Fantasy Realism

In the 12 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.

Jack Swift can tell you every element on the periodic table, recite Treasure Island verbatim, and would remember in perfect detail every word you'd ever say to him. He has been alone for a long time, so he has buried himself in books, using them to plan his escape. But no textbook could ever prepare him for the land of Keymark. At 3:33 a.m. on his 14th birthday, Jack is kidnapped by a hideous monster to another sphere of existence. Now there are two moons in the sky, and he is surrounded by grotesque creatures and magical warriors training for battle.

Charlie Rhodes’ life is in turmoil. Her relationship with her boyfriend Jack is going well but Casey, the newest member of the Legacy Foundation, has dropped a bombshell and Charlie feels as if things are spinning out of control. While waiting for DNA results to prove (or disprove, for that matter) Casey’s identity, the team gets called out on a weird case. It seems sadistic clowns with magical abilities are killing people in the suburbs surrounding Nashville, and the deaths are bloody and horrible.

Echo Brown is a wizard from the East Side, where apartments are small and parents suffer addictions to the white rocks. Yet there is magic...everywhere. New portals begin to open when Echo transfers to the rich school on the West Side, and an insightful teacher becomes a pivotal mentor. Each day, Echo travels between two worlds, leaving her brothers, her friends, and a piece of herself behind on the East Side. There are dangers to leaving behind the place that made you.

Don't miss this witchy series if you like humor, heart, and a strong heroine with a slow burn, enemies to lovers, fade-to-black romance.

Jolie Lam, a high school sophomore in San Jose, is known for two things: her bizarre freakout at last year’s swim meet and her fortuneteller grandfather with visions of dragons and earthquakes. Friendless and ostracized, Jolie's life takes a dramatic turn for the better when she saves the school's it-girl, Huong Pham, during a haunting vision of her own. Taken under Huong's wing, Jolie's world transforms, in more ways than one.

Forced to become an Honourbound soldier in the Everlasting King's army, Huon struggles to do what is right when his actions are completely out of his control. He attained Knighthood, and is the strongest he's ever been, but his advancement means nothing while oathbound.

The fate of the world hangs on my heart. The planet of Varr has been at war for centuries. A mage known as the Corrupter magically enslaves humans and uses them as his soldiers against the immortal races. As a human, I should be mortal, magicless, and susceptible to the Corrupter's Death Magic. I am none of those things. I was born with magic, making me immune to corruption, and I recently discovered that I'm also immortal. I was also born with a destiny. I'm supposed to unite and empower Wraith Lords—the magical warriors blessed by the Goddess to fight the Corrupter. You wouldn't think ...

On Tommy Llewellyn’s first birthday, his doting parents awoke in a home without baby blankets and bottles in the fridge, without the photos of their newborn once scattered about, and without any idea that the one-year-old sleeping in their home was their child. That’s because Tommy Llewellyn is a boy who, in the very cosmic sense of things, will never be remembered—stuck in a universal Reset that causes everyone to forget he exists when the clock strikes midnight on his birthday each year.

Listening to John Crowley's stories is to see almost-familiar lives running parallel to our own, secret histories that never quite happened, memories that might be real or might be invented. In the 13 stories collected here, Crowley sets his imagination free to roam from a 20th-century Shakespeare festival to spring break at a future Yale in his Edgar Award-winning story "Spring Break". And in the previously unpublished "Anosognosia", the world brought about by one John C.'s high-school accident may or may not exist.

The second sun has returned as our Bone Throwers foresaw—casting the nine realms into war. My name is Ash, and I fell in the battle for Baiseen. But I'm awake now, slowly putting the pieces back together. My Heir has lost his throne. My sailor is gone. And there is an emptiness inside me I can't explain. Amid the chaos, someone must collect the original twelve whistle bones from all corners of the world.

When your mother disappears without a trace, it carves a gash that bleeds a long time. Jordan has never given up hope that her mother is alive. So when Jordan's old nanny shows up with a mysterious locket containing a portrait of Jordan's mother, Jordan believes her hope was not in vain. When the locket opens a portal to an alternate universe and a stranger hurtles through to Earth, it's not her first clue that something very strange is at play.

A startlingly remarkable novel set in 1984 where a group of teenagers begin to discover powerful secrets about themselves, and learn that the only way to create their own future is to break away from previous generations.They call it the plague. A generation of children born with extreme genetic mutations. They call it a home. But it's a place of neglect and forced labor. They call him a freak. But Dog is just a boy who wants to be treated as normal. They call them dangerous. They might be right.

The Death Gate is down and Izzy Sage is at a crossroads. What will happen when they throw the switch and bring it back? She’s all atwitter on the big day...and then things only get more twisted when Zoe Lake-Winters, a powerful mage, walks through the door with her husband and daughter in tow. Two very different worlds are colliding, and Izzy and Zoe are at the center of it. The mystery of the other side is dark and deep and Zoe finds she’s intrigued...even if her methods are a bit extreme for the Grimlocks.

When you’re caught between a warlock’s heart and a vampire’s desires, being Queen of the Underworld is the least of your problems... My life has been one supernatural complication after another. From discovering I’m the Queen of the Underworld to wrestling with my feelings for Rand, the warlock I’m bonded to from another time, I’ve had my hands full. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of my royal responsibilities at Kinloch Kirk, my Scottish manor on the edge of the world, everything spirals into chaos. Rand is distant, constantly analyzing our relationship rather than ...

Sam Green thinks her life is pretty normal. Almost. She does have a strange affinity for animals, weird dreams, and a mysterious staff in her closet. But Sam’s calm life is shattered when a dragon poisons her father and the mother of her best friend Jake. She is further shocked when a shapeshifting giant cat and powerful faerie ask her to fulfill a prophecy.

"We'd had to be cut free of our mother's womb. Abby and I were fused, you see. But here's the real kicker; Abby had the magic, I didn't." Now adults, Makeda and Abby still share their childhood home. The surgery to separate the two girls left Makeda with what feels like an even worse deformity: no mojo. The daughters of a celestial demigod and a human woman, Makeda and Abby were raised by their magical father. Today, Makeda has decided it's high time to move out and make her own life.

Briony has a secret. She believes her secret killed her stepmother, destroyed her twin sister’s mind, and threatens all the children in the Swampsea. She yearns to be rid of her terrible secret, but risks being hanged if she tells a soul. That’s what happens to witches: They’re hanged by the neck until dead.Then Eldric arrives - Eldric with his golden mane and lion eyes and electric energy - and he refuses to believe anything dark about Briony. But he wonders what’s been buried beneath her self-hatred, hidden in Rose’s mangled thoughts, and whispered about by the Old Ones.

In 17th-century England, civil war rages and witches have become pawns in a plot to oust the king. Red-haired Evey does not want to be a witch, but she cannot deny the magick coursing through her veins. In a country seething with civil war, superstition, dread and dark forces are at work. A storm is coming. After witnessing the brutal murder of her mother by witch-hunters, Evey vows to avenge her and track down her killers. Fury burns in her bright and strong. But she has promised her mother that she will keep Dill, her little sister, safe.

A girl who dances in a forbidden realm. A boy who dares to follow. Muriel has always dreamed of joining the legendary Westhaven Dance Company, and when she’s finally chosen, it feels like a fairy tale come true. She enters a world beneath the stage—a realm of moonlight and magic, where music drifts from unseen instruments and the dancing never stops. The enchantment is beautiful… but not without its cost. As the days blur and exhaustion deepens, Muriel begins to wonder what lies behind the glamour—and why none of the other girls will talk about it. Owen, a kind-hearted but awkward ...