Monster Fiction

Marie is a young girl who has decided she doesn’t need anyone. And, that includes God. Thrust into positions of responsibility no child should endure, she faces abuse and loss; from all the monsters in her life; until she feels she can no longer trust, anyone. But, is it possible that God has been beside her all the while? Can a chance meeting with an angel, on a near fatal day, change her mind and give her the hope she’ll need to make it through?

The New York Times best-selling series is coming to an epic conclusion—witness the beginning of the end! Written by one of the original High Republic story architects and the #1 New York Times best-selling author of Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the Dark, Star Wars: Lost Stars, and the...

Who answers the call when the mundane police dial 911? Matt Bordelon—former Silver Griffin, wizard, and the Big Easy Bounty Hunter. Matt has a good thing going. Deliver justice to magicals? Check. Keep the world safe from threats? Check. Make good money doing it? Cha-ching. Unless his bounty ends up dead when the paperwork specifies alive, that is. Good thing he’s a pro at avoiding that. Then he stumbles across a dark witch embroiled in a vicious spell battle with a dark wizard and feels compelled to aid her.

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.

When my father died and I stepped into his shoes as leader of Enigma, I vowed to protect the gang he’d built. And I won’t break that promise—no matter what I have to do to keep it.

Three sexy-but-psycho monsters. The witch they're determined to protect. And a high-stakes heist about to go very wrong… I've made some pretty questionable choices in my life, but summoning the dark goddess to save my sisters? That was just plain stupid. Now I’m in her debt, and goddesses don’t exactly do payment plans. She wants the blood of the dark fae warlord of Midnight, a realm of exiles where the sun never rises and torture is a competitive sport. It’s a death trap only three men have ever escaped—my newly appointed escorts.

For the past century, I have served, defending my crops in solitude, baring my scythe as an omen. But when the crops aren't seeded, I find myself standing over a field of dirt and weeds. It is her fault. The female who has inherited the farm. She might be the new queen of these lands, but in her wake, she brings only ruin. So, I will scare her away. I will claim these fields, and she will learn to fear me! Until one evening, she is attacked by the crows. She cowers behind me for protection, begging them to spare her life.

Evan visits an eerie old toy store and buys a dusty can of Monster Blood. But then he notices something weird about the slimy green ooze. It keeps growing. And growing. And growing. And all that growing has given the Monster Blood a monstrous appetite....

PJ Norris continues his trek around Kingscountry in search of more dragon shifters. He and his best friend Grant arrive in the town of Cheshireville, which had a nearby secret magical enclave that safely hid creatures during the reign of the evil queen. But all is not well in the small town: a monstrous creature has been frightening the citizenry at night, and Firewing Investigations is hired to get to the bottom of things. PJ hopes this is the dragon shifter he's been searching for, but as he's learned, anything is possible in a magical town.

When I—along with my best friend and his big purple monster boyfriend—come across a fortress-like raider camp while journeying across the monster-infested Wastes, we stop to deliver a message. Somehow, that simple pit stop turns into a seemingly impossible quest to get this camp's missing leader out of the prison where he's being held and forced to fight monsters and other humans. I know exactly where it is because I've been there. Problem is, I'm making this journey with the prickliest and most arrogant guy I've ever met, who seems to hate me on sight. Oh, and he's also half-monster.

Despite her hard butch exterior, filthy mouth and hatred of almost everyone and everything, Pat has always been there for Lisa. Every new boyfriend, every breakup, every inappropriate question first thing in the morning. And Lisa has a massive crush on her. But Lisa doesn't know everything. Pat's a monster. Worse, she's got her hands full dealing with the girl she bit in her small town high-school suddenly showing up without her memory. Now, bodies are piling up a little too close to home, threatening to expose Pat and put Lisa in danger. Forget what you know about sparkles and sunburns.

What could possibly be the most infuriating thing to a vampire disgusted by the internet? A twenty-six-year-old social media influencer who just ran out on her cheating ex-fiancé and insists on staying in Vlad's quiet castle. But he needs money to repair his ancestral home, and Aubrey needs a place to lick her wounds after getting her heart broken. He is ready to have humans invading his space. He is not, however, ready for her.

It’s the best time of the year in the mountain village I call home, known for its Krampus lore and festive enthusiasm during the holidays. From the outside looking in, my life is perfect. I live in a winter wonderland, I’m engaged to the town’s beloved “honied ham man” and I run the town’s most precious flower shop. No one would ever know my fiancé is an abusive psychopath who’s threatened to kill me if I ever try to leave him. It’s a secret I’ve always kept hidden, my burden to bear. The only person who sees right through the mask I wear is my Christmas tree vendor. He follows me, watches me.

Aemilius thought he would die heroically in battle like his forefathers, mourned by a loving wife and many children, but he’s barely a man when a harpy flies down out of the old myths and knocks him from his horse. Stunned and helpless, he waits for his end … and is saved. Formed on the bloody battlefield of Teutoburg, the Hidden Legion are an order of soldiers, magicians, and rogues so secret that the Empire itself would hunt them down if they were exposed. And now Aemilius is one of them.

Dr. Brewer is doing a little plant testing in his basement. Nothing to worry about. Harmless, really. But Margaret and Casey Brewer are worried about their father. Especially when they...meet...some of the plants he is growing down there. Then they notice that their father is developing plantlike tendencies. In fact he is becoming distinctly weedy - and seedy. Is it just part of their father's "harmless" experiment? Or has the basement turned into another little shop of horrors?

An experimental ASI with a terminal case of curiosity reached out and tampered with the universe in a way that it should not have, and unleashed a torrent of energy we would call magic into our galaxy. Humans, and every other intelligent lifeform for that matter, were ill-prepared, physically and mentally, for such an eventuality. In an effort to save itself, the ASI hastily created something it called the Framework to shape and codify this magical energy, and usher in a new world. A world of classes, levels, and extraordinary power. But also a world of monsters.

Varian Farm—a place shrouded in mystery. Led by an iron-fisted noble, its fields bear endless fruit. Its animals produce the finest wools, milks, and cheeses. But prosperity comes at a price. Deep beneath the manor house, a secret slumbers. For hundreds of years, it’s sat dormant, controlled by the noble House of Varian. The world is changing though. A recent earthquake has unearthed treasure in the valley. Hidden from view, a chain reaction is underway. The valley is evolving. Life will never be the same.

Sam Ryder's life already sucks, and it's about to get worse when he's fired from his dead-end job as a programmer. He's about to head home to escape into his favorite RPG, Alien Civilization, when he's offered a thrill ride on a death machine by a gorgeous woman straight out of one of his games. Before Sam can say "WTF?", he's been whisked away to a dark world of monsters and goddesses, his body transformed from Outcast to Warrior, the second level on a ladder that may eventually carry him all the way to Demigod.

From the second I saw her, I knew she’d be my ruin. Sitting all alone at the bar, she looked like an angel. Eurydice in human form; her beauty eclipsed by demons. Now, I’m one of them. The ghost she’s tried for years to escape. Thinking I wouldn’t be able to find her. But I never stopped trying, and now that I have, her past sins should be the least of her worries.

Alchemist Zoe Faust is no stranger to magical mayhem, but when her boyfriend's new tea shop is vandalized and his special tea blends stolen, she plunges into a baffling mystery to save him. The clues lead Zoe and her gargoyle sidekick Dorian to an eerie mansion high in the Portland hills, filled with creeping carnivorous plants and enigmatic topiary monsters. When they stumble across a corpse in the conservatory that appears to have been killed by sinister shrubbery, an estranged member of the family is implicated in the murder.