Spanning Gaiman’s career to date, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction is a captivating collection from one of the world’s most beloved writers, chosen by those who know his work best: his devoted fans. A brilliant representation of Gaiman's groundbreaking, entrancing, endlessly imaginative fiction, this captivating volume includes excerpts from each of his five novels for adults—Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Anansi Boys, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane—and nearly fifty of his short stories.

Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.

In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three. A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time. A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory. And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible. An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.

On a sunny August morning in 1935, 13-year-old Sophia Gray finds her friend Rosemary wandering in the woods. Rosemary’s yellow dress is tattered and her eyes are vacant and glassy. She beckons to Sophia, desperate to show her something. In an abandoned cabin, beneath a tattered blanket, Sophia discovers Rosemary’s body. It was not Rosemary who led her there, but Rosemary’s ghost. Twenty years later, Sophia finds herself trapped in the sprawling Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, in the hands of a malevolent doctor who preys on patients who exhibit paranormal abilities.

Since his debut novel, the modern classic The Ghosts of Belfast, was published a decade ago, Stuart Neville has published eight other critically acclaimed novels and achieved international recognition as one of crime fictions great living writers. Now for the first time Neville offers listeners a collection of his short fiction - 12 chilling stories that traverse and blend the genres of noir, horror, and speculative fiction and which bring the history and lore of Neville's native Northern Ireland to glittering life.

Teenager Edie Hudson was nobody’s little darling, which made vanishing all too easy. Two decades later, she’s been forgotten by everyone except her mother, Samantha. And the person who knows what happened to her. Samantha has had a long time to remember, and to regret. Having seen how little her daughter mattered to the community in the months following her disappearance, she wonders if Edie was lost before she was even gone. Or was it guilt, not indifference, that made the locals turn a blind eye? When she meets Frances, she at last starts to hope for answers.

Thirty-two-year-old Jess Abbot has lost everything: her job, her apartment, and - most heart-wrenching - her eight-year-old son, Chance, to a tragic accident. Haunted by memories and grief, Jess packs what’s left and heads for the small mountain town of Pine Lake, where she takes a position as caregiver to an eccentric old woman. A rumored clairvoyant, Lucy is strange but welcoming and immediately intuits Jess as a “loose end” in need of closure. But Jess isn’t the only guest in Lucy’s large Victorian home.

Connie Goodwin is an expert on America’s fractured past with witchcraft. A young, tenure-track professor in Boston, she’s earned career success by studying the history of magic in colonial America - especially women’s home recipes and medicines - and by exposing society's threats against women fluent in those skills. But beyond her studies, Connie harbors a secret: She is the direct descendant of a woman tried as a witch in Salem, an ancestor whose abilities were far more magical than the historical record shows.

The Quarrel of Sword and Bone was a death sentence for anyone who stepped into the arena with the deranged Queen, whose soul had crisped to frost in an age long since past. Sixteen-year-old Helen Bell understood tragedy better than most kids growing up—she knew what it was like to wear clothes from donation bins and be mocked by the beautiful girls in school. She thought these brutal experiences made her ready for anything.

Seventeen-year-old Dayna Walsh is struggling to cope with her OCD; the aftermath of being outed as bisexual in her conservative Irish town; and the return of her long-absent mother, who barely seems like a parent. But all that really matters to her is ascending and finally, finally becoming a full witch - plans that are complicated when another coven, rumored to have a sordid history with black magic, arrives in town with premonitions of death. Dayna immediately finds herself at odds with the bewitchingly frustrating Meiner King, the granddaughter of their coven leader.

At the age of 11, Mel Smith’s life found its purpose when she met Sarah Ross. Ten years later, Sarah’s sudden death threatens to break her. To fulfill a final promise to her best friend, Mel travels to an idyllic small town nestled in the Appalachian Mountains. Yet Morgan’s Gap is more than a land of morning mists and deep forest shadows.

