Avid readers of this blog might remember me talking about how many books we have on our calendar this year. This week will certainly drive that point home.
And fans of short fiction will have many reasons to rejoice. Nine of them, to be exact!
That’s because we’re releasing nine new titles this week, and they are all short fiction based: three holiday anthologies, one short story collection, and five Pulphouse books!
The three holiday anthologies, which publish on Tuesday, are from the WMG Holiday Spectacular 2020. Here are the titles and synopses for each:
Murder, mayhem, and all manner of crimes set during the holiday season give this anthology a bite that serves as a delightful change from the sweetness that often dominates this time of the year.
This volume contains an abundance of thieves, a few murderers, a wannabe murderer, and one or two stories in which the crime lurks on the periphery. With a host of unreliable narrators, a few psychopaths, and one acrobat, who could resist?
From a search for the perfect Christmas tree that turns deadly to a reformed thief who wrestles with the better angels of his nature when temptation arises during the holidays, these marvelous mysteries prove the perfect distraction for even the stormiest winter evening.
Includes:
“Christmas Chase” by Tonya D. Price
“For The Win” by Stephannie Tallent
“Into the Good Night” by Rob Vagle
“A Different, Better Red” by Michael Warren Lucas
“The Art of Waiting” by Kelly Washington
“Christmas in the Ruins” by Mary Jo Rabe
“The Magi of St. Michael’s” by Annie Reed
“Pungent Justice” by Kari Kilgore
“Targets of Opportunity” by Stefon Mears
“All The Bells and Whistles” by B.A. Paul
“Not A Cozy” by Steven Mohan, Jr.
Venture forth into the delightful adventures of ghosts and elves and imps and more found in the magical worlds of Fantastic Christmas.
Enjoy sweets for the sweet romantics, charming ghosts and imps to capture the imagination, and stories both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.
From Nordic sprites who long for the porridge and butter and sugar from the hands of their human neighbors to a man desperate to be with his dying wife on their own special holiday, the stories in this volume add a bit of warmth to your holiday season.
Includes:
“The Last Hour of Hogswatch” by Michael Warren Lucas
“The Best Christmas” by Dory Crowe
“Spirit of the Season” by Anthea Lawson
“The Magic of Sharing” by R.W. Wallace
“The Way the Cookie Crumbles” by Angela Penrose
“An Embarrassment of Id’imps” by Ezekiel James Boston
“The Case of the Disappearing Decorations” by Annie Reed
“The Inn, the Black Cat, and Two Halves of the Same Heart” by Kari Kilgore
“Motorcoach Miracles” by Juliet Nordeen
“Magic For a New Year” by Lisa Silverthorne
The best holiday stories delight with heartfelt satisfaction from beginning to end.
Romance forms the core of most of the stories in this volume, and they feature holiday settings from Thanksgiving to New Years, with even some made up holidays in between.
From a young woman trying to wheedle some good-luck collard greens out of the new minister on New Year’s Eve to the two young university students adrift in a foreign country for the holidays, each story touches the heart and warms the soul.
A perfect distraction from the hustle and bustle of the holidays!
Includes:
“Good Luck Greens” by Irette Y. Patterson
“Finding Sanctuary” by Kari Kilgore
“The Journey Home” by Erik Kort
“Pagan Sunrise” by Stefon Mears
“Toast The Stars” by Stephannie Tallent
“Speakeasy to Her Heart” by Stephanie Writt
“Winter’s Perfect Night” by Kelly Shire
“The Slowpokes’ Parade” by Patricia Duffy Novak
“An Unexpected Winter” by Tao Wong
“New Year’s Fortune” by Anthea Lawson
“Andrew and Shichi-Go-San” by Jason A. Adams
“Coming Home” by Chrissy Wissler
To find out more information about these three new holiday anthologies (and the three from last year), click here. And don’t forget to sign up for the 2021 WMG Holiday Spectacular 2021 here.
We also have a fantastic new short story collection by Kristine Kathryn Rusch publishing on Tuesday, which features her five stories from the 2019 and 2020 WMG Holiday Spectaculars. It’s called Stories for the Cold of Winter. Here’s the synopsis:
Light-hearted holiday stories abound, but when the days turn cold and bracing, darker tales tempt the senses. This collection of five stories from award-winning and bestselling master of short fiction Kristine Kathryn Rusch fits that bill.
All centered on the winter holidays, Stories for the Cold of Winter features four crime stories: “The Thanksgiving After,” a suspense story set on Black Friday (more or less); “Frank’s Corner Bar,” a Christmas day story set in a neighborhood bar during an ice storm; “Resolution,” which follows an assassin trying to change her life with the new year; and “Other People’s Stupidity,” which focuses on the legal profession at year’s end.
The fifth offering, “Vigil,” offers a tale of quiet dedication to lives lost.
So, stoke the fire and let these tales entertain on a cold winter’s night.
For more information, click here.
And on Thursday, we’ll release five new Pulphouse books. Here are their titles and synopses:
Don’t Touch My Magic!
