Laurence Fitzroy is trapped in a golden cage. The only son of a wealthy London baronet, he's struggling to escape his father's suffocating world. But Laurie is losing his fight. At 19 years of age, bright and imaginative, he's no match for the brutal Sir William. Laurie wants to be an actor - bad enough as far as Sir William is concerned, but, worse than that, he's gay.

Marty Bell knows what it's like to be bullied. He was the shy, overweight kid at school, and those memories have helped turn him into an excellent teacher - though he's never spread his wings beyond the remote northern village where he grew up. The last thing he needs in his life is the reappearance of Devlin Surtees, leader of the gang who made his schooldays so tough. Dev is the glamorous village hero now, flying acrobatics planes and fighter jets for the RAF. He’s just as spellbinding, handsome and infuriating as Marty recalls.

Kestrel and Rory are the very best partnership in Wester Fleet's elite Mountain Rescue Team. They've trusted one another with their lives for five years. They're closer than brothers - but Rory's feelings for his handsome, daredevil partner are far from fraternal. He knows better than to tell Kes the truth. Climbing partnerships are a delicate balance of love and practicality, and the Fleet MRT has a strict nonfraternization code. Rory could lose everything by making a confession.

Priddy's a lost soul in a part of Cornwall the tourists don't get to see. He's young, sweet-natured, and gorgeous, but that's not enough to achieve escape velocity from his deadbeat village and rotten family life. He's a drifter and a dreamer, and self-preservation isn't his strong suit. An accidental overdose of a nightclub drug leaves him fractured, hallucinating, with too many vital circuits fried to function in a tough world. When a friend offers him winter work in a lighthouse, he gratefully accepts.

Mitch is on a last-ditch drive to save his career with the Scottish Institute of Archaeology after his ex-lover Lewis stole his research into the legendary Pictish saints. Mystical pre-Celtic statues are hidden somewhere on mist-wreathed Dove Island. Now Mitch is tearing out to the coast in the hope of reaching the saints before his treacherous ex can stake a claim. At his side is his devoted assistant, Owen. Owen adores Mitch, but he's the quiet, loyal type.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. Friends don't bang friends. I want my friends to stay in my life, especially that flirty, clever, outgoing best friend of mine. It's a darn good thing Owen and I made a pact in college to never ever sleep together, or else I'd be tempted. Trouble is, eight years later, I've been wondering what his kisses taste like. And I've been curious if our chemistry would extend into the bedroom. If he might feel the same risky pull. But I don't want to lose Owen.

Davey Bell has been trying to live safely. He's struggled through a rough adolescence and has a decent job, a home of his own. He agrees to a meeting with his ex, even though Burdo got him into so much trouble in the past. But Burdo has plans, armed robbery among them. When Davey recoils from his efforts at blackmail, Burdo swears he'll track him down. There's something inhuman about Burdo's rage, and Davey panics and runs from him.

Thomas Penrose is a village doctor in rural Cornwall. Popular with patients and friends alike, and handsome into the bargain, he lives in a romantic clifftop tower by the sea. It's a wonderful life - if only Dr. Tom could enjoy it. He's a veteran of the conflict in Afghanistan, fighting a lonely battle against alcoholism and PTSD. Determined not to inflict his troubles on anyone else, Tom keeps himself to himself. But fate has other ideas, and brings a handsome surfer crashing to his feet after a dreadful wipe-out on Porth Beach.

Shattered by his lover Jason's suicide, archaeologist Dan Logan is struggling to patch his life together again. He's desperately following up Jason's final obsession, a secret buried deep within the military zone on Salisbury Plain. Anything is better than facing the void of his grief. He's convinced he'll never love again. When unexpected help arrives in the form of a soldier named Summer Rayne, the last thing Dan could have predicted is the spark of attraction between them.

Hope brightens a bleak Edinburgh December. A man gets a second chance with his high school crush. A decade-long game of cat and mouse comes to a passionate conclusion. And Santa Claus drives a red muscle car. Heat up your holidays with this collection of four festive tales from some of the top talent in the male/male genre.

