Urban Short Stories

Oram's journey from average Joe to hero begins when he's transported into his favorite game. Lucky for him, he still has access to his Early Backer class, the Phylomancer, a mage class that learns spells and abilities by binding others to him. To become a master of the fantasy world of Aerda, Oram will need to embrace his role as a Phylomancer. Along the way, he will forge powerful bonds with his companions, a beautiful Elven Ranger, a fierce Priestess of the icy North, and a deadly and seductive Demon Assassin.

I thought I’d left my past behind for good. But when my older brother gets killed in a car accident, I’ve got to come back to take over his car-tuning business. But things are not like I remember. There’s something weird going on in Santo Domingo, something that seems connected to the city’s underground street racing scene. There’s the orange-haired mechanic at the tuning shop with the FOXGRRL license plate. There’s the strange black cat hanging around my house, and the dreams I’ve been having about a racer girl with cat ears and a tail.

The new book from Jimmy Barnes, the award-winning author of the number-one bestsellers Working Class Boy,Working Class Man and Killing Time From larger-than-life adventures to vivid and poignant tales of the imagination, Highways and Byways is a collection of stories taking readers on an...

The beachside town of Oyster Cove had everything a man could want—endless white sand beaches, plentiful summer activities, and of course, more beautiful women than you could shake a tail at. I came to Oyster Cove to enjoy a leisurely summer of surf and sun, but I find out pretty quickly that there’s more to this town than meets the eye. My next door neighbor has eyes that are very similar to a cat’s, and I could have sworn the gorgeous waitress at my favorite food spot has scales on her legs.

Long lost to the public in out-of-print pulp magazines, dusty Victorian anthologies, and the pages of now defunct newspapers, these vintage vampire stories have truly proved immortal. Resurrected now for the year 2011, this is a stunning collection of nineteenth-century vampire stories by heavyweights such as Sabine Baring-Gould and Bram Stoker. These rare stories are arranged in chronological order from 1846 to 1913 and are compiled by two of the world's leading vampire anthologists and experts.

Mysterious alien entities have emerged to enslave humanity. They draw their identities and their immense powers from the gods of ancient myth and legend. Only David Montague, billionaire inventor, stands in their way. With the ability to read auras, he’s amassed for himself wealth and power, but now his ability will be turned toward more noble ends: defending humanity.

Who would suspect that the same mind that created the most famous literary detective of all time also took on the eternally popular genre of vampires? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a contemporary of Bram Stoker, gave us some fascinating works of vampire fiction. From the bloodsucking plant in "The American's Tale" to the bloodsucking wife in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," he reveled in the horror created by creatures who survived on the blood of men and women.

Zombie, Indiana explores the impact of an invading zombie horde on a trio of Hoosier protagonists…each of whom have some dark secrets to keep. When the governor’s daughter mysteriously disappears on a field trip, IMPD Special Sergeant James Nolan, scholarship student Kesha Washington, and Governor Hank Burleson must all come together not only to find the governor’s daughter, but also to undertake a quest to redeem the very soul of the state itself…all while under constant attack from the living dead.

The guardians were created for protection, but they were used in the past to protect a power-hungry vampire. Made of stone, they're all impervious to harm, but their hearts can still be broken. All three books surround the same faction of gargoyles, but each highlights a different fated mate couple.

Whether they are undeniably heroes and heroines or bloodthirsty monsters (or something in between), the undead are a lively lot. This anthology offers some of the best short fiction ever written by the "blood sisters" who know them best: stories you can really sink your teeth into.

When I pitched a missing persons story set in a South London suburb, I expected my editor to beg me to bag us a front page exclusive. Instead, she banned me from investigating and threw in a thinly veiled threat on my career. But here’s the thing about being a damn good investigative journalist… sometimes you have to ignore your editor. Armed with my new canine partner, I headed into the woods unsure of what I’d find. What I definitely didn’t expect was a mysterious supernatural woman in stilettos, three overly eager tributes, and the kind of bite that doesn’t come from a mosquito.

Enter the Druidverse® and discover a world of magic, mythology, and urban fantasy! This set contains three short story collections and three novellas: Blood Scent (a prequel novella), Druid Blood (a prequel novella), Blood Circus (a short story collection), Blood Ties (a short story collection), Blood Bound (a short story collection), and Colin McCool Saves Christmas (a Christmas novella). The novellas primarily focus on everyone’s favorite down-on-his-luck druid, Colin McCool, while many of the short stories feature supporting characters.

The life of actor, choreographer, and musician Columbus Short has been punctuated with trauma that extends well beyond the plot lines of his previous role on the hit series Scandal. Short has lived many lives packed into one - from a family filled with turmoil to tumultuous love affairs and enough scandals of his own. But somewhere in the middle, Short’s realization that there has to be a better way comes into full view. 

What if the first war wasn’t fought on earth—but in heaven? While the world was being formed, before man took his first breath, a great rebellion fractured the harmony of heaven. Fallen by Z.K. Stone takes you beyond the veil of time, into the heart of a celestial conflict that forever changed the universe. Lucifer, once the most radiant of angels, dares to question the very throne of God. Pride becomes his weapon. Deception, his rallying cry. But in his fall from grace, he’s not alone.

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.

Archdruid Owen Kennedy and his sloth, Slomo, are off to see the world when Coriander, Herald Extraordinary of the First among the Fae, interrupts to ask for the tiny favor of solving a supernatural murder. That sets the pair off on a trail that leads from Granada, Spain, to London, England and then to Austin, Texas. Owen and Slomo will have to outwit an Irish goddess of wisdom, some nasty spriggans, and streak across the Kew Gardens to find the culprit. They're going to see the world after all - just not the way they thought.

The first three novels and the prequel novella in the Preternatural Chronicles: I'm Glad You're Dead, Dawn and Quartered, Shadow of a Doubt, and Deliverance.

A giant redneck in Fairyland, what could possibly go wrong? Everything. Absolutely everything. Monsters, Magic, & Mayhem collects four novella chronicling Bubba the Monster Hunter's trip through the lands of the Fae in search of his kidnapped sister.

Love, sex, death, family, friendship, betrayal, tenderness, brutality, sacrifice and revelation. This incendiary collection of stories from acclaimed writer Christos Tsiolkas, best-selling author of The Slap and Barracuda, takes you deep into worlds both strange and familiar, and introduces you to characters who will never let you go and situations that will haunt you forever.

Half vampire and half angel, Violet was abandoned amongst the humans in London as a baby. Suddenly discovering monstrous powers on her 21st birthday, she thinks she's the most dangerous creature to prowl the streets. She's wrong. When a snarky angel falls into her lap and her adopted sister disappears, she's forced into a new role: huntress.