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BEYOND HERE BE MONSTERS: A COLLECTION OF CREATURES AND CURIOSITIES
GREGORY FROST November 5, 2024 978-1-958880-26-5 Cover art by Richard "DeeK" Eisenhart trade paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 276 pgs Order copies below, or buy print or ebooks of this title from these dealers. Monsters are where you find them . . . unless they find you first: A young Abraham Van Helsing tracks the first vampires of his career while something far more horrible dwells much closer to home. A boxing manager seeks to discover what inhuman force could have killed his best prizefighter. A 19th century chemist investigates spiritualism, inventing a device whereby mediums speak with the dead. A werewolf awaiting a transfer of funds from home becomes embroiled in a bank robbery. A young boy discovers something unnatural living alongside him in a Chicago boarding house. A private investigator searching for a runaway wife tracks her to a town with a diabolical secret. Odysseus and his Greek soldiers climb out of the Trojan Horse…and into a nightmare. These are just some of the Creatures and Curiosities lurking within this collection of fourteen dark, sinister, and comic stories by Stoker, Hugo, and Nebula award finalist Gregory Frost.
![[ALT TEXT: THE PHOENIX FEATHER OMNIBUS, four complete novels. FLEDGLINGS * REDBARK * FIREBOLT * DRAGON AND PHOENIX. By Sherwood Smith. ]
[ALT IMAGE: A simple book cover of matte gold, with black text and white blossoms that may be cherry blossoms, along with a circle of black and white patterned tiles and within the circle a glorious phoenix drawn in back and white.]
Sherwood Smith’s media happy place tends toward braided tales, with characters growing and changing in a world both breathtaking and strange, where striving to become the best one can be matters. She found that in Chinese and Korean historical dramas, which kicked off years of immersion in East Asian history, literature, art, and language.
In 2020 when the world hibernated from the pandemic, she began writing The Phoenix Feather quartet, drawing on all those influences, and throwing in all the tropes she liked best—disguises and secret identities, cultivation arcs, big tropes such as family sagas, and little ones such as “there was just one bed!”
Premise: Twenty-five years ago a pair of lovers ran for their lives from an angry prince and washed up on an island where they adopted new identities—and found themselves blessed by an omen promising great things, a single golden phoenix feather.
Then their three children were born, and found themselves cast out into the world. . . .](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gal2oc2fpdx3u4hqyrukmu7d/bafkreib6pt74zafedpg22rfqczxfu4xcftvweev3kdg63rbbbsk3akwxh4)
![[ALT TEXT: THE SCOUNDREL'S DEADLY DEED, Gravesyde Village Mystery Book Two by New York Times Bestselling Author Patricia Rice. "Second chances can be murder . . . "]
[ALT IMAGE: A dark book cover with decorative gold lettering at the top and bottom. In the large center, storm clouds are parting, bright light seen at a distant horizon past a village, woods and a lake. A well-manicured farm, sheep grazing on a hill, can be seen in the center. Close to the viewer are two figures, one a young woman with flaming red hair looking off to the right of the picture. She's dressed in a vivid green floor length dress. Several feet behind her is a gentleman in dark business clothing, also looking to the right of the frame, intent on something happening beyond our view. ]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gal2oc2fpdx3u4hqyrukmu7d/bafkreihnf2wmpcvawfarlqzguyl4zw2wbkolk3k6efa6fl5nm73mgmpfmm)
![[ALT TEXT: DESCENDING FROM THE MOON by Steven Popkes ]
[ALT IMAGE: Under a full moon and a starry sky, a gorilla is playing a gleaming white upright piano. There's a tree leafed out above the back of the instrument, and also an adult pangolin standing on top of the piano.]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gal2oc2fpdx3u4hqyrukmu7d/bafkreickunvbvbo3ynv6kbgsu4t7bc6vi7gubjxjzyjpgq34cjudpzmmpm)
![[ALT TEXT: A SEA OF STARS AND TROUBLE by New York Times Bestselling Author Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. "...a colorful and swash-buckling space adventure... with a rogues' galley of interesting characters." -- Kevin J. Anderson ]
[ALT IMAGE: Against a section of deep space covered in stars and cosmic dust, a man's strong-featured face seems to appear from the darkness. He looks as if his dark gaze is fastened on the reader.]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gal2oc2fpdx3u4hqyrukmu7d/bafkreiafpp2ldskmkoaufsu6nkizmom24tzrafh7kjavzesq6hjjhlpa2e)
![[ALT TEXT: A PRINCESS OF PASSYUNK by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. "Philadelphia, 1950's: a boy, a magic baseball . . . a cockroach. Unlikely place. Unlikely characters. Unlikely love story.]
[ALT IMAGE: A top and bottom frame of warm brown with pale letters edges a photo montage of vintage 1950s brick sidewalks, old mercury vapor lights. . .and a fiery burst of lights over a trashcan in a dark alley. In the center, a youth in a hooded navy blue sweatshirt is looking to his left, out at the viewer. He's holding a suspiciously white baseball, and a cockroach is sitting on the ball.]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gal2oc2fpdx3u4hqyrukmu7d/bafkreib7cmawulujuebkvqtg3e2ld7ev5j2it7iqpbmw2q4nirlfhdozom)