Dark Humor Satire

With biting wit, Aurora Stewart de Peña satirizes the creative industry she’s spent years in. From the people who brought you the invention of advertising comes Julius Julius, a rambling architectural wonder, outpost of the very first ad man of ancient Pompeii, built on the backs of generations of creative survivors who just want to lie on the floor of a conference room and cry about the lumber account without being sexually harassed.

In this hilarious novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet, a honeymooning couple makes friends with a marine biologist who discovers genuine mermaids in a coral reef - and who, the next night, apparently drowns in her hotel bathtub. As a resort chain swoops in to corner the market on mermaids, the newlyweds (opinionated, skeptical narrator Deb and handsome online gamer Chip, the world's friendliest man) join forces with other vacationers.

A bag of money drops out of the sky, literally, into the path of a cash-starved citizen named Graveyard. He carries it home to his wife, Ambience, and they embark on the adventure of their lives, finally able to have everything they've always thought they deserved: cars, guns, games, jewels, clothes - and of course sex, travel, and time with friends and family. There is no limit except their imagination and the hours in the day, and even those seem to be subject to their control. Of course, the owner of the bag is searching for it, and will do whatever is necessary to get it back.

Enter the wonderfully weird, always uncomfortable, side-splittingly funny world of The Terrifying Realm of the Possible, where your worst fears of who you are or might become are always just around the corner. In these masterful short stories from the singular mind of the actor and comedian Brett Gelman, you’ll meet five individuals, each navigating a uniquely strange stage of life.

Rachel Klein is sacked from her job at the White House after she sends an email criticizing Donald Trump. As she is escorted off the premises, she is hit by a speeding car, driven by what the press will discreetly call "a personal friend of the president". Does that explain the flowers, the get-well wishes at a press briefing, the hush money offered by a lawyer at her hospital bedside? Rachel’s recovery is soothed by comically doting parents, matchmaking roommates, a new job as aide to a journalist whose books aim to defame the president, and unexpected love at the local wine store.

A Haunted Fixer Upper Claims a Victim The Home Channel's latest sensation, "Flipping Haunted Houses," promises to unveil the hidden secrets of long-forgotten dwellings. However, when one house takes exception to its mysteries being laid bare, a young woman's lifeless body is discovered on the premises. Despite the police ruling her death as natural causes, the circumstances surrounding her sudden heart attack raise suspicions of a more sinister origin, possibly the result of sheer terror. As Ivy and Everette are called in to investigate, they soon find themselves targeted by a menacing ...

It's the end of the 80s, and Rachael O'Brien's last year of college, but before classes begin, her grandmother's stately home is burgled, and a rare book of prophecies is defaced with a menacing message threatening the family.

Every year, on the anniversary of the death of 1980s prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the elderly residents of State Retirement Home SY-379 hold a festival of celebration. Balloons and bunting go up, raucous punk music is played, memories are relived by those who still have all their faculties, and a good time is had by all. With the 30th anniversary of Thatcher’s death coming up in just a few weeks, Colin Baxter decides to make this year’s Thatcher Day something to be remembered. He contacts octogenarian punk band Sick Bastard and books them to play live at the retirement home, promising to pay them in free beer.

Cara Foster is, one might say, eco-anxious—perhaps even eco-neurotic. She eats out of dumpsters—not because she wants to but because it’s the right thing to do—does laundry as seldom as possible, takes navy showers every couple of days, and is reevaluating her boyfriend for killing a spider. Then, during a mimosa-soaked Sunday brunch, she meets her boyfriend’s alluring mother, Millie. As they begin spending time together, getting pedicures and drinking martinis, Cara becomes hooked on Millie and this new freedom from the harsh realities of life in the twenty-first century.

The Cooks didn't care much for the cats swarming in from the abandoned sections of used-up coal refineries, invading their little slice of paradise with multitudes of nightmarish felines with strange glowing green eyes. What do these strays want? And why won't they go away? The Cooks will learn that some cats just want to watch the world burn.

