Charla Rae Denny was the perfect wife with a perfect life, content to keep the home fires burning while her husband, JB, competed as a champion bull rider. Then their son died in a tragic accident-and everything fell apart. Divorced and saddled with a hill of bills and a failing ranch, Charla must now cowboy up to put her life back together. James "JB" Denny doesn't stay where he isn't welcome. So when Charla shut him out of her grieving heart-and their home-a year ago, he took comfort where he could find it.

Five years after a pneumonic plague killed two-thirds of the world’s population, army veteran Marcus Battle is isolated. He’s alone with his guns, his food, and the graves of his wife and child. If anyone steps onto his property he shoots first and never ask questions. But when a woman in distress, chased by marauders, seeks asylum, Marcus has a decision to make.

Fifty years ago, Sam Moore's little brother, Billy, vanished without a trace - leaving Sam with guilt that haunts him to this day. Fifty years with no body, no leads, and no answers. Until now. When Sam unearths a mysterious green marble buried in his garden, he's shocked to find himself transported back in time - to Billy.

Carly Beauchamp has loved cowboy Austin Davis since first grade. Ask anyone in their dusty, backwater New Mexico town of Unforgiven, and they'll say "Carly and Austin" the way some say "big trucks and country boys." But after years of waiting for a wedding ring, Carly's done with being a rodeo widow. Austin never meant to put his career on the circuit before Carly. She's always been his future, his one and only. But now that she's moved on, he's beginning to see where he went wrong, and he'll do anything to win her back.

What happens when danger and love collide under a Navajo moon? The search for a woman who disappeared in 1906 has lead cultural anthropologist Erin Dawson to Cedar Canyon, where the iconic terrain of red rock walls and mesas keep Navajo traditions - and maybe criminal evidence - well hidden. When Erin's search leads her to cross paths with tribal policeman Adam Silverhorn, it's hardly love at first sight. But everywhere she turns, Adam is already there.

Life in the small southern town of Sutter's Cross is comfortable and predictible until the homeless man shows up. Disheveled and bruised, he seems to have no past. But almost immediatly, the town is touched by his quiet presence. Who is this stranger? Sutter's Cross, a Main Selection of the Crossings Book Club, sheds new light on the nature of God's guidance.

I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: Secret Histories is the second collection of action-packed novellas from Pittacus Lore. Initially published separately as digital originals, these three stories are now together in one volume.

Josiah Foxglove is given a second chance when he takes over his family's spread in the shadow of the Snowy Range. A veteran of the Gulf War, he came back broken in body and spirit. Marcus Colton buried his long-time lover and best friend three years ago. Lonely and still grieving, Marcus finds solace in protecting Petilune, a pretty girl with learning difficulties, who will surely become a victim of abuse and neglect without his help. But that doesn't help him get through the long, dark nights.

Violet Jacobs is fearless. At least, that's what the cowboys she snatches from under the hooves of bucking horses think. Outside the ring, she's got plenty of worries rattling her bones: her young son, her mess of a love life, and lately, her family's struggling rodeo. When she takes business into her own hands and hires on a hotshot bullfighter, she expects to start a ruckus. She never expected Joe Cassidy. Joe came to Texas to escape a life spiraling out of control. He never planned on sticking around.

Anxiety rules Annemarie Zimmer's days - the fear that her relationship with the man she loves is growing stagnant; the fear that equestrian daughter Eva's dreams of Olympic glory will carry her far away from her mother . . . and into harm's way. For five months, Annemarie has struggled to make peace with her past. But if she cannot let go, the personal battles she has won and the heights she has achieved will have all been for naught.

Elizabeth was a young widow with two small children when she met Congressman Richard Baker. Handsome and wealthy, with a sparkling public image, Richard seemed like the perfect man to provide the security that Beth and her kids were craving. But when she uncovers a dangerous secret about her new husband, Beth realizes he will go to any lengths - even murder - to keep it. After barely escaping with her life, she and her children flee.

The Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf Coast States of the United States have been decimated in a germ-warfare attack. Air Force One is down; infrastructure has failed; and enemies of the United States are after the president. Ella Strong and a group of survivors are thrust into a chaotic world of compromised infrastructure and unforeseen complications. They will have to fight traitorous villains, even those who have sworn their allegiance to protect the president.

Brynn honors her passion for horses by studying at the toughest veterinary program in the country. Months from graduating, tragedy strikes - tragedy for which she can't help but feel responsible. Brynn feels suffocated by the weight of her father's legacy and his dusty hopes for horse show jumping success. When Brynn's frenetic efforts to dig the family business out of debt fail, she's down to one desperate hope.

Acclaimed author Jim Lynch sets Border Songs along a 30-mile strip of Washington state and British Columbia. When severely dyslexic Brandon Vanderkool is forced to join the Border Patrol, he learns the border is a haven for illegal drug smugglers and other criminals. Meanwhile, disease has struck his father's herd, and his mother is battling something even more debilitating. Each will have to fight for hope in a world changing too fast.

It’s the largest oil spill in history: a crashed supertanker in San Francisco Bay. Desperate to avert environmental damage—and a PR disaster—the multinational oil company releases an untested “designer microbe” to break up the spill. It's an “oil-eating” microbe, designed to consume anything made of petrocarbons: oil, gasoline, synthetic fabrics, and of course plastic. What the company doesn’t realize is that their microbe propagates through the air....

Charla Rae Denny was the perfect wife with a perfect life, content to keep the home fires burning while her husband, JB, competed as a champion bull rider. Then their son died in a tragic accident-and everything fell apart. Divorced and saddled with a hill of bills and a failing ranch, Charla must now cowboy up to put her life back together. James "JB" Denny doesn't stay where he isn't welcome. So when Charla shut him out of her grieving heart-and their home-a year ago, he took comfort where he could find it.

As a world-class equestrian and Olympic contender, Annemarie Zimmer lived for the thrill of flight atop a strong, graceful animal. Then, at 18, a tragic accident destroyed her riding career and Harry, the beautiful horse she cherished. Now, 20 years later, Annemarie is coming home to her dying father’s New Hampshire horse farm. Jobless and abandoned, she is bringing her troubled teenage daughter to this place of pain and memory, where ghosts of an unresolved youth still haunt the fields and stables.

Clare Fergusson, St. Alban's new priest, fits like a square peg in the conservative Episcopal parish at Miller's Kill, New York. She is not just a "lady"; she's a tough ex-Army chopper pilot, and nobody's fool. Then a newborn infant left at the church door brings her together with the town's police chief, Russ Van Alstyne, who's also ex-Army and a cynical good shepherd for the stray sheep of his hometown.

Ben McKelvie believes he's moving up in the world when he and his fiancée buy a house in the cushy Washington, DC, suburb of Barcroft. Instead he's moving down - way down - thanks to Madeleine Roux, the crazy neighbor whose vermin-infested property is a permanent eyesore and looming hazard to public health. First Ben's fiancée leaves him; then his dog dies, apparently killed by a predator drawn into Barcroft by Madeleine's noxious menagerie. But the worst is yet to come for Ben.

When her reckless driving brought unimaginable tragedy, Maggie Roberts found herself in prison grieving for the loss of her son. During the course of her 10-year sentence, she found a renewed purpose working with retired Thoroughbred racehorses. But now she's faced with the transition back into society, starting over yet again and alone in the world - until she meets Gil Winters.

In Emmy Laybourne’s action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the world - as they know it - apart.

One ranch. Three sons. Only one will inherit...and on one condition. Tired of waiting for his sons to settle down, Arizona-territory rancher Angus McKettrick announces a competition: the first son to marry and produce a grandchild will inherit Triple M ranch. Now, three distinctly different, equally determined cowboys are searching high and low for brides.

Benjamin Benjamin has lost virtually everything - his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. With few options, Ben enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving taught in the basement of a local church. There Ben is instructed in the art of inserting catheters and avoiding liability and how to keep physical and emotional distance between client and provider. But when Ben is assigned to 19-year-old Trev, he discovers that the endless mnemonics and service plan checklists have done little to prepare him.

"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.

With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.