It's 1946, and the dust of World War Two has just begun to settle. When famous archaeologist Rufus Denby returns to London, his life and reputation are as devastated as the city around him. He's used to the most glamorous of excavations, but can't turn down the offer of a job in rural Sussex. It's a refuge, and the only means left to him of scraping a living. With nothing but his satchel and a mongrel dog he's rescued from a bomb site, he sets out to investigate an ancient church in the sleepy village of Droyton.

A cop and a recovering addict - no chance for romance there. Yet Vince, a street-hardened narcotics officer, is having to reassess his life. Six months ago, he hit rock-bottom. A bullet brought him down, and his beloved partner Jack betrayed him. Badly disabled and in constant pain, Vince is flying a desk these days, and it doesn't suit him at all. His world is looking grim when he meets Rowan Clyde, sole surviving witness to a vicious drugs-related killing.

Once upon a time, there was a winter that wouldn't end. And all that stands between the people of White Meadows and starvation is a young man called Lance. Lance is 16 years old, and for all his courage and hunting skills, he's running out of fight. His family has been wiped out in a border raid, and he's drowning in loneliness. When strangers arrive at White Meadows, all Lance can think of is using his last strength to drive them away. But these men have come in peace, not to burn and destroy. Among them is a hot-headed, utterly charming prince-in-training named Arthur.

I have to stop replaying the one night I spent with my rival. Trouble is, that white-hot encounter with the other quarterback answered a lot of questions I’ve had about myself, but it also led me into this mess where he hates me. I never showed up for our second date. Since, well, life happened, and the worst part is he’ll never know how much that night meant to me.

Every bartender should follow one simple rule—don't go home with the customers. That’s been easy for me to stick to, until the night a cocky, confident, and sinfully charming hockey star walks into my bar. This sexy athlete is too hard to resist, especially when he makes it clear how much he wants the “sarcastic, witty, hot AF” guy behind the bar—also known as me.

Gideon Frayne has spent his whole working life as a policeman in the village of Dark on Bodmin Moor. His first missing-child case is eating him alive. When his own boss sends in a psychic to help with the case, he's gutted - he's a level-headed copper who doesn't believe in such things, and he can't help but think that the arrival of clairvoyant Lee Tyack is a comment on his failure to find the little girl. But Lee is hard to hate, no matter how Gideon tries. At first Lee's insights into the case make no sense, but he seems to have a window straight into Gideon's heart.

With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.

Hope brightens a bleak Edinburgh December. A man gets a second chance with his high school crush. A decade-long game of cat and mouse comes to a passionate conclusion. And Santa Claus drives a red muscle car. Heat up your holidays with this collection of four festive tales from some of the top talent in the male/male genre.

A thousand years ago, a brutal warrior roamed the Russian steppes, and struck a menacing bargain. For the ability to change at will into a cold-hearted predator, Konstantine promised his soul - and the souls of his descendants - to the devil. One day a dangerous prophecy reveals the truth: one family has been chosen to battle the darkness - or face damnation.

In the hospital ER where she works, Mary is used to chaos. But lately, every aspect of her life seems adrift. She's feeling disconnected from herself. Voices appear in her head. And the vivid, disturbing dreams she's had all her life are becoming more intense. Then she meets Michael. He's handsome, enigmatic, and knows more than he can say. In his company, she slowly remembers the truth about herself.

No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it's Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies - before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.

The Feed is accessible everywhere, by everyone, at any time. It instantaneously links us to all information and global events. Tom and Kate use the Feed, but Tom has resisted its addiction. The Feed's collapse, taking modern society with it, leaves people scavenging to survive. Tom and Kate have managed to protect themselves and their family. But then their six-year-old daughter, Bea, goes missing. Who has taken her? How do you begin to look for someone in a world without technology?

Germany, 1945. Klara Janowska and her daughter, Alicja, have walked for weeks to get to Graufeld Displaced Persons camp. In the cramped, dirty, dangerous conditions they, along with 3,200 others, are the lucky ones. They have survived and will do anything to find a way back home. But when Klara recognises a man in the camp from her past, a deadly game of cat and mouse begins. He knows exactly what she did during the war to save her daughter. She knows his real identity. What will be the price of silence? And will either make it out of the camp alive?

