Modern Fiction

Invite Hannibal Lecter into the palace of your mind and be invited into his mind palace in turn. Note the similarities in yours and his, the high vaulted chambers of your dreams, the shadowed halls, the locked storerooms where you dare not go, the scrap of half-forgotten music, the muffled cries...

She’s a tiny slip of a thing that I can lift one-handed, but my new bride is a spitfire too. From the moment I saw her, I knew I would do anything to protect her. Our marriage has been consummated in body, but I intend to have her heart and soul too. And that means that my sweet bride has to tell me everything. Even her darkest secrets.

Raquel Ezra loves to fish. With so many fish in the sea, she’s never had a problem baiting the hook or reeling them in. Raquel is a good actress, she can be anyone’s fantasy for a single night as long as they agree to be hers. Which is why she doesn’t think twice about spending an evening in nowhere Tennessee with a smokin’ hot, well-mannered, and intriguing sheriff’s deputy by the name of Jackson James.

We all dream of the forbidden but some of us make those dreams come true . . . . With the same mystery, menace and intensity as her Vampire books, Exit to Eden explores the forbidden by taking us The Club, a vacation paradise where no aspect of sexual pleasure is taboo. Just as The Story of O...

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is blessed with a treasure trove of storytellers, poets, and historians, all seeking to capture a sense of Yooper Life from settler's days to the far-flung future. Since 2017, the U.P. Reader has offered a rich collection of their voices that embraces the U.P.'s natural beauty and way of life, along with a few surprises. The seventy plus short works in this 9th annual volume take listeners around the U.P. from the Keweenaw to the Soo and from Menominee to Ironwood.

This star-studded anniversary anthology features over twenty-five unforgettable stories from internationally bestselling authors and literary legends. From the Nordic noir of Jo Nesbø and the lyricism of Tennessee Williams to the timeless imagination of Ray Bradbury and the courtroom wit of John Mortimer, these vivid tales reflect the range and tone that have defined The Strand Magazine for a quarter century.

From one of the preeminent literary voices in Israel comes a darkly funny collection of surrealist stories exploring the increasingly complex relationship between humans and technology. Set in our world, alternate realities, distant futures, and the immortal realm, the stories in Autocorrect...

Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.

Annie Adams is days away from her 32nd birthday and thinks she has finally found some happiness. She visits the world's most interesting places for her syndicated travel column and she's happily cohabiting with her movie director boyfriend Nick in Los Angeles. But when Nick comes home from a meeting with his therapist (aka "futures counselor") and announces that he's taking a break from their relationship so he can pursue a woman from his past, the place Annie had come to call home is shattered.

Who knew my brother’s friend could be Mr. Right, and not just Mr. Right Now? I’m not interested in the guy’s looks. Oh no, I want his cold hard cash. Now, before you go getting all judge-y, I’m not a gold digger. I have a legitimate business opportunity for Jasper to invest in. The problem is that my stick-up-his-ass brother is embarrassed that his twin sister invents kick-ass sex toys. So, I took matters into my own hands. It wasn’t until I sat down across from the gorgeous, panty-soaking man in front of me, that I realized I wanted so much more than just his money.

Sensitive, aspiring photographer Nick Fairfax wants nothing to do with his family's corporate business, or their vicious, cold-blooded lifestyle. Intending to give up his inheritance and pursue his art, he arrives at his father's office, only to find that Fairfax Industries has fallen to a scarred man in a hooded cloak. The man is the reclusive billionaire Lord Bane Dunsaney, and he is bent on destroying the Fairfaxes. But when he sees Nick, *everything* changes.

At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering "the cause of generation and life" and "bestowing animation upon lifeless matter", Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts. However, upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness.

A modern classic first published in 1978 that is as much a sophisticated romantic comedy about the love between two partners as it is a novel about the powerful bonds shared by family members, friends, colleagues and confidants. "A funny, loving, celebratory book in which everything is perfect...

Artist Laura Matthews finds her new home in the Welsh mountains to be a place so charged with tales and legends that she is able to reach through the gossamer-fine veil that separates her own world from that of myth and fable. She and her husband, Dan, have given up their city life and moved to Blaencwm, an ancient longhouse high in the hills. Here, she hopes that the wild beauty will inspire her to produce her best art and will give her the baby they have longed for.

An exploited child worker in the silver mines of Bolivia finds an ally – but at what cost? A young woman's affair has terrifying repercussions when her lover's wife dies. A sailor's wife takes her communion with Nature a little too far…From a hungry young woman who is not what she seems, to a boy who has taken his mother's advice a little too seriously; from disfigured girls willing to pay any price to fit in, to an immigrant who cannot escape his tormentor; from a new home with a sinister secret, this collection plumbs the depths of the psyche and dredges up some very modern horrors.

In the past 50 years, the American short story has changed dramatically. New voices, forms, and mixtures of genres have brought this unique US genre a thrilling burst of energy. This rich anthology celebrates this avalanche of talent. Beginning in 1970, it culls together a half century of powerful American short stories from all genres, including - for the first time in a literary anthology - science fiction, horror, and fantasy.

Colin is a druid on a mission. Namely, traveling to an alternate dimension where technology rules, to snag the tech he needs to save his friends in the Hellpocalypse timeline. At first, it sounds simple. He’ll slip through the timestreams, do a little sightseeing, and go home. Heck, it might even be fun to visit a world where actual superheroes exist. But for creation’s unluckiest druid, nothing is ever easy. When things go horribly wrong, Colin finds that his magic is almost completely on the fritz.

"It takes an entire lifetime to learn how to die", wrote the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD). He counseled readers to "study death always", and took his own advice, returning to the subject again and again in all his writings, yet he never treated it in a complete work. How to Die gathers in one volume, for the first time, Seneca's remarkable meditations on death and dying. Edited and translated by James S. Romm, How to Die reveals a provocative thinker who speaks with a startling frankness about the need to accept death or even, under certain conditions, to seek it out.

A heart-wrenching standalone novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, We Burned So Bright follows an elder gay couple on an end-of-the-world road-trip. The road stretched out before them. No other cars, just the headlights on the blacktop. Above, the cracked moon in a kaleidoscope...

"You get a long, hot summer full of the most delectable kind of pining."--The New York Times Clashing ghost tours lead to a sizzling romantic rivalry in the second romance in the new series from USA Today bestselling author Jen DeLuca. Boneyard Key, Florida, is the only home Sophie has ever...