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“Untitled” is the featured artwork for our Historical & Genre issue from May 2021, "Hourglass."
“You’re starting to remember now, aren’t you?” he asked softly, rolling over onto his side to face her.
“I remember that you always fight,” she murmured, “and so I always lose you.” When he didn’t say anything for several long moments, she prompted, “What about you? What do you remember?”
His fingers brushed against her hair in the dark. “I remember that you’re always worth fighting for.”
Mary had not expected any of this. She had feared it, especially in early June, when the breathless rumors were running rampant. But as the days passed, and the rumors came to naught, Mary believed that this summer would pass just as every other summer had before it.
After all, what could the Rebels possibly want in a town like Gettysburg?
The full moon made the night bright—that was why it was for lovers. By its light, maybe May will see Frank just one more time.
Micah didn’t like to speak ill of the dead, but he was finding himself quite angry at his fallen compatriot. The man’s death was proving to be very inconvenient for him.
“Bride in Red” is the featured artwork for our Action/Adventure & Suspense issue from April 2021, "Journey."
June is a courier runner for medical supplies in a post-Undead zombie apocalypse. When she’s injured on an important run, an unexpected ally gives her a taste of a better life.
The hand is cold and heavy as it presses against Jemma’s mouth and nose, stifling any noise she might have made. Cool lips brush against her ear and she shivers against the body at her back while her eyes focus on the display in front of her.
“Don’t move, don’t make a sound if you value your life. Can you do that?”
When a stalker discovers that someone else is targeting the object of her affections, she takes matters into her own hands.
The gig is simple enough: exist conveniently, show a bit of love and understanding when it’s needed, make you more human but don’t be too human myself. Don’t be too challenging or complex or needy. And when the time comes, try to remember I was a good woman. The perfect catalyst to your next step.
Unconscious and tied to a kitchen chair, he doesn’t look like a monster.
“Who is the Contemporary Woman?” is the featured artwork for our Contemporary issue from March 2021, "Prism."
Ghosts aren’t scary. Or, at least, they don’t mean to be on purpose. Could anyone really blame them for becoming restless or even violent after being reminded of their tragic ends? I know I’d be pissed. Maybe it was a blessing we lose our memories after death.
Annie met Derek far from home, during one of the worst weeks of her life. And she’s glad she did, because he has become one of her favorite friends. (He’s attractive too, but that’s really neither here nor there.) When she discovers that he’ll be alone for Christmas, she takes a chance and invites him to Christmas dinner with her family.
It’s on day twelve of forty-two, in the hell hole that Calligan Farley is confined to, when Theogony House Orderly, Van Pierce, strolls into her room, innocent and bright-eyed and beautifully confused, with messy dark hair and a five o’clock shadow.
I close my eyes and listen.
The steel of the safe is cool against my cheek as the tumblers slowly turn with soft clicks. The white silk of my long dress brushes against my skin as faint laughter and the hum of conversation drift into the dark room. I pause as the distant sound of sirens echo outside, glancing uneasily at the large bay window as the red and blue lights approach, then fade.
I’m so close. Just a few inches of steel separate me from what I desire most. And I won’t let them take it from me.
Not again.
There are shadows where there shouldn’t be, and glints of light in random corners, and sometimes the whole place gets this dappled look like it’s underwater. So Lety’s not too concerned when a shadow falls over her workspace, only to find there’s nothing behind her when she bothers to turn around.
“Untitled” is the featured artwork for our Romance issue from February 2021, "Butterflies."
Joanna thought taking the commission for the future queen would be a stuffy, boring job. Her contract never said anything about finding in love in the process.
“Funny,” he drawled, in a voice like smoke, “I thought you would kiss a hell lot harder than you punch.”
Or: An unstoppable force meets an immovable object during Manhattan high society’s Wedding of the Year.
Theo hates Duke Winters, the most aggravating frat bro on Earth, with his entire being. But when they’re paired together for a class project, he doesn’t seem too bad. Is Duke just using him to get close to Theo’s only friend, Angela? Or, even worse, could Duke be interested in Theo himself?
Becks Kaplan didn’t have a good high school experience. Outed by her stepsisters at an all-girls school that purported more progressive politics than she ever experienced there, all she wanted to do was get away from New York City forever. But it’s been ten years, and there’s a reunion, and she wants to show everyone that she’s not that frightened baby dyke anymore. And maybe catch the eye of the former classmate she always wished she’d known better.
With nothing left for her at home, Ivy Barr joins the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry as an ambulance driver in the Great War. While in France, Ivy continually bumps into her childhood crush, William Dyer, now a sergeant in Rawlin’s Fourth Army. Together they navigate warfare and affection, and whatever comes next.
Life on other worlds—her ancestors would’ve thrilled at this news. But it was all the same, planet after planet, rock after rock. They would find water, and little tufts of plants, here and there. But never life. No fauna, no beings. Humanity had looked out to space in the hopes that it would be a mirror, and instead they had found a void.
A final solution to plastic pollution? Lab buddies Jane and Mandy are close to a breakthrough. But they’re young, and naive, and up against powers who will stop at nothing to destroy their work.
Bea27102890 lives a regimented life, and knows exactly one person who she can call a friend. Their lives get upended together, and what she learns shakes her to her core.
“They don’t let you leave, you know. Once you join them, you’re theirs forever, compelled to ride as their leader wills.”
Aster first rode with the Wild Hunt when she was ten years old. Ever since, she’s always seen reminders of a world beyond mortal life. But it’s what she doesn’t see—and what she doesn’t know about that night—that will make her question what a life is truly worth.
The first time I die, I see her.
“Galactic Flora” is the featured artwork for our Fantasy & Science Fiction issue from January 2021, "Celestial."
“Memory Loss” is the featured artwork for our December issue of 2020, "Memory."
“Memories sell high this time of year, and we’ve been holding onto the ones our regular collectors might like to see.”
Dana was the smart, capable friend everyone leaned on for advice. But the world has changed, and maybe nothing Dana knows applies any more.
I lived forever until 1941. These are the things that I remember. This is what I have been left with.
All his life Nathaniel tried to do right by what was expected of him, first from his parents, then his school, then his employer. But what if the answer to what he was always seeking was in a pile of soggy tea leaves at the bottom on a teacup? Part of a larger story.
Every life is a tapestry of memories, and if you’re lucky, you share them with people who love you.
Two children break into an abandoned mansion to seek shelter from a storm. But a house has memories, and it won’t leave them alone.
“Chance” is the featured artwork for our November issue of 2020, "Chance."
Her name was Moira. She was the first child born after the world burned. Her mothers raised her with spinning and weaving cloth and stories, but she always felt her own story was incomplete. Until one day, adventure comes for her, and she must use her mothers’ gifts, her mothers’ stories, and her own bravery to survive.
Gerda, Duchess of Shelsig, was about to meet her new stepdaughter for the first time. A daunting enough prospect, even without the ghost of a murdered 17th century Duchess threatening her best hopes for a good first impression.
After winning a getaway to the little seaside town of Wayland Beach, Oregon, grieving Maya finds more than she bargains for when she meets the local bookshop owner.
An Alpha werewolf. A vampire who just wants to finish her dissertation. A more-or-less arranged marriage.
Dev left London to get away from people. To breathe fresh, to see the sea. To mourn and move on. But Appledore had gifted him a different kind of ghost in George Potts.
“Medusa” is the featured artwork for our October issue of 2020, "Monster."
A Jewish Partisan stumbles across an injured Wehrmacht soldier in the forests outside of Minsk.
It’s been centuries since the Creatures were bound beneath the earth. Now, they live in basements, underground tunnels, laundry rooms of apartments with flickering lights and stale air. Humanity has grown complacent, forgetting them, taking them for granted. But there is magic in the Creatures, and one woman braves the darkness to discover just how magical their union can be.
Aithne lived on the edge of the wood, near where the Veil separated the Fae realm from the human one, carving out a new life for herself far from the home she once knew. When Sebastian stumbled through the Veil as summer faded into fall, Aithne takes him into her home until she can find a way for him to get back. Fate, her heart and Aithne’s sister all have other plans for the two of them.
I am a centuries’-old vampire who is grumpy and set in my ways, and I really do not understand why humans are so fascinated by me and my kind every Halloween.
These days, Morgan finds excitement in the small things: daydreaming about long-deferred vacations, swiping through matches on monster-dating apps, and battling incipient moth infestations at her yarn shop. Anything for some stimulation amid smothering predictability. Except it turns out her moth problem is bigger than she thought. Much bigger. She’s pretty sure she’s seen pornos that start like this...
“Vasilisa” is the featured artwork for our September issue of 2020, "Myth & Folklore."
Times change, and even the gods must change with them. Especially the gods. Or: Hades and Persephone through the years.
In the Celestial Kingdom, a forbidden romance gets an unlikely ally.
“Wishing for something to be real and actually encountering it in the flesh was something no one could be entirely prepared for. The creature before her was, at once, the most beautiful and the most terrible thing Maise had ever seen.”
It is late at night at St. Bridget’s Hospital, and three women are awaiting the birth of a baby.
All she knew then, in that oppressive darkness, was that she was a creature who hungered. Who desired. And whatever she desired, she would have.
Mortals often wondered which had come first: death or time?
Death knew they asked the wrong question entirely, for why did it matter? What was time to a mortal other than the yardstick by which they measured the encroachment of their inevitable demise? Death and time had come into existence in the same moment of creation, though they would not leave this plane together: the last thing Death would reap was time.
So for an existence unmeasurable by any mortal means, Death walked in the universe alone. Stars were born and flared and died, continents churned and consumed each other, life bloomed and swam and flew—and then it began to walk on two legs—and then it began to pray.
And suddenly, Death wasn’t alone any longer.
“In the Woods Somewhere” is the featured artwork for our August issue of 2020, "The Forest."
Maid Marian walks a delicate balance between what is expected and what she craves, and the arrival of her childhood friend, Robin, Lady Huntington, does nothing to simplify matters. Marian must decide where her loyalties lie—to the absent king, to the one who sits the throne in the King’s place, to the husband who has been chosen for her, or to the woods, and to freedom, and to the dreams she’d almost forgotten. And all the while, bandits haunt the woods around Nottingham, and Marian suspects that their leader is closer to her than anyone might suspect.