Could you kill someone? Someone you love? Paris, 1938. This is the story of twin sisters divided by fierce loyalties and by a terrible secret. The drums of war are beating, and France is poised, ready to fall. One sister is an aviatrix, the other is a socialite, and they both have something to prove and something to hide. Discover a brilliant story of love, danger, courage...and betrayal.

Ben McKelvie believes he's moving up in the world when he and his fiancée buy a house in the cushy Washington, DC, suburb of Barcroft. Instead he's moving down - way down - thanks to Madeleine Roux, the crazy neighbor whose vermin-infested property is a permanent eyesore and looming hazard to public health. First Ben's fiancée leaves him; then his dog dies, apparently killed by a predator drawn into Barcroft by Madeleine's noxious menagerie. But the worst is yet to come for Ben.

What do you buy and sell when the global markets reach saturation point? The markets themselves. Thirty years from now the big players in global capitalism have moved on from commodities. The big money is in conflict investment. The corporations keep a careful watch on the wars of liberation and revolution that burn constantly around the world. They guage who the winners will be and sell them arms, intelligence, and power. In return for a slice of the action when the war is won.

The sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse have destroyed most of the planet…yet out of these waters, Dinétah, a former Navajo reservation, has been miraculously reborn. Listen along as Tanis Parenteau's impeccable narration, capturing the rhythms of Navajo speech, fully envelopes you into the Sixth World. Trail of Lightning follows our heroine as she walks the land alongside gods, heroes of legend, and monsters alike.

Once there were hundreds of members of the Oversight, the brave souls who guard the borders between the mundane and the magic. Now there are only five. When a vagabond brings a screaming girl to the Oversight's London headquarters, she could answer their hopes for new recruit, or she could be the instrument of their downfall.

Awakening in a bleak landscape as scarred as her body, Cass Dollar vaguely recalls surviving something terrible. Having no idea how many weeks have passed, she slowly realizes the horrifying truth: Ruthie has vanished. And with her, nearly all of civilization. Where once-lush hills carried cars and commerce, the roads today see only cannibalistic Beaters - people turned hungry for human flesh by a government experiment gone wrong.

December 2018, and free-spirited Influencers Bo Loxley and her partner, Zac, are living a life of wanderlust, travelling the globe and sharing their adventures with their millions of fans. Booked to spend Christmas in the Norwegian fjords, they set up home in a remote farm owned by enigmatic mountain guide Anders and his fierce grandmother, Signy. Surrounded by snowy peaks and frozen falls, everything should be perfect. But the camera can lie, and with every new post, the ‘perfect’ life Zac and Bo are portraying is diverging from the truth.

Mallory is on the run from his whole life. He's been working for an environmental activism group, but he's out of control, trying to wipe out the memories of a tough childhood in his efforts to save the planet. When an accident at sea costs the lives of his colleagues, he crash-lands back in his hometown in the far north of Scotland, lonely and at rock bottom. It's the last place on earth he expects to find comfort or friendship.

Is there room for love in a heart full of secrets? One year ago, before Fate took a wrecking ball to his life, Nichol was happily working on his doctorate in linguistics. Now he's hip deep in sheep, mud, and collies. His late brother and mother had been well-suited to life on Seacliff Farm. Nichol? Not so much.

Laurence Fitzroy is trapped in a golden cage. The only son of a wealthy London baronet, he's struggling to escape his father's suffocating world. But Laurie is losing his fight. At 19 years of age, bright and imaginative, he's no match for the brutal Sir William. Laurie wants to be an actor - bad enough as far as Sir William is concerned, but, worse than that, he's gay.

Charles Preston Carmichael is the most infuriating man I've ever met. I want to sock the golden boy of college hockey right in the mouth. He enjoys telling me everything I'm messing up—publicly. And since he's my roommate for the next year, I can't avoid him. Yet there's something about him that makes me watch him. Something dark. A secret I want to uncover. When he returns from a weekend away, broken and haunted, I can't keep my distance anymore. He needs someone, and I'll be damned if it's not me.

Ferryman. The Grim Reaper. La Muerte. La Pelona. Shinigami. Charon. I've been called many names over the millennia, all thanks to my role in Hell—ferrying dead souls over the river Styx. Few know the demon behind the legend, how I came to be here, or the freedom I sacrificed to save the man I love.