For many children, the summer of 1988 was filled with sunshine and laughter. But for ten-year-old Kris Barlow, it was her chance to say goodbye to her dying mother. Three decades later, loss returns - her husband killed in a car accident. And so, Kris goes home to the place where she first knew pain - to that summer house overlooking the crystal waters of Lost Lake. It’s there that Kris and her eight-year-old daughter will make a stand against grief. But a shadow has fallen over the quiet lake town of Pacington, Kansas. Beneath its surface, an evil has grown.

Collette LeSange is a lonely artist who heads an elite fine arts school for children in upstate New York. Her youthful beauty masks the dark truth of her life: she has endured centuries of turmoil and heartache in the wake of her grandfather’s long-ago decision to make her immortal like himself. Now in 1984, Collette finds her life upended by the arrival of a gifted child from a troubled home, the return of a stalking presence from her past, and her own mysteriously growing hunger.

Kim McDougall presents the prequel and first book in her Valkyrie Bestiary series. Three Half Goats Gruff: Who is the mysterious captain of the Guardians? Kyra Greene, pest controller of fantastic beasts, takes on a rock troll and meets the man who will haunt her dreams for the next 321 nights. Dragons Don't Eat Meat: Someone is killing dragons. When Kyra Greene finds an abandoned baby dragon, she doesn't want to bring him home. But until she can hunt down his thunder and stop the dragon killers, she's on babysitting duty.

When Cornish Nurse Eliza Hamilton is mugged on her way home from work late one evening, it is the mysterious Roman Holbrook who appears from the darkness and fights off her strange attacker. Then he disappears into the night before the police arrive, leaving a semi-conscious Eliza questioning if he was, in fact, a figment of her imagination. That is until he shows up on her doorstep one rainy night - and all hell breaks loose again. But is this man her hero, or does he have a more sinister motive for wanting her kept alive?

For many children, the summer of 1988 was filled with sunshine and laughter. But for ten-year-old Kris Barlow, it was her chance to say goodbye to her dying mother. Three decades later, loss returns - her husband killed in a car accident. And so, Kris goes home to the place where she first knew pain - to that summer house overlooking the crystal waters of Lost Lake. It’s there that Kris and her eight-year-old daughter will make a stand against grief. But a shadow has fallen over the quiet lake town of Pacington, Kansas. Beneath its surface, an evil has grown.

Raised by a vampire in a secret society of witches, shifters, and elves, Charlotte finds that she is the freak in her world of magic and wonder. When she stands before an army of impossible obstacles, the likelihood of survival in this coming-of-age modern fairy tale is slim, resulting in a war between light and darkness. Charlotte knows no other home than the one nestled deep in the woods of Eastern Europe, where witches draw spells of enchantment, shifters throw tea parties, and elves are the closest in kin.

Fifteen of the biggest names in weird literature come together to pay tribute to Hellboy and the characters of Mike Mignola’s award-winning line of books! Assembled by Joe Golem and Baltimore co-writer Christopher Golden, this anthology boasts 15 original stories by the best in horror, fantasy, and science fiction, including Seanan McGuire (October Daye series), Chelsea Cain (Heartsick), Jonathan Maberry (Joe Ledger series), and more! The new writer of Hellboy and the BPRD, iZombie co-creator Chris Roberson, pitches in as well!

What if the end times allowed people to see and build the world anew? This is the landscape that Kimi Eisele creates in her surprising and original debut novel. Evoking the spirit of such monumental love stories as Cold Mountain and the creative vision of novels like Station Eleven, The Lightest Object in the Universe tells the story of what happens after the global economy collapses and the electrical grid goes down.

Growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls - a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place - Jake Baker spends most of his time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but eccentric enthusiast of occult artifacts and conspiracy theories. The summer Jake turns 12, he befriends a pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin decides to initiate them all into the "Saturday Night Ghost Club." But as the summer goes on, what begins as a seemingly light-hearted project may ultimately uncover more than any of its members had imagined.