Adult

Bella and Kate. Kate and Bella. From childhood they were bosom friends --- Bella sensible and cautious, Kate gregarious and just a little dangerous. Yet, in spite of their intimacy, their trust is fragile. Men came into their lives, and things changed: a black seed was set in the heart of their relationship. Over decades, acts of both cruelty and love ferment until one shocking event tests them more than ever. Neither will escape unscathed.

Nathan Silverman’s idyllic childhood in Berlin is soon marred by increasing levels of bigotry against his family and the rest of the Jewish community. After his uncle is arrested on Kristallnacht, he leaves Germany for New York City with only his mother’s wedding ring to sell for survival. While attending an evening course at Columbia in 1942, Nathan notices a recruitment poster on a university wall and decides to enlist in the military and help fight the Nazi regime. The Allies are racing to develop a nuclear weapon before the Nazis, and a German theoretical physicist is hoping to defect. The physicist was a friend of his father's, and Nathan's mission is to return to Berlin via France and smuggle him out of Europe.

In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.” The linked stories in IF I SURVIVE YOU center on Trelawny as he struggles to carve out a place for himself amid financial disaster, racism and flat-out bad luck.

The web of love and lies is thicker than ever as we reunite with players spread across the board of Europe in this sequel to THE WIDOW QUEEN. Our heroes and enemies alike are beholden to the hands of fate. While Olav Tryggvason reclaims the throne of Norway and baptizes the land by blood, King Sven in Denmark is filled with rage at his once comrade. Not only does Olav threaten Sven’s hold on Norway, but his hold on his own wife --- the woman with two crowns, three sons and a heart long spoken for: Swietoslawa, the Bold One. Meanwhile, those Swietoslawa trusts most --- Astrid, her sister; Sigvald, her brother-in-law and head of the Jomsvikings; and even her own son, Olaf --- take shocking, selfish action with consequences that will reverberate for years to come.

On September 5, 1934, a young beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland’s Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso, neatly severed at the waist. The victim, dubbed “The Lady of the Lake,” was only the first of a butcher’s dozen. Over the next four years, 12 more bodies would be scattered across the city. Amid the growing uproar, Cleveland’s besieged mayor turned to his newly appointed director of public safety: Eliot Ness. Ness had come to Cleveland fresh from his headline-grabbing exploits in Chicago, where he and his band of “Untouchables” led the frontline assault on Al Capone’s bootlegging empire. Now he would confront a case that would redefine his storied career.

New York, 2061: The place called the Pleasure Academy is a living nightmare where abducted girls are trapped, trained for a life of abject service while their souls are slowly but surely destroyed. Dorian, a 13-year-old runaway, might never have made it out if not for her fellow inmate Mina, who’d hatched the escape plan. Unfortunately, they didn’t get away fast enough. Now Dorian is injured, terrified and wandering the streets of New York, and Mina lies dead near the waterfront while Lt. Eve Dallas looks over the scene. Mina’s expensive, elegant clothes and beauty products convince Dallas that she was being groomed, literally and figuratively, for sex trafficking --- and that whoever is investing in this high-overhead operation expects windfall profits.

Amsterdam, 1705. It is Thea Brandt's 18th birthday. Thea knows her birthday marks the day her mother, Marin, died in labor. Her family refuses to share the details of this story, just as they seem terrified to speak of “the miniaturist” --- a shadowy figure from their past who is possessed of uncanny abilities to capture that which is hidden. Thea’s Aunt Nella believes the solution to all of Thea's problems is to find her a husband who will guarantee her future. An unexpected invitation to Amsterdam's most exclusive ball seems like a golden opportunity. But when Thea finds on her doorstep a parcel containing a miniature figure of her secret lover, Walter, it becomes clear that someone out there has another fate in mind for the family.

A strange religious sect has arrived in Bad Axe County, Wisconsin. Armed with guns, an enigmatic spiritual leader and his followers set up their compound in an abandoned storage lot. It’s not long before rumors start to spread of sadistic rituals and a planned takeover of the local government. But when one of the followers is found dead in the river, that’s when full-on panic sets in. Sheriff Heidi Kick may not be a fan of the new group, but she is also dismayed by the hostile reaction of the Bad Axe community. With a murder investigation on her hands, the situation becomes more complicated when Sheriff Kick finds out that an ex-boyfriend from her youth is out on parole early and looking to hunt her down.

This superbly curated collection explores myth and fable, dark and light --- a heroic creature facing a dangerous demon; an earthly love facing the mossy decay of death. With tales of living ball gowns and timid monsters, of modern witches and multidimensional magic, these 24 stories will transport you from fantastical realms that push the limits of imagination to alternative realities mirroring much of our own. Discover bewitchment and wonder, the surreal and the chimerical, in a fantasy anthology representing a diverse array of accomplished talent from around the world…and perhaps beyond.

When the pandemic hits, Kristofer is forced to shutter his successful restaurant in Reykjavik, sending him into a spiral of uncertainty, even as his memory seems to be failing. But an uncanny bolt from the blue --- a message from Miko Nakamura, a woman whom he had known in the ’60s when they were students in London --- both inspires and rattles him, as he is drawn inexorably back into a love story that has marked him for life. Even as the pandemic upends his world, Kristofer finds himself pulled toward an answer to the mystery of Miko’s sudden departure decades before, compelling him to travel to London and Japan as the virus threatens to shut everything down.