Short fiction about love in the face of mortal threats, in a prize-winning collection by the author of You Came Back.In this extraordinary collection of short fiction, characters wrestle with the moments in life that test us most deeply, in ways both dramatic and subtle. In "We're in Trouble," a woman is asked to end her dying husband's suffering. In "Abandon," a troubled young man must risk jail to do right by the only woman he has ever loved. And "In the...

A "gripping, beautiful, emotionally raw" collection of stories about the things that go wrong between men and women from a PEN Award winner.Arriving in the midst of the #MeToo era, these stories examine the fallout from failed relationships between men and women—partnerships that have crumbled under the weight of betrayal, misplaced hopes, illness, and particularly masculinity at its most toxic and misguided.A man in his mid-thirties receives a call from a ...

Thirty-something midwesterner Mark Fife believes he has successfully moved past the accidental death of his young son Brendan, as well as his subsequent divorce from his college sweetheart Chloe. He's successful, he's in love again, and he believes he's mastered his own memories.But then he is contacted by a strange woman who tells him not only that she owns his old house, but that she believes it to be haunted by Brendan's ghost. Will Mark--who does not believe in ghosts--come to ...

Hit the jackpot with stories from Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Walter Mosley, Alexander McCall Smith, and more superstars of mystery.In "One Dollar Jackpot," Michael Connelly's curmudgeonly Harry Bosch finds himself going toe-to-toe with a professional poker player. Jeffery Deaver offers up "Bump," a tale of a has-been actor trying to make it big by hustling cards. "Hardly Knew Her" by Laura Lippmann showcases a young woman learning about bluffing the hard way, ...

Thirty-something midwesterner Mark Fife believes he has successfully moved past the accidental death of his young son Brendan, as well as his subsequent divorce from his college sweetheart Chloe. He's successful, he's in love again, and he believes he's mastered his own memories.But then he is contacted by a strange woman who tells him not only that she owns his old house, but that she believes it to be haunted by Brendan's ghost. Will Mark--who does not believe in ghosts--come to ...

A disturbing journey into the beauty that rests inside the very heart of darkness.From the Bram Stoker Award-winning Crystal Lake Publishing and the editing duo who brought you the critically acclaimed small-town Lovecraftian horror anthology Shadows Over Main Street, comes Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories.Awe meets ache.Terror becomes transcendence.Regret gives way to rebirth.Fifteen short stories and one poem span nearly every twisted corner of the h...