From the award-winning poet and playwright behind Barber Shop Chronicles, The Half-God of Rainfall is an epic story and a lyrical exploration of pride, power and female revenge. There is something about Demi. When this boy is angry, rain clouds gather. When he cries, rivers burst their banks and the first time he takes a shot on a basketball court, the deities of the land take note. His mother, Modupe, looks on with a mixture of pride and worry. From close encounters, she knows Gods often act like the same fragile egos, the same unpredictable fury and the same sense of entitlement to the bodies of mortals. She will sacrifice everything to protect her son, but she knows the Gods will one day tire of sports fans, their fickle allegiances and misdirected prayers. When that moment comes, it won’t matter how special he is. Only the women in Demi’s life, the mothers, daughters and Goddesses, will stand between him and a lightning bolt.

"Once upon a time there was and there wasn't a woman who went to the woods." In this ingenious horror story set in colonial New England, a woman goes missing. Or not missing–perhaps she has fled, abandoned her family. Or perhaps she's been kidnapped, and set loose to wander in the dense woods of the north. Alone and possibly lost, she meets another woman in the forest. Then everything changes. On a journey that will take her through a wolf-haunted wood, down a deep well, and onto a living ship made of human bones, our heroine is forced to confront her past and may find that the evil she flees has been inside her all along. Eerie and disturbing, In the House in the Dark of the Woods is a novel of psychological horror and suspense told in Laird Hunt's acclaimed lyrical prose style. It is the story of a bewitching, a betrayal, a master huntress and her quarry. It is a story of anger, of repression, of revenge and redemption. It is a story of a haunting, one that forms the bedrock of American mythology, told in a vivid voice you will never forget.

Dawn is breaking over the Guilleries, a rugged mountain range in Catalonia frequented by wolf hunters, brigands, deserters, race-car drivers, ghosts, and demons. In a remote farmhouse called Mas Clavell, an impossibly old woman lies on her deathbed. Family and caretakers drift in and out. Meanwhile, all the women who have lived and died in that house are waiting for her to join them. They are preparing to throw her a party. As day turns to night, four hundred years’ worth of stories unspool, and the house reverberates with raucous laughter, pungent feasts, and piercing cries of pleasure and pain. It all begins with Joana, Mas Clavell’s matriarch, who once longed for a husband―“a full man,” perhaps even “an heir with a patch of land and a roof over his head.” She summoned the devil to fulfill her wish and struck a deal: a man in exchange for her soul. But when, on her wedding day, Joana discovered that her husband was missing a toe (eaten by wolves), she exploited a loophole in her agreement, heedless of what consequences might follow.

A surgeon flees a scandal in the city and accepts a job at a village clinic. He buys antibiotics out of pocket, squashes roaches, and chafes at the interventions of the corrupt officer who oversees his work. But his outlook on life changes one night when a teacher, his pregnant wife, and their young son appear. Killed in a violent robbery, they tell the surgeon that they have been offered a second chance at living if the surgeon can mend their wounds before sunrise. So begins a night of quiet work, "as if the crickets had been bribed," during which the surgeon realizes his future is tied more closely to that of the dead family than he could have imagined. By dawn, he and his assistant have gained knowledge no mortal should have. In this inventive novel charged with philosophical gravity and sly humor, Vikram Paralkar takes on the practice of medicine in a time when the right to health care is frequently challenged. Engaging earthly injustice and imaginaries of the afterlife, he asks how we might navigate corrupt institutions to find a moral center. Encompassing social criticism and magically unreal drama, Night Theater is a first novel as satisfying for its existential inquiry as for its enthralling story of a skeptical physician who arrives at a greater understanding of life's miracles.

A mythic love story set in Trinidad and Tobago, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's radiant debut introduces two unforgettable outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead. You were never the smartest child, but even you should know that when a dead woman offers you a cigarette, the polite thing to do would be to take it. Especially when that dead woman is your mother. The St. Bernard women have lived in Morne Marie, the house on top of a hill outside Port Angeles, for generations. Built from the ashes of a plantation that enslaved their ancestors, it has come to shelter a lineage that is bonded by much more than blood. One woman in each generation of St. Bernards is responsible for the passage of the city's souls into the afterlife. But Yejide's relationship with her mother, Petronella, has always been contorted by anger and neglect, which Petronella stubbornly carries to her death bed, leaving Yejide unprepared to fulfill her destiny. Raised in the countryside by a devout Rastafarian mother, Darwin has always abided by the religious commandment not to interact with death. He has never been to a funeral, much less seen a dead body. But when his ailing mother can no longer work and the only job he can find is grave digging, he must betray the life she built for him in order to provide for them both. Newly shorn of his dreadlocks and his past and determined to prove himself, Darwin finds himself adrift in a city electric with possibility and danger. Yejide and Darwin will meet inside the gates of Fidelis, Port Angeles's largest and oldest cemetery, where the dead lie uneasy in their graves and a reckoning with fate beckons them both. A masterwork of lush imagination and immersive lyricism, When We Were Birds is a spellbinding novel about inheritance, loss, and love's seismic power to heal.

