Showing results by publisher "Meerkat Press" in All Categories

Marvin Deitz has some serious problems. His mob-connected landlord is strong-arming him out of his storefront. His therapist has concerns about his stability. He's compelled to volunteer at the local Children's Hospital even though it breaks his heart every week. Oh, and he's also the guilt-ridden reincarnation of Geoffroy Thérage, the French executioner who lit Joan of Arc's pyre in 1431. He's just seen a woman on a Los Angeles talk show claiming to be Joan, and absolution seems closer than it's ever been . . . but how will he find her?

Riptide, Oregon, 1983. A sleepy coastal town, where crime usually consists of underage drinking down at a Wolf Point bonfire. But then, strange things start happening. A human skeleton is unearthed in a local park, and mutilated animals begin appearing, seemingly sacrificed, on the town's beaches. The Mercy of the Tide follows four people drawn irrevocably together by a recent tragedy as they do their best to reclaim their lives - leading them all to a discovery that will change them and their town forever.

From the award-winning author of The Cipher and Buddha Boy, comes Velocities: Stories, Kathe Koja's second electrifying collection of short fiction. Thirteen stories, two never before published, all flying at the speed of strange.

Jude is dragged out of alt-country obscurity, out of the dismal loop of booze and sadness baths and the boundless, insatiable loneliness, to scrub up and fly to Australia for a last, desperate comeback tour. Hardly worth getting out of bed for - and he wouldn't, if it weren't for Coreen. But Coreen is dead. And, worse than that, she's married. Jude's swan song tour becomes instead a terminal descent into the sordid past, into the meaning hidden in forgotten songs, and into Coreen's madness diary, there to awaken something far worse than her ghost.

When Gabby's hand turns to steam, her mom hires an engineer to build a clockwork glove. It's the last thing Gabby wants. If only she could be normal. But when her mom is attacked by something monstrous, normal is no longer an option. Now, the only person she