The novels of “New York Times” bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton take readers into the dangerous life of Anita Blake, animator and vampire hunter—a woman as good at raising the dead as she is at slaying the undead. Now, a creature from beyond the grave is tearing a swath of murder through St. Louis. And Anita will learn that there are some secrets better left buried—and some people better off dead…

Each house, like each place, has its own topography, its own lore. A complex history comes down to us, through household jokes and anecdotes, odd family habits, and irrational superstitions, that forever shapes what we see and the way in which we see it.Beginning with his childhood home, David Malouf moves on to show other landmarks in his life, and the way places and things create our private worlds. Written with humour and uncompromising intelligence, 12 Edmondstone Street is an unforgettable portrait of one man's life.

Moments with the bittersweet lovers the Sun and the Moon to flying over a river that goes beyond the present to just before the future where three mysterious creatures sit in wait, and travels into the dreamscape where unnatural musical machines are crafted by muses before the Erinyes come to bring such plans to a halt; these are a few of the stories you'll find in this collection.

On the same day as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, 250 miles away in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, there was an even more devastating fire. Twelve-year-old Ailis and her younger brother, Quinn, survive, but their family does not. Ailis and Quinn are taken by a family acquaintance to live in a boarding house in Chicago, where they meet six-year-old Nettie, an orphan displaced by Chicago's fire. But the woman who runs the boarding house makes their lives miserable, and Ailis vows to find a way for the three of them to leave. Ailis finds a job at a millinery shop and Quinn plays his fiddle on the streets so they can save money. Then Nettie disappears, and Ailis and Quinn discover she's been kidnapped by a group that forces children to work in the sewers killing rats. Can they find a way to rescue her?

Mystery/Crime. 62799 words long.

An inspiring and heart-warming short story of canine devotion and bravery. Smoky, a baseball-size mass of brown fur, was found in a foxhole in the depths of the New Guinea jungle in the middle of the Second World War. The soldier who found her took the Yorkshire Terrier pup back to base and sold her to Bill, the US serviceman who would adopt her, for three Australian dollars. It was the start of a partnership that saw Smoky save US war plans and ground crew from bombings and bring a life line to stranded men when she laid phone lines through pipes under the runway. Extracted from the bestselling title Beyond The Call Of Duty, this is the story of a remarkable little dog who saw no boundaries. She stayed at Bill's side throughout the action and to the end of the war.

Adriana Trigiani meets Jane Green in this irresistible new novel about a family of southern women who have rotten luck with men.Portia Fallon calls it PTEor the Penis Teflon Effect. It's the way all the women in her family deflect men like ping pong balls. No man has ever stuck with a Fallon woman for more than two years, and Portia has nearly surpassed that record. Until her live-in boyfriend dumps her. Now, everyone from her mother Mags to Auntie Vera and Grandma Bev is convinced that Portia must have sex with a temporary man. Enter Colin Beckett, a sexy, smart, and unsuspecting British novelist, who's visiting her small town of Truly, Georgia, for the summer.Then enter once again Portia's ex-beau, who's decided to fight to win her back. Now Portia faces a slippery decision: Which of these men has the right stuff to make a commitment stick?From Publishers WeeklyWhen Portia Fallon's boyfriend, Peter, dumps her on Valentine's Day, she realizes she's "four cats and a Reader's Digest subscription away from being totally irredeemable." Maybe that explains why she lets her mother trick her into quitting her Syracuse apartment to summer down in Truly, Ga., home of the irrepressible Miz Fallons (Portia's mother, Mags; her aunt Vera; and her grandmother Bev). "Men just don't stick to Miz Fallons," Mags likes to say; Portia calls the Fallons' eternal singlehood the "Penis Teflon Effect." Portia's meddling kin aim to find her a "Flyer"—a fling—to take her mind off Peter, and Ian Beckett, a British novelist, is chosen. Portia spends her days renovating a farmhouse with Ian and her nights reliving memories of her father, digging into her family's past to learn the secret of his abandonment. Just as she's falling for Ian, Peter shows up with a ring. "Penis Teflon wasn't a curse, but rather a learned behavior," Portia realizes, so she sets out to open the Miz Fallons' hearts, search for her father and find the true love of her life. Rich way overplays the frankly inexcusable Penis Teflon idea, but this is a sweet, readable book about following your dreams (and your dream man). Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistWhen Portia Fallon's boyfriend, Peter, leaves her, she fears she is heading toward a life of permanent spinsterhood. Lured back to her Georgia hometown by her mother, aunt, and grandmother--the feisty "Miz Fallons"--Portia's relatives plot to distract her from her woes by hooking her up with Ian, a visiting British author. They don't plan for her to fall for the handsome novelist, and neither does she. After all, Portia is convinced that females in her family are inflicted with "penis Teflon"--men just don't stick. Of course, she falls hard, and just in time for Peter to reappear with an engagement ring. This funny, sweet novel is full of quirky, likable characters and the charms of small-town life without being too precious. Though Rich at times overworks the willful southern lady stereotype, the Miz Fallons will appeal to fans of Rebecca Wells' Ya-Yas. Aleksandra KostovskiCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

