering, and easy to dispatch. This infestation is different...and they appear to be controlled by a strange creature long since thought extinct.

“Is me - Bob. Bob Marley.” Reincarnated as homeless Fall-down man, Bob Marley sleeps in a clock tower built on the site of a lynching in Half Way Tree, Kingston. The ghosts of Marcus Garvey and King Edward VII are there too, drinking whiskey and playing solitaire. No one sees that Fall-down is Bob Marley, no one but his long-ago love, the deaf woman, Leenah, and, in the way of this otherworldly book, when Bob steps into the street each day, five years have passed.

Welcome to the Midwest, America's Heartland, home to a hidden community of witches and wizards. When Maria Apple receives a strange music box for her 19th birthday, everything changes. She begins to showcase odd magical abilities, glowing blue, seeing ghosts, and talking to creatures that shouldn't be able to talk, all while trying to juggle the task of being a typical teenage girl. Now, not only does Maria learn she is a witch, but her grandfather, Ignatius, reveals he was once a famous warrior from a planet named Oriceran.

On the day Concord Webster turned eighteen, the Devil died. The Devil's real name was Judge Martin, but Concord's mother called him the Devil. She said he boiled babies for dinner and made lampshades out of human skin. So why did she, who hated him so venomously, have a key to his house? The key will unlock more than just Judge's front door. It will also unlock a multitude of stories - where magic children talk to crows, men disappear in piles of leaves, and James Dean lookalikes kiss in dark alleys - and reveal a secret history that will change Concord's life forever.

Scott McKenzie's father killed his mother and himself. Scott vowed to do anything in his power to stop similar murders. He longed to be a police officer, but a tour in Vietnam in 1970 derailed that career. Two years later, wounded in body and soul, Scott died. He didn't go on to what was next, though. Instead, he woke up with a chance to live his life over and over until he got it right. Murderers will never see him coming. But, by using violence to save others, is he losing his own soul?

Celeste Mason is the Pinterest stay-at-home supermom of other mothers’ nightmares. Despite her all-organic, SunButter-loving, free-range kids, her immaculate home, and her volunteering awards, she still has time to relax with a nice glass of pinot at the end of the day. The only thing that ruins it all is her workaholic, career-obsessed neighbor, who makes no secret of what she thinks of Celeste’s life choices every chance she gets.

A demon who runs story time at the local library. A robot that guards nuclear waste. A vampire who gives relationship advice. Death’s personal lawyer. The Strange Garden and Other Weird Tales is a collection of stories that mix the mundane and bizarre, that both disturb and delight. From the creator of The Stench of Adventure comes a set of mystifying stories with an undercurrent of warmth and heart.