In Renaissance Italy, Bianca, a young lady from a good family, is of marriage age. Her parents find her a fiancé to their liking: Giovanni, a rich merchant, young and pleasant. The wedding looks set to go smoothly even though Bianca can’t hide her disappointment at having to marry a man she knows nothing about. But before the marriage, she learns the secret held and bequeathed by the women of her family for generations: a “man’s skin”! By donning it, Bianca becomes “Lorenzo” and enjoys all the attributes of a young man of stunning beauty. She can now visit the world of men incognito and get to know her fiancé in his natural environment. In her male skin, Bianca frees herself from the limits imposed on women and discovers love and sexuality. The moral of the Renaissance then acts as a mirror to that of our century and poses several questions: why should women have a different sexuality from that of men? Why should their pleasure and freedom be the object of contempt and coercion? Finally, how can morality be the instrument of both severe and unconscious domination? Tackling universal themes such as gender, sexuality, LGBTQ+, compassion, religion, and morality through a captivating and subtle fable, Hubert and Zanzim brilliantly question our relationship to gender and sexuality... but not only that. By mixing religion and sex, morality and humor, nobility and outspokenness, A Man’s Skin invites us both to the liberation of morals and to the mad and noble quest for love. This edition includes a lesson plan and discussion guide.

Set in the glittering art deco world of a century ago, MEM makes one slight alteration to history: a scientist in Montreal discovers a method allowing people to have their memories extracted from their minds, whole and complete. The Mems exist as mirror-images of their source ― zombie-like creatures destined to experience that singular memory over and over, until they expire in the cavernous Vault where they are kept. And then there is Dolores Extract #1, the first Mem capable of creating her own memories. An ageless beauty shrouded in mystery, she is allowed to live on her own, and create her own existence, until one day she is summoned back to the Vault.

A sweet tale starring a gigantic cat who's summoned to a fantasy world by a lonely, elderly witch. In her youth, Jeanne was a powerful witch who vanquished the evil Demon King and saved the world—but over time, the people she rescued have forgotten her. Now she is a lonely old woman living in a secluded forest...until she accidentally summons a cat from Earth to her home! The former city kitty is now gigantic and must acclimate to this new world. Can a cat from another world soothe the loneliness of the forgotten witch?

Hell's most incompetent demon meets Earth's most hopeless romantic. All Ethan wanted was someone who could help him find love—or at least someone to pop his cherry. A spell from an odd book he found at the library promised him a wish from Cupid. Sure, some of the ingredients weren't easy to get, but he could improvise. Was there really that much difference between dried laurel leaves and coriander? He never meant to summon a demon. Malphas hasn't been to Earth in a hundred years, not since he accidentally created a massively successful support group for gamblers and saved hundreds of souls from damnation. As punishment, he's stuck in Hell's archives filing dusty prophecies because his boss is convinced he's incapable of being properly evil. When Ethan's summoning yanks him topside, he sees his chance to prove himself. He'll make a deal with the human—and collect that blindingly bright soul. All he has to do is to help Ethan get together with his crush. What could possibly go wrong?Low angst, high comedy m/m romance. HEA guaranteed, no break-ups, no cheating.

One vampire. One case of mistaken identity. One very big problem. After running afoul of a supernatural law enforcement agency and in desperate need of assistance, Lucien Valcouron turns to the only other vampire in town—Raven Hartley. The only problem is, Raven isn’t a vampire at all. She’s a human. Nursing a vampire back to health isn’t high up on Raven’s bucket list, but when the infuriatingly suave Lucien turns up on her doorstep bleeding (figuratively, of course) that’s exactly what she finds herself doing. Sadly, the madness doesn’t end there. When the pair are accused of several gruesome murders, Raven and Lucien are forced to partner up and go on the run together in an attempt to solve the crimes and clear their names. Caught between hapless detectives, unhelpful family members, and an actual murderer, can Raven and Lucien unravel the mystery, prove their innocence, and do something about the growing attraction between them before time runs out?

Sylf Dawnwood has a plan. Get out of the assassination business. Grow her information ring in Yaventown, the royal capital. Stop dealing with two-bit gangsters and move into the upper echelons of high society. So when she’s shown the blueprints for the infamous Dark Mansion, a dangerous madhouse rife with untouched riches, the opportunity for gold and glory is too sweet for a free-agent like herself to ignore.There's just one small hitch in the Tomlyn Baker is the one holding the blueprints.All Tomlyn Baker wants to do is enjoy his life. Sure, he's not exactly thrilled to be slumming with Stitchers, a dangerous gang selling vices to those who can't afford it, but he's got nothing better going. That is, until the blueprints of the Dark Mansion fall into his hands. Wary of his gang boss, he turns to the only other person he can (sort of) the infamous Sylf Dawnwood.The gamble? She might kiss him. Or kill him. Or both.To pull off the most dangerous and legendary heist of the century, Sylf and Tomlyn will have to not only work together, but also navigate the magic bubbling between them. If they do manage to get out of the mansion alive, can they handle the city-changing consequences of what comes next?Break into a new epic, fantastical world full of dungeon crawl adventures, magic, intrigue, and equally touching and spicy romance that will steal your breath away with the first book of the Thieving Hearts series. The Heist of Yaventown is the first part of a "prequel" duology in the Thieving Hearts series.Thieving Hearts is a DnD-inspired high fantasy romance series, perfect for fans who liked the fantasy vibe of “Legends and Lattes” by Travis Baldree and the character driven heist hijinks of Leigh Bardugo’s “Six of Crows”, plus a guaranteed HEA (happily ever after).