It's the summer of 1993. After the death of their parents at the hands of a drunk driver, city-dwelling teenage brothers Christopher and James Janes are sent to live with their widowed grandfather in the remote Ozarks of Missouri. There, the brothers must learn to cope with the drastic turn their lives have taken and the unfamiliarity of their surroundings, as well as their grief. By some stroke of fate, there is one other person their age in the area: a girl named Kylie.

The Short(Cuts) is a collection of seven unique and individual stories that range across all different genres. Sometimes humorous and other times sad, the collection represents some of the smaller works that Matthew Fish has written in the past 18 years. They range in length from 1,000-word shorts to 30,000-word pieces that have been dated to show a progress and change in both narrative style and tone.

Eight years after a virus has left half of the population of the world mentally unstable, a man named Ethan Chase enters into a program to become a "Sitter", or caretaker, to two "Unstables". One of which, is a girl, a "Mirror", who believes that she leaves for Paris every Sunday and returns on Tuesday and often mimics and repeats the actions of those around her. The other, a highly functioning "Amnesiac" named Noah who is at one moment lucid and the next completely incoherent.

When Alexis Ames is attacked by creatures that can't be real, she decides it's time she learns who she really is, with or without the help of her mother, who guards their family's secrets closely. After meeting the inhumanly attractive, multi-talented Tristan Knight, however, Alexis retreats behind her façade of normalcy...until she discovers he's not exactly normal either. Then, their secrets begin to unravel.

Patrick and Clare wake up trapped in a basement, a thin wall separating their cells. Their captor is mysteriously absent, which at first seems like a blessing. As more time passes with no food or water, they begin to realize a clock is ticking for their survival. Combining their intelligence and determination, the two begin plotting an escape from their shared prison. Overcoming each obstacle only presents another obstacle standing in the way of their freedom. It will take all of their ingenuity and strength to find their way out of this mess.

Leigh's life has been ripped apart. Orphaned, she goes to live with incredibly wealthy relatives she never knew she had. Struggling to fit into her new world, she can't let go of her grief. When the police tell her the investigation into her parents' murder has hit a brick wall, she knows the only way she will ever know peace is to solve the mystery herself. With new family and friends, which includes a ghost with multiple personality issues, Leigh risks everything to find her answers.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee. Margaret is not most people. Margaret is staying.

Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

Life was barely manageable after my mom was murdered three years ago. I wasn’t sure what my purpose was anymore. But then on my 21st birthday, I drank a little too much and fell from the roof of my nine-story apartment building. I died. Then...I un-died. Enter Hayden, my really bossy (and hot) guardian angel whose duty is to train me to be the next “Soldier of Light.” I’m pretty sure I’m the wrong person for this job, despite what Hayden thinks. Guess I’m stuck saving the dead.

One night, Molly Clarke walked away from her life. She doesn't want to be found. Or at least, that's the story. The car abandoned miles from home. The note found at a nearby hotel. The shattered family that couldn’t be put back together. They called it a “walk away.” It happens all the time. Women disappear, desperate to leave their lives behind and start over. But is that what really happened to Molly Clarke?

Thirty years after a tragic accident shut down production of the classic children’s program Mister Magic, the five surviving cast members have done their best to move on. But just as generations of cultishly devoted fans still cling to the lessons they learned from the show, the cast, known as the Circle of Friends, have spent their lives searching for the happiness they felt while they were on it. The friendship. The feeling of belonging. And the protection of Mister Magic.

Idyllic Avril Island, owned by the Bennett family, is where their hundred-year-old cottage sat nestled in acres of forest. Forty-year-old June Bennett believed that the island had been sold after the summer of her father's disappearance when she was only 12 years old. It's months after the shocking death of her older sister, May, in a fatal car accident that June finds out that the cottage was never sold. Avril Island is still owned by the Bennett family, and now it's hers. Still reeling from the grief of losing her sister, June travels back to Avril Island in search of answers.

One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother has been shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it. As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence.

Three terrifying novels in one collection from master of horror, Lee Mountford. The Demonic: A woman returns to her childhood home to lay to rest the ghosts of the past. But in this house, the ghosts are real. The Mark: A satanic cult. A woman's brutal assault. Can one woman face her darkest fears before a demonic entity is unleashed? Forest of the Damned: A group of paranormal researchers investigate the infamous Black Forest.... What they find is far beyond even their worst nightmares.

In a city where magic is outlawed, teenage thief Ridley uses her special powers to steal from the rich and give to those in need - until the night someone follows her home after a heist and ends up murdered outside her apartment. When her best friend is accused of the crime, Ridley is determined to prove his innocence.