Monster Fiction

Wounds is a confounding, strange, and utterly entrancing collection of six stories, including one new novella from Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Nathan Ballingrud. From the eerie dread descending upon a New Orleans dive bartender after a cell phone is left behind in a rollicking bar fight in The Visible Filth to the search for the map of hell in “The Butcher’s Table”, Ballingrud’s beautifully crafted stories are riveting in their quietly terrifying depictions of the murky line between the known and the unknown.

Rescued by a mysterious monster who vows her sanctuary, Evanthia must piece back together the woman that Birsha tore apart. Quiet sanctuary is no cure for her endless hunger, but the war brewing on the horizon is the last place she wants to be. Hiding with sleeping dragons and lonely monsters in a castle made from dreams might be a fantasy, but it’s not enough to keep the nightmares at bay.

Once a Villain has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

With the successful conclusion of the monster subjugation campaign, Eizo returns home with a new addition to the family—Lidy! However, his days of battling beasts aren't quite over. During a chance encounter with Samya's childhood friend, Jolanda, the family learns of another corrupted bear that's stalking around the Black Forest. Jolanda also mentions a tantalizing rumor about a magical knife, which Rike and Eizo are eager to investigate. Could this be a new product to add to Forge Eizo's lineup?

Ryker Hayes is a licensed massage therapist, and a damn good one at that. It's a career he's passionate about, and all his plans for life are on track—until he winds up transported to the world of Werifesteria in the body of an infamous warlord, at least. Now all he really wants to do is forget the misdeeds of his alter ego and retire to a life of anonymity with a couple interesting women as his new partners. Together, they open the very first massage inn and spa in all the land, and take on all the responsibilities that come with it. Turns out, it's a lot of work!

In the Clandoms, everyone is born with wings, with tight-knit communities formed around bird types: Jay, Falcon, Crow. Ellie Meadows dreams of growing up to join the Goldwings - the famed knights who defend all the people of the Clandoms. It was a Goldwing, after all, who saved her life on that terrible day her parents were killed. There's just one problem: Ellie is a Sparrow, and the Goldwings are almost invariably picked from the higher clans like Eagles and Ospreys. This rigid hierarchy means that Ellie is destined to become a farmer.

Roland Nair calls himself Scandinavian but travels on a U.S. passport. After ten years' absence, he returns to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to reunite with his friend Michael Adriko. They once made a lot of money here during the country's civil war, and, curious to see whether good luck will strike twice in the same place, Nair has allowed himself to be drawn back to a region he considers hopeless.

Three standalone monster-girl mono-romances for men, collected in one volume!

Thomas Ward is the apprentice for the local Spook, who captures witches and drives away ghosts. As the weather gets colder and the nights draw in, the Spook receives an unexpected visitor. Tom doesn't know who the stranger is or what he wants, but the Spook suddenly decides it's time to travel to his winter house, Anglezarke. Tom has heard it will be a bleak, forbidding place, and that menacing creatures are starting to stir somewhere on the moors nearby.

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.

In the Clandoms, everyone is born with wings, though not all the clans are treated equally. Ellie Meadows longed to become a Goldwing—the knights who protect the people -- but because she came from the humble Sparrow Clan, her dream faced almost insurmountable resistance. Nox Hatcher has it even worse. Nox is a Crow, a shattered clan. They can't own businesses or run organizations, all due to a mistake made hundreds of years ago. Nox has had to steal and scrape just to survive, but a single goal has kept him going, even when it felt like all the Clandoms were against him.

Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies. But this one is unique even by Detroit's standards: half boy, half deer, somehow fused together. As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, how can the city hold on to a reality that is already tearing at its seams? If you're Detective Versado's geeky teenage daughter, Layla, you commence a dangerous flirtation with a potential predator online. If you're desperate freelance journalist Jonno, you do whatever it takes to get the exclusive on a horrific story.

In the Clandoms, every person is born with wings, along with the ability to fly. But there has always been one deadly restriction to this gift—a rule that must never be broken. Flying in cloudy skies summons gargols, vicious stone monsters that will tear any poor trespassers apart. History doesn't tell where the gargols came from, or why they're so intent on punishing those who soar too high. But now Ellie Meadows thinks she knows why. An aspiring knight turned wanted fugitive, Ellie has seen the truth with her own eyes.

When my grandfather, a shipping tycoon, went missing, I quickly discovered that there are some problems that money can't solve. And this frightening situation was one of them. I didn't think things could possibly get worse, but then I woke up. To a monster standing over me. With his hand covering my mouth. My reluctant captor, Viktor, with his clipped Russian accent and scary looking guns, operates with military precision. Don't even get me started on his rules. As he drags me across the globe, we are plunged into a dark world that is filled with danger and violence.

Harper Hollingsworth wasn't looking for a friend. She wanted peace and quiet. Someplace to lose herself in a book and not think about being a misfit; not think about her coven or her disconnect from the craft as her mother taught it. She didn't want to think about her lack of magical ambition, as she was regularly told by her mother's poison-tongued familiar, and more than that—she didn't want to feel. Anything.

A collection of the first three audiobooks in the New York Times bestselling The Last Kids on Earth series. The perfect gift for hours of entertainment and nonstop action and laughs!

After school, a young boy is walking home when he hears whispers behind him. He turns, but no one is there. It happens again and again. There's something alive inside his backpack! Is it a ghost? A monster?

On a stormy night, a young boy takes his dog for a walk. His ever-curious pup digs up a bone at the cemetery...and now the bone's owner wants it back!

After spending the vast majority of my life lonely, I came to this town to find answers about my mother, and instead, stumbled upon a secret society full of monsters I never knew existed outside of dark tales. Now I've built a sanctuary, gotten in the middle of an ages-old feud between various monster factions, and somehow ended up with an ancient, queen-like tyrant targeting me, because my life sucks sometimes. For now, hoping for the best is all I have. Well, I guess that's a lie too. Hope's not all I have.

With Ravenheart defeated and his regal duties done, Josh and his lovely misfits return to their idyllic home nestled in the shadows of the Hangsane. Will they hang up their weapons, end their monster-hunting days, and settle down for a cozy slice of farming life like so many heroes? Absolutely not!