Monster Fiction

Despite all of the odds, Joan achieved the impossible. She reset the timeline, saved her family – and destroyed the hero, Nick. But her success has come at a terrible cost. She alone remembers what happened. Now, Aaron, her hard-won friend – and maybe more – is an enemy, trying to kill her. And Nick, the boy she loved, is a stranger who doesn’t even know her name. Only Joan remembers that a greater and more dangerous enemy is still out there. When a deadly attack forces Joan back into the monster world, she finds herself on the run with Nick – as Aaron closes in.

After lots of toil, a hefty amount of peril, and a sizable dose of luck, Jason has gotten the Eldritch Ranch up and running—thriving, even. He has turned barren wasteland into lush orchards, and young forests, and expansive waterways and filled them with all manner of legendary beasts. He looks to the Crystal Mountains, where he seeks to seed with legendary beasts and restore magic to the land. But before he can do that, he must contend with sinister monsters and the nefarious villains known only as the Puppeteer’s Guild.

Palahniuk’s fashion-model protagonist has it all - boyfriend, career, loyal best friend - until an accident destroys her face, her ability to speak, and her self-esteem. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a bona fide woman.

When Mike Radley's magical home grew another floor, he thought he knew what to expect. He didn't expect a kingdom of portal-chewing rats to be living between his walls. He really didn't expect to discover that the wardrobe down the hall was a prison world for a murderous kitsune. And he definitely didn't expect all of his enemies to converge on his house all at once, intent on his destruction. Welcome to Radley's Wardrobe. Expect the Unexpected.

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.

Three brutal monsters came to my rescue. Now who's going to save me from them? Every beat of my heart is the tick of a time bomb, reminding me to squeeze as many thrills out of life as I can. Still, the last thing I expect is a horde of nightmarish monsters descending on me in the night, eager to tear me apart. So when three more demonic figures leap out of the shadows to defend me, my choices are trust my unexpected champions...or die. Not exactly a tough decision.

Meka is used to death. After all, it's the family business. As a newly certified mortician’s assistant at her parents’ funeral home, her days are not for the faint of heart. Luckily her boyfriend Noah isn’t squeamish, and Meka is finally feeling ready to say the three little words that will change everything. But then tragedy strikes, and Meka’s world is torn apart. Nothing makes sense, especially the strange things start happening. Ravens are circling her home. Strangers are following her. Someone is leaving mysterious items at her door. And worst of all . . .

Ignazio Vitale is not a good man. I suspect it the first time I see him, sense the air of danger that surrounds him. He has a way of commanding attention, of taking control, of knowing what I'm thinking before I even do.

With New Orleans out of control, Chad Oliver Gardenier, one of Monster Hunter International's premier hunters, has been dispatched from Seattle to reinforce the beleaguered members of MHI'S Hoodoo Squad in their fight against the darkness.

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.

Beast. Creature. Monster. Dangerous. All of these things have been said about Gren. Willa doesn't believe it, though. She knows that monsters can sometimes come in appealing packages. She knows that for all of his snarls and fearsome appearance, he'd never hurt her. And she knows she has to get Gren away from the Icehome camp, because no one will ever see him as a person, not when he attacks all who come close. Not when he's tied and treated like an animal.

In the twelve unforgettable tales of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, the strange is made familiar and the familiar strange, such that a girl growing wings on her legs feels like an ordinary rite of passage, while a bug-infested house becomes an impossible, Kafkaesque nightmare. Each story builds a new world all its own: a group of children steal a haunted doll, a runaway bride encounters a sea monster, a vendor sells toy boxes that seemingly control the passage of time, an insomniac is seduced by the Sandman.

It’s the summer of 1969, and the shock of conflict reverberates through the youth of America, both at home and abroad. As a student at a quiet college campus in the heartland of Indiana, Terry Ives couldn’t be farther from the front lines of Vietnam or the incendiary protests in Washington. But the world is changing, and Terry isn’t content to watch from the sidelines. When word gets around about an important government experiment in the small town of Hawkins, she signs on as a test subject for the project, code named MKULTRA.

Recon Marine Conor McCall didn’t expect action during his training op in the icy waters off Norway. But when a bizarre summer fog engulfs his boat, he and his team find themselves in a fight against strange, cruel monsters from the depths of the North Sea. When even their allies are enemies, the Recon Marines must do what they have always done: adapt or die. But with a world of ice and monsters seeking to destroy them, every second is mission-critical.

Monsters Unleashed - where you catch virtual-reality monsters on your cellphone - is one of the hottest mobile games around, and Bex and Charlie just can't stop playing. They even check out an old map in Charlie's grandfather's attic in hopes of discovering some forgotten places in town where the rarest monsters might hide. But they find a strange machine up there, too, and after Charlie switches it on, the wifi goes down...and Bex's entire catalog of monsters vanishes!

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?

Daisy sees dead people—something impossible to forget in bustling, ghost-packed Toronto. She usually manages to deal with her unwanted ability, but she’s completely unprepared to be dumped by her boyfriend. So when her mother inherits a secluded mansion in northern Ontario where she spent her childhood summers, Daisy jumps at the chance to escape. But the house is nothing like Daisy expects, and she begins to realize that her experience with the supernatural might be no match for her mother’s secrets, nor what lurks within these walls…

1798, France. Nuns move along the dark corridors of a Versailles hospital where the young Sister Perpetué has been tasked with sitting with the patient who must always be watched. The man, gaunt, with his sallow skin and distended belly, is dying: they say he ate a golden fork, and that it’s killing him from the inside. But that’s not all—he is rumored to have done monstrous things in his attempts to sate an insatiable appetite…an appetite they say tortures him still.

Keith once again finds himself facing impossible odds as he goes up against the most terrifying force in the Frigid Seas. The Primordial's presence threatens the very existence of the System's rule and stands in his path to the final continent of Monstros. Even with the fourth World Monster dead, there's still more to do. Allies to gather, elixirs to craft and monsters to hunt. Especially if Keith wants to launch a successful raid into the uncharted lands of the most dangerous and inhospitable continent in the world of Raiah.

Something is wrong at the Sea. The weeping tide, a carnivorous algae bloom, is eating up all the fish. Beasts are terrorizing the nearby Elsewheres. And Lochmordra, the Legendary Beast, is rising at random and swallowing ships whole. Barclay’s teacher, the famous Guardian Keeper Runa Rasgar, has been summoned to investigate, and as her apprentice, Barclay gets to join too. But Runa’s nemesis has also been called to the Sea, and he’s brought apprentices of his own. When the not-so-friendly competition between them grows fierce, it’s Barclay who can’t seem to keep up.