Nature Against by Delenda Carthago starts in a sterile dome city where a computer system controls every human decision. We follow Ziyue, a woman who is done with this forced perfection and just wants an exit from the system, but the rulers won’t even let...

In Six Mile Store, A. M. Belsey tells the story of Honey, a recent college graduate with a job at a rural convenience store in Arkansas. She’s struggling to figure out what comes next. At work, she spends her time ringing up customers and stocking...

When Breaks The Maelstrom by Eugene Barnes is a collection of dark fantasy and science fiction stories. The book takes readers on wild rides into the minds of people about to commit murder, to the American Old West to investigate a sharpshooting case, and to...

Tales from the Texas Timberlands, Volume 2 by J. Andrew Rice features five interconnected stories set in East Texas. It shows ordinary folks whose character, persistence, and everyday values end up shaping the next generation. The first tale, “Sawmill,” follows the dauntless Berry brothers who...

Kohōpeh’s Lotus, Mud, Blade is set in the Siamese city of Vimaya. Moo Hring is a guard whose kitchen knife and public daring make her feared across the market. She secretly loves Preah Ponhea Chan, a Khmer prince pressured by Governor Luang Borommanant to accept...

What would you do if you woke up without any memory of who you are? In Between Rooms by Adrian M. Mompoint is the story of a woman who experiences that phenomenon. The story begins as she’s waking up. She’s somewhere she doesn’t recognize, and...

I Wasn’t Ready to Lose You by Brady E. McGiffin is a thought-provoking exploration of grief. Asher lost his grandpa, E.R., at the tender age of nine. Ever since then, he has lived with an otherworldly silence. Shortly after his grief began, he felt...

In Eilidh MacTavish's Any Way Out, an unnamed child lives with Pop, a father who destroys her youth with physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Mother, who is also a victim, still lashes out at the child and blames her for much of the abuse. As...

A grandmother meets a six-year-old boy named Jack at a bus stop as he returns from school. She promises that she will be waiting for him there tomorrow, too. Yet, unexpectedly, something changes, and the bus arrives without the boy one day. Will Bennett gets...

In Lynn Crandall’s Move Me, after Dark Sides, a supernatural criminal faction, loses its hold on Auralia, city manager Cassie Butler tries to leave behind the name Diane and the crimes attached to it. Her new life is interrupted when Peter, a surviving Dark Aspect,...