“[A] rich and varied anthology…” —Publishers Weekly, Starred ReviewJanet Hutchings, Chris Grabenstein, Gary Phillips, and Hilary Davidson headline a new world tour anthology of 22 stories from the heartland of America to Italy, Japan, Mexico, Cuba, England, and more.Passport to Murder is published in conjunction with Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, held in 2017 in Toronto, Ontario. As with the convention itself, the anthology spreads a broad cano...

Welcome to Black Cat Weekly #29—another fine issue. We have a historical interview with Poul Anderson (originally published in 1976). As Darrell says, his old interviews fall “somewhere between oral history and paleontology.” They are always fascinating. I’ve always said Darrell is one of the best interviewers in the field.For this issue’s mysteries, we have an original tale by Robert Lopresti—Michael Bracken, between his writing and editing our quarterly mystery journal, ...

In this kind of life, killing you quickly is the last nice thing somebody might ever do for you. With everything to lose but time, a low-level pickup and delivery guy sees two options. Put the bloody mess back together, drop it into a nice leak-proof bag, and deliver it. Or make the choice even he couldn’t have anticipated.

From the world's #1 bestselling author: Can a little black dress help a New York magazine editor live out her wildest fantasies ... or will it be her downfall?Magazine editor Jane Avery spends her nights alone with Netflix and Oreos—until the Dress turns her loose. Suddenly she's surrendering to darkest desires, and New York City has become her erotic playground.BookShots—original, lightning-fast st...

The acclaimed author "assembles a stellar collection of twenty stories that create their own worlds in twenty pages or less" ( USA Today ).Tom Perrotta explains in his introduction that "all of [these stories] took me somewhere I didn't expect to go, and jolted me into that state of heightened awareness and emotional receptivity that's one of the great rewards of reading good fiction."In Nathan Englander s What We ...

An engaging, often hilarious coming-of-age novel of uncertainty and discovery oozing with early 90s nostalgia."Funny and unpredictable...(Charles) proves impressively adept at capturing the inchoate ache of adolescent longing."— Washington PostIt's 1992, and America is caught in the grip of major Angst. In Washington, D.C., George H. W. Bush is rattling the mother of all sabres at Saddam Hussein. In Seattle, Curt Kobain is h...

A book that will make you see yourself clearly for the first time. When Becky Randle's mother dies, she's whisked from her trailer park home to New York. There she meets Tom Kelly, the world's top designer, who presents Becky with an impossible offer: He'll design three dresses to transform the very average Becky into the most beautiful woman who ever lived. Soon Becky is remade as Rebecca - pure five-alarm hotness to the outside world and an awkward mess of cankles and split ends when she...

Puff piece reporter, Brandy Alexander, is determined to win the battle of self-improvement. She is eating better (or at least telling people she is), working out (if sparring with a guy who fishes doughnuts out of the gutter and eats them counts), and checking her impulsive behavior at the door. But it's hard to stay on track when her own therapist gives her up as a lost cause. What's even harder for Brandy is turning down someone in trouble. Enter Crystal, a young teenage runaway ...

Fifty remarkable short stories from a range of contemporary fiction authors including Junot Diaz, Amy Tan, Jamaica Kincaid, Jhumpa Lahiri, and more, selected from a survey of more than five hundred English professors, short story writers, and novelists.Contributors include Russell Banks, Donald Barthelme, Rick Bass, Richard Bausch, Charles Baxter, Amy Bloom, T.C. Boyle, Kevin Brockmeier, Robert Olen Butler, Sandra Cisneros, Peter Ho Davies, Janet Desaulniers, Junot...

Sometimes, it's just easier to think I'm not the freak. I'm just in an alien world. . .Being Charles James Stewart, Jr., AKA Charlie the Second, means never "fitting in." Tall, gangly and big-eared, he could be a poster boy for teenage geeks. An embarrassment to his parents (he's not too crazy about them, either), Charlie is a virtual untouchable at his high school, where humiliation is practically an extracurricular activity. Charlie has tried to fit in, but all o...

In the tradition of "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" by Alvin Schwartz, "They're Coming For You 4: Scary Stories that Scream to be Read... Forthwith" is a chilling collection of more than 50 short and shriveled scary stories sure to leave you screaming for more. Or just screaming. This macabre mix of howls, humor, and horror is a must have for anyone who loves to be scared. But take the warning seriously... This book is NOT for wimps!Listen to O. Penn-Coughin read his stories on...

Dan is not sure he'll survive the boring field trip to a remote heritage farm.How could a place with no running water, telephone or electricity be anything but dull? The farmer knows nothing about farming and seems angry about having to conduct the tour. And what's with his tattoo? The teacher requests a private word with the farmer and then mysteriously disappears. Dan decides to investigate and uncovers a deadly plan. But will he be able to get help in time to sa...