I am the Keeper of the Gate. For this world, at least. “The Gate is open,” I say to the young souls, eager to seize their destiny; to the old, begging to change it. “Go. Remember, it is easy to stay. It is difficult to leave. But when it appears again, you must walk through. This world will remain unchanged, but you will not.”
In a world of red earth and bone born from the salt and sand, the last dendrochronologist meets a man preserving something out of myth. A tree.
Aithne lived on the edge of the wood, near where the Veil separated the Fae realm from the human one, carving out a new life for herself far from the home she once knew. When Sebastian stumbled through the Veil as summer faded into fall, Aithne took him into her home until she could find a way for him to get back. Fate, her heart and Aithne’s sister all had other plans for the two of them.
George Whitmore—ne’er-do-well, younger son of the Earl of Kendal—tries to find his place in the world and goes off to the ‘war to end all war’ in an attempt to do his patriotic duty. Kathleen Dunbar, lady’s maid to George’s little sister, becomes his lifeline through the letters they exchange. First as acquaintances, then as friends, then as something more, Kathleen’s letters bring him hope. He had been carefree when they first met. Intelligent and thoughtful, through his letters. What kind of man will he be, once he returns?
All the concrete has failed. Wood is the only building material that matters. Anjali’s mother is missing. And there are strange sounds coming from the birch trees.
Unable to pass up the chance at a mountain of gold and the freedom it offers, Meri found herself standing at the edge of a forest that townsfolk swear steals people, planning to go kill a witch and rescue a kidnapped princess. Apparently, she’d decided her freedom was worth dying for.
“Lighthouse” is the featured artwork for our July issue of 2020, "Open Road."
Aya and her friends are not the only ones on the island. Something is there with them. And it wants her.
The past is a different country. They do things differently there. For an exile, the saying is doubly true.
“The first thing you must always remember,” her grandmother once told her, “is that the sea never forgets. The second is that which belongs to the sea, will always return to it. Always.”
Everyone Annie knew—siblings, parents, friends—had tried to talk her out of doing this. It was crazy, they said. It was going to be too difficult for her. She was going on the honeymoon for a canceled wedding, and people don’t do that, for very good reasons.
“But I do,” she had declared, “I do that. And it’s not a honeymoon, it’s an ‘alone-y moon’.”
Underneath her bravado, though, she was scared. Until now, she had been certain about where she was going in life, and who she was going with; but that certainty had vanished.
It couldn’t be clearer he’s from someplace else. Cassie can’t remember the last time someone from someplace else stumbled into this diner— though after living all of her twenty-four years in this part of Indiana she’s familiar enough with the types who come through for the university to recognize one when she sees them.
That’s the great thing about handsome strangers. You know you’ll never see them again.
An island girl and a tourist meet one hot summer afternoon. But this island is no paradise, and there are consequences to staying.
Elle March thinks that she is the last witch—except that maybe she is not. Elle March thinks that she’ll cast a love spell for her sister, and then she’ll be able to go back to her quiet life—except that maybe she won’t.
Sentenced to death, Kaia finds herself offered to the serpent that rules the sea outside of her city. Instead of being devoured, she awakens on an island of women who were also saved by Galen, a man bound to the water and his serpent form. Given a second chance at life, she finds herself determined to follow her heart, even when it means defying the sea itself.
Liyotte may not have expected love in her marriage, but she at least had thought she wouldn’t wish to murder her husband in earnest. Six years after starting to dream of it, the stars were aligning and it was time to fly.
A mountain spirit roams the wasteland of her home, desperate to rebuild a world long dead, hungry for anything that will make it matter. When the arrival of a visitor from beyond the horizon disrupts her routines, she begins to see the past and her desires in a new light.
She wasn't a real mermaid. Rick knew that. Nadine was simply playing the role for the tourist pirate show, same as him. But the more he flounders, searching for a purpose, any purpose outside of the pretend world of pirates and mermaids, the more he wonders...
what if?
“I never should have let you on my ship,” she hisses with an anger she feels deep in the marrow of her bones. Her wrists are bound behind her back as his men haul her towards the mainmast where what remains of her crew are being tied up.
It's been a long time Vera and Sabine have talked, but when Sabine's mother passes away, she asks Vera to come along on a trip to her family cabin on the lake. During their stay, the women wrestle with complicated feelings towards their past, their present, and each other. Meanwhile, something strange is happening in the water.
The Avians and the Merfolk have been at war for longer than either of them can recall. Raised to kill or be killed, winged huntress Enara has been taught to hate and fear the ones that live beneath the waves. But when when chance throws her in peril with one of her enemies, she's forced to confront her ignorance, and her growing desires.
Brit Taylor has a wedding planning business, a master's degree, and a severe concussion.
John Evans owns the lakeside resort where Brit decides to spend her recovery time. Seven days tripping over her own feet with no computers or phones probably won't kill either of them. Right?
"Milkshake" is the featured artwork for our June issue of 2020, "Sky & Sea."