Magic stories, by their very nature, create fictional worlds. Take a story with magic and twist it in a way that makes it a Pulphouse story, and you get fiction that sometimes shocks, sometimes challenges, and sometimes breaks your heart.
From flying underwear trying to save the world to Mouse Riders trying to save their own world. From a made-up fantasy world to a magical cartoon character exploring his cartoon world. From a romance bound by two guns to a lawyer who represents the magical world in real court.
These ten stories crafted by extremely talented writers take readers to magical worlds.
Includes:
“In the Empire of Underpants” by Robert Jeschonek
“Coyote and the Amazing Herbal Formula” by Sabrina Chase
“Hand Fast” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“The Reign to Come” by Kevin J. Anderson
“A Magical Negro” by Ezekiel James Boston
“This Magic Moment” by Lisa Silverthorne
“Unnatural Law” by J. Steven York
“PMS and a Hand Grenade” by Brenda Carre
“Custard: A Romeo and Juliet Story (sort of)” by Dayle A. Dermatis
“Queen of the Mouse Riders” by Annie Reed
Ghosts Among Us
Everyone loves a good ghost story. Somehow the creepiest, scariest ghost stories always feature sadness at their core.
From a story about a woman who must face her ghosts on Christmas Eve night, to a ghost detective stuck in his own cemetery helping other ghosts move on by solving their own murders, to a ghost who writes letters to the living—these ghosts seem more alive than dead. Their sagas just continue into another realm.
So, steel your courage and delve into these ten stories from the other side of the veil.
Includes:
“Death by Vodka” by Robert J. McCarter
“Dead Girlfriend” by Ray Vukcevich
“The Writing on the Wall” by Kevin J. Anderson
“The Dead on Somerset Hill” by Chuck Heintzelman
“Dreams of Memories Never Lived” by Rob Vagle
“Flowers for Mother” by J. Steven York
“Ghosts of Christmas Present” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“The Developmental Adventures of Phil” by Jason A. Adams
“Salt” by Thorn Coyle
“Just Desserts” by R.W. Wallace
Run!! Creatures, Critters, and Pulphousers…
Take your wildest imagination, and you might just come up with a Pulphouser: a rare creature only found on the pages of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine.
Add in some more strange creatures and critters, and you might just find yourself running—straight to your favorite chair to dive into the ten stories in this wacky volume!
So, welcome to the Pulphouse Zone, with an abundance of creatures and critters that only exist in Pulphouse.
Includes:
“Blackbeard’s Aliens” by Robert Jeschonek
“Vamp until Doomsday” by Stefon Mears
“The Injustice Collector” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Dog Steps” by Rob Vagle
“For the Love of Killer” by Mary Jo Rabe
“Dog People” by Robert J. McCarter
“The Poodles of Panama” by Kent Patterson
“The True Story of Stanley and Stella” by Johanna Rothman
“Starlings” by Jerry Oltion
“Brick Houses” by Annie Reed
There’ll Be Blue Popcorn Without You!
Blue Popcorn means sadness and loss and love. In the pages of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, it also means very weird and entertaining sadness and loss and love.
The ten stories in this volume range from a dweeby guy trying to win the affection of a beautiful woman, to a tale of a solo man in a future world looking for companionship, to a story about art and the crime it reveals.
Running the gamut from science fiction to fantasy to psychological drama, these tales evoke strong emotion.
Includes:
“A Better Man Than You” by Jerry Oltion and Kent Patterson
“Rose in Dreamland” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Under the Blood-Red Maple” by Joslyn Chase
“A Cherub by Any Other Name” by Annie Reed
“Small Discrete Intervals from a Sample Size of One” by J. Steven York
“A Night Under the Stars” by Lisa Silverthorne
“Bravo and Jazz” by Ron Collins
“The Man Who Married His Wife’s Thigh” by Bonnie Elizabeth
“Virtual Oracle” by Leigh Saunders
“The Pearce Shootout” by Robert J. McCarter
Twisted Robots, Oh, My!
Robots often walk the pages of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine.
Pulphouse prides itself on crossing genre lines, blurring genre lines, and just flat mixing up genres until the genre classification means nothing.
Terms like different, off-center, twisted, and sometimes just head-scratching form the hallmarks of a Pulphouse story.
So, like everything else in Pulphouse, the robots in these ten stories might or might not fit the standard classification of robots. But they definitely scream Pulphouse!
Includes:
“The Clockwork Man’s Canteen” by J. Steven York
“nanoturds” by Ray Vukcevich
“A Little Song, A Little Dance, A Little Apocalypse Down Your Pants” by Robert Jeschonek
“Battery-Operated Boyfriend” by Barbara G. Tarn
“One-Night Stands for Love and Glory” by David H. Hendrickson
“Daisy’s Heart” by Robert J. McCarter
“Taking Care of Business” by Mary Jo Rabe
“Unfamiliar, Foreign, Outré” by Jerry Oltion
“Exchange Policy” by Scott William Carter
“Tinker Henry and the Clockwork Whore” by Jim Gotaas
To find out more information about these five new Pulphouse books (and the nine others that were previously published), click here.
So many awesome short stories. What a great excuse to stay inside with a good book!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.