In this devilishly clever collection of short fiction, renowned humorist Owen Egerton leads us on a wildly surprising, darkly comic, and often heart-wrenching ride into the terrible beauty of life's end. With razor wit and compassionate insight, Egerton has a crafted a work that brilliantly explores the pain and wonder of life, knowing that with the turn of any corner death could be panhandling for your soul.

In Ted Bell's scorching follow-up to his New York Times bestseller Assassin, intrepid intelligence operative Alex Hawke must thwart a secret, deadly alliance between China and France before they annihilate everything and everyone in their headlong rush toward world domination. Aboard the Star of Shanghai in the south of France, an American spy is held captive. He possesses vital, explosive intelligence linking two nations and one horrifying plot. If he is not rescued, he faces certain torture and inevitable death. Nearby, in a seaside hotel, a man still haunted by the loss of his wife two years earlier finds comfort in the arms of a beautiful Chinese actress--but is she to be trusted? So begins Pirate, an electrifying thriller marking the return of international counterterrorist Alex Hawke. In Paris, a ruthless descendant of Napoleon has risen to power, hell-bent on restoring France's former glory. His fiery ambitions are cynically stoked by a coterie of cold-blooded Mandarins, plotting behind the gates of Beijing's Forbidden City. Cloaked in secrecy, this unholy alliance devises a twisted global plan, backed by China's growing nuclear arsenal, that will send America and the world to the brink of a gutwrenching showdown. With the aid of his old friend and former Navy SEAL, Stokely Jones, Hawke sets out to investigate the deadly connections that bind the French-Chinese axis. Together, they discover that a powerful German industrialist may hold the key, somewhere inside the walls of his Bavarian mountain lair. Meanwhile, clues to an old and gruesome murder in Paris lead to New York City, where horrifying evidence could finally bring a madman to his knees. In the end, as American and British forces prepare to defend a sovereign and oil-rich Gulf nation against unwilling occupation, the terror is all too real. The world is once more balanced on the knife-edge of a full-blown nuclear confrontation. Hawke must once more prepare to hurl himself deep into the nightmare visions of madmen. He must garner every ounce of strength, courage, and useful pain from his past. He must defeat this enemy or else forfeit the lives of untold thousands, including his own, to an axis of evil no historian could have ever predicted. Packed with unrelenting action, glamour, and high style, and featuring the spectacular Alex Hawke, who time and again transports readers to the edge of danger, Pirate is a spellbinding thriller. Be prepared for Alex Hawke's most daunting and heart-pounding mission yet. Here is an author who gets you in the palm of his hand...and then clenches his fist!Review"Very Bondlike...." -- The New York TimesFrom the Inside Flap"PIRATE is the third and best of the Hawke novels, an already brilliant series of derring-do and contemporary swashbuckling that contain more action and interesting characters than most books do in three." - Joe Hartlaub

Laura Pritchett is an award-winning author who has quickly become one of the west's defining literary voices. We first met hardscrabble ranchers Renny and Ben Cross in Laura's debut collection, and now in Stars Go Blue, they are estranged, elderly spouses living on opposite ends of their sprawling ranch, faced with the particular decline of a fading farm and Ben's struggle with Alzheimer's disease. He is just on the cusp of dementia, able to recognize he is sick but unable to do anything about it —the notes he leaves in his pockets and around the house to remind him of himself, his family, and his responsibilities are no longer as helpful as they used to be. Watching his estranged wife forced into care-taking and brought to her breaking point, Ben decides to leave his life with whatever dignity and grace remains.As Ben makes his decision, a new horrible truth comes to light: Ray, the abusive husband of their late daughter is being released from prison early....