The Candle Wench
Reading Time: 17 minutesOverworked and underpaid, a candle wench finds strange comfort in the warmth of the wax
Fantasy
When Shadows Grow Tall Review: Sometimes the Road Is the Destination
Reading Time: 3 minutesMaressa Voss’s novel introduces an order of wizards that are able to control the four elements and gain insights from them. These wizards live separate from normal people because they’ve been labeled as charlatans and scammers. However, the order—called dactyli—have to interact with the world surrounding them and multiple people to collect varied points of
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Mortal Wounds
Reading Time: 4 minutesAfter a thief is mortally wounded, strange visions of past crimes begin to haunt him. As he tries to make his way out of a dark forest to see the sun once more, he cannot shake the feeling he is being followed.
More Strange Than True
Reading Time: 19 minutes After an epically shitty day, Jewell Jamieson unknowingly eats a magic-spiked meal and makes a certain wish – and that’s why she awakes the next morning to discover a beautiful naked man in her bed.
The Psychics
Reading Time: 5 minutesPsychic magicians must fight off a enemy who is trying to break the spells protecting their academy. Family and romantic relationships complicate things.
Grim Harvest
Reading Time: 9 minutesWhen their mother dies, a pair of precocious twins are placed in the care of their father, a conservative and stern man with whom their Wiccan practices immediately clash.
Gods and Monsters Installment 34: The Fault Line Within
Reading Time: 7 minutesNow, after the advent of dreams and the appearance of color, when Gabriel reads of a killing, something inside him screams. When he looks upon a charcoal figure that so recently possessed unearthly beauty, he mourns. He wants to create, not destroy. He doesn’t like the role in which he has been cast.
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Friendship Is at the Forefront of Shaun Hamill’s The Dissonance
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe book is dynamic and fast paced, with flashbacks and cliffhangers to keep you reading along. It is hard to put down, and I never say this lightly.
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Gods and Monsters Installment 33: Pamela
Reading Time: 8 minutesVampires followed the deluge of fluid and fear, tracking the lonely, homeless, and lost to the city, drawn by the need for belief, as well as blood.
Gods and Monsters Installment 32: Time Before Time
Reading Time: 7 minutesThanatos never kills. He’s just the messenger.
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The Snow Hath No Queen
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn a future where the continents are gone, the oceans are dead, and humanity survives atop the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a man goes on a dreamquest to rediscover cold and snow.
Gods and Monsters Installment 30: The Morgue
Reading Time: 8 minutesThe door is heavy, about four inches thick. A long narrow staircase leads down into darkness. He is in total darkness. Feeling his way slowly along the wall, carefully tapping his feet to see where the stairs begin, he finds a light switch. Harsh fluorescence floods the stairwell. This light would make anyone look dead, River thinks.
Spell to Find Amelia Earhart
Reading Time: 4 minutesMagic circles, incantations—could this be enough to bring back Amelia Earhart?
Gods and Monsters Installment 29: Beautiful and Strange
Reading Time: 7 minutesPamela stands in the doorway. River stops stirring and opens his arms. Pamela doesn’t even need to cross the room. She melts into him, soft as butter into flour. She is cold, damp as night fog.
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Forest in Apartment Number Ten
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen Gretel grew up, she left the Sugar-Candy House and the forest behind her, but some stories won’t allow you to walk away.
Gods and Monsters Installment 26: Scent Memory
Reading Time: 6 minutesGlistening like a frozen tear, delicate as a kiss, the crystal necklace lies on wine velvet cloth. Jim has never seen anything so lovely and flawless. His breath catches in his throat. It’s out of his price range. There’s no way he can afford it. There’s no way he can walk away. Something in the manner the colors intertwine weaves around his soul.
On the Edge of Destruction
Reading Time: 4 minutesA young slaver unknowingly captures her childhood friend, and must consider the extent to which they are each beyond salvation.
Gods and Monsters Installment 24: Wastelands of the Wild
Reading Time: 8 minutesDust fur falls like rain, feathering into the plumes of a dove. The dove’s wings become sleeves. Amimi is shining like a hologram in the glooming.
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Gods and Monsters Installment 21: Out of Dust – The Lenni Lenape
Reading Time: 8 minutesOut of the earth, up through the floor, dust rises. It clings together, forming a translucent woman. She is brown as earth. Her face is worn. Her eyes are shadows in the night. Red paint dots her cheeks and ears. Her hair is made of darkness, the part decorated by a circle of crimson. “I am Amimi, matriarch of the Lenni Lenape,” she says.
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Gods and Monsters Installment 20: The Love Song of the Mole Cricket
Reading Time: 5 minutesMr. Jones appears to have been mauled by a wild animal. His body shows evidence of teeth marks and claw marks. The wounds are uncommon.
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Gods and Monsters Installment 19: Lonely Journeys
Reading Time: 7 minutesI drove that ancient pick-up all the way out into the Catskill Mountains. Even after that trek, that good old Ford was running strong. Still is. I rented a place out in the woods about ten miles from Greene Village, New York. It was tiny; just bed, bath, and stove, but I didn’t need more.
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Snoogle Hunt
Reading Time: 4 minutes“Path!” Glinda paused so abruptly the six foot necromancer slammed into her, tangling himself in the wild frizz of her white hair. Glinda waved a white diamante-studded glove at the waist-high grass. “This is hardly a path, Snark. This is a swamp!”
Hell in a Handbag
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe earliest account is from our foremother, Rhoda. You know her better as Red Riding Hood. That’s right, she was a real person. Back then, the handbag was still a handbasket, but more on that later.
Her Own Bones
Reading Time: 3 minutesGwen examined the table so she didn’t have to meet the impatient eyes of the family members. Had one of these cups of tea held the poison responsible for the corpse lying beside an overturned chair at the head of the table?
The Fool’s Fiddle
Reading Time: 18 minutesDragons can’t lie, right? That’s what the legends say. So, when Guy finds himself at the wrong end of a failed heist, he puts that knowledge to the test. Compatriots dead. Hope gone. And his last chance at life is convincing a dragon to let him go.
Stone Cold Beauty
Reading Time: 4 minutesTotally narcissistic, Electra loved admiring her herself in the mirror. One day a wish turned her to stone gazing in a mirror at herself for eternity. She was mostly happy with this situation, until her old, dying husband visits her and gets a wish of his own.
Affordable Resurrection
Reading Time: 6 minutesLightly amusing modern-feel fantasy mashup about an unlikely partnership between a budget-price necromancer and his student locked in an unusual business model.
Why the Sea is Boiling Hot
Reading Time: 21 minutesA serial killer is playing havoc in the city-state of Sheebatiya. Can Allii uncover the killer before fear pushes the city into anarchy?
Naughty or Nice?
Reading Time: 5 minutesA vampire, attempting to adapt to Western customs, sends her Christmas list to Santa.
Half-baked Hero
Reading Time: 16 minutesWhen Janza, a bodyguard-for-hire meets a suspicious merchant, her personal code and memories of the oppression suffered by her people battle for her soul.
Thumbing to Sugar Daddy Oberon
Reading Time: 10 minutesIn spite of interfering adults, a spoiled child is determined to claim her birthright in the court of Oberon and Titania.
Forever 51
Reading Time: 12 minutesNovel excerpt: Veronica is eternally fifty-one years old with a proclivity for problematic drinking. Like most hormonally-challenged women negotiating the change of life, she is a hot mess. To retain her sanity, she attends weekly AA meetings and adheres to a strict diet of organic, locally-sourced, (mostly) cruelty-free human blood from the hospice facility where she works.
Come the Waters High
Reading Time: 4 minutesA flash fantasy story about a High Priestess who must deal with rising tides that threaten to drown her people.
Her Solemn Duty
Reading Time: 2 minutesHer child was now grown, but a fairy godmother’s job was never over.
Neighbors
Reading Time: 4 minutesBeing neighborly isn’t always easy. Morgred has to hold her tongue while her daughter makes other plans.
Between the Mountain and the Sea
Reading Time: 4 minutesOlia is woken by the deep unearthly booms and sharp percussive snaps of the ice breaking up. She lies still in her bed, listening. So soon. She thought she would have more time. Another month, at least. But things aren’t like they were when she first became Tribute Keeper. They’ll be different still for Vali
A Medieval Tale
Reading Time: 14 minutesA monk in a medieval priory faces the sudden appearance of aliens that seem strangely familiar, only to learn he was once one of them.
Dead Nana, Walking
Reading Time: 3 minutesOld people don’t die, but slowly turn to stone. Joey needs to get her Nana to her grandfather’s statue.
The Last Thing Taken
Reading Time: 9 minutesWhen Sophia meets Oloku, she thinks it’s the perfect, strings-free affair. But when she learns his secret, she finds there’s a price to pay for loving him.
Gentle Autumn Rain
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe ages have been kind and humanity has spread to the stars, but the sun’s time is growing short, and all of her children are coming home.
Dragon Dancer
Reading Time: 4 minutesEvery year as migrating dragons pass by from across the endless sea, tradition mandates one woman jump into the thunder and dance with the wild beasts as they pass overhead. This year’s Dancer is Lanitia’s sister. The Dancer must die or arrive at The Decent; this time, something new happens.
Behind the Standing Stones
Reading Time: 4 minutesCraig and Hailey had very different ideas about how to celebrate their anniversary. One wanted sunshine and drinks on an island beach. The other was more interested in the enchantments that might be found beyond the standing stones.
A Sampling of Seven Dragons
Reading Time: 4 minutesBefore any of the more artisanal offerings you’ll be tasting today, let us begin with a fairly traditional preparation. Yes, the one just before you, and then we’ll go round the plates widdershins from there. Anticlockwise, that is. As you take a bite, note the full-bodied ferocity, the natural balance between dread and might, that
Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly by Toge Productions
Reading Time: 2 minutesCoffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly is the sequel to the critically acclaimed Coffee Talk by Toge Productions. In this game, you serve drinks to magical patrons which impact the outcomes of the stories they tell you.
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A Clairvoyant’s Misfortune
Reading Time: 4 minutesSomeone might say: pal, since you know what’s going to happen, why don’t you do something to change your future! I can only say one thing: I did try it, many times, but there is no way to change your fate. If your life has got something in store for you, you will surely get it.
Glass Slipper Magic
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhat happened to Cinderella after the Prince found her? Maybe this…