Who Offed Santa? Someone's been naughty and taken out Santa, but the gals at The Lucky Dill Deli aren't standing for it. Josie is the owner and her two long time friends, Verny and Cookie, work alongside her. Their little New England town is ripe with charm, but when Santa is discovered dead at the Winter Wonderland festival, everyone's on high alert.Enter Abel and Gideon, the new detective in town and the more seasoned one, respectively. Gideon worked on the force with Josie's dad, who died in service to his community. While Gideon would prefer the girls let the police handle the action, ...

Dr. Frederick Eichner, world-renowned dermatologist, is visited by the entrancingly irritating Felix Treevly who comes to him as a patient and stays as an obsession. Prosaic incidents blossom into bizarre developments with the sharpened reality of dreams as the spectral Mr. Treevly leads the doctor into a series of increasingly weird situations. With the assistance of a drunken private detective, a mad judge, a car crash, a game show called What’s My Disease, and a hashish party, Treevly drives Eichner to madness and mayhem.

Beautiful, innocent, and generous to a fault, young Candy is thrust into an outrageous world of debauched lechers and dirty old men. Can she close the gap between people by giving fully and satisfying their sizeable needs? Come with Candy on her hilarious misadventures in this raunchy, irreverent, and wildly funny satire of pornography.

Let's be real: customer service sucks. Being sandwiched between needy customers and incompetent leadership at a greedy corporation sets an impossible expectation. It's Tony's job to "reset the customer experience" with no tools other than his customer-oriented attitude and expression of the company's hip and trendy culture.

Ferdinand Mount’s stinging satire plunges into the dubious world of London PR firms, the back rooms of Westminster and the campaign trail in Africa and America. We follow the hapless Dickie Pentecost, redundant diplomatic correspondent for a foundering national newspaper, together with his stern oncologist wife, Jane, and their daughters, Flo, an aspiring ballerina, and the quizzical teenager Lucy.

Meet Rowena Halley, a former human rights activist turned academic. Rowena thought teaching on US college campuses would be a lot safer than interviewing torture victims in Russia. Boy, was she wrong. Rowena quickly gets caught up in campus intrigue that threatens to turn deadly. Meanwhile, the life and lover she thought she’d left behind in Moscow might not be so firmly back in the past as she’d believed.

When hordes of people descend on the picturesque village of Nasely for the annual celebration of its most famous resident, murder mystery writer Agnes Crabbe, events take a dark turn as the festival opens with a shocking death. Each year the residents are outnumbered by crowds dressed as Crabbe’s lady detective, Millicent Cutter. The weekend is never a mild-mannered affair as fan club rivalries bubble below the surface, but tensions reach new heights when a second Crabbe devotee is found murdered. Though the police are quick to arrive on the scene, the facts are tricky to ascertain as the witnesses, suspects and victim are all dressed as Miss Cutter.

Miles Platting is pulled from the ruins of a shipwreck into a world in which no one will speak to him. The founder of Lingua Franca - a naming-rights agency committed to renaming every UK town after a corporate sponsor - Miles recounts the story of his quest for linguistic supremacy to anyone who'll listen. Confined to his hospital bed in a deathly quiet ward, Miles seeks to find his colleagues and reunite with his true love. But in doing so, Miles must confront his deepest held convictions and consider what's in a name in a world where the spoken word has been replaced with silence.

If Asher Hearst had a superpower, it would have to be his ability to take a punch, laugh it off, and keep on swinging. So yeah, immortality comes with a few perks. As a college student slash small-time fixer, he's about to take a job that's best left to the pros. A proposition by a dryad to save witches from the Inquisition is a first, but he isn't one to balk when the odds are stacked against him. Especially not while he's drinking on someone else's dime.

Archer is a semi-celebrated novelist and sex-toy heir. His best friend, John, is as earnest as Archer is feckless. John's girlfriend, Sara, envies Archer's writing career. And Sara's roommate, Lucas, wishes he'd never lost his girlfriend to the man. Money, friendship, and resentment unspool in the conversations we have as we're coming of age and coming to grips.