""You like it darker? Fine, so do I," writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life--both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King...

A collection of short stories from the #1 New York Times bestselling “Queen of Suspense” Mary Higgins Clark, including the never-before-published novella Death Wears a Beauty Mask.

"[A] remarkable collection . . . Bold and addictive, Going Away Shoes is a find." —People
The foibles of the people in Jill McCorkle’s world are so familiar that we want nothing so much as to watch them walk into—and then get out of—life’s inevitable traps. Here, in her first collection in eight years, McCorkle collects eleven brand-new stories bristling with her characteristic combination...

N. K. Jemisin is one of the most powerful and acclaimed speculative fiction authors of our time. In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, Jemisin equally challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption. In these stories, Jemisin sharply examines modern society, infusing magic into the mundane, and drawing deft parallels in the fantasy realms of her imagination. Dragons and hateful...

The exquisitely crafted stories in Anthony Doerr's acclaimed debut collection take readers from the African coast to the pine forests of Montana to the damp moors of Lapland, charting a vast physical and emotional landscape. Doerr explores the human condition in all its varieties-metamorphosis, grief, fractured relationships, and slowly mending hearts-and conjures nature in both its beautiful abundance and crushing power. Some of his characters contend...

"This powerful collection of short stories traces an emotional arc inspired by Madeleine L'Engle's early life and career, from her lonely childhood in New York to her life as a mother in small-town Connecticut. In a selection of eighteen stories discovered by one of L'Engle's granddaughters, we see how L'Engle's personal experiences and abiding faith informed the creation of her many cherished works. Some of these stories have never been published;...

Edited by critically acclaimed, best-selling author Alice Sebold, the stories in this year's collection serve as a provacative literary "antenna for what is going on in the world" ("Chicago Tribune)." The collection boasts great variety from "famous to first-timers, sifted from major magazines and little reviews, grand and little worlds" ("St. Louis Post-Dispatch)," ensuring yet another rewarding, eduring edition of the oldest and best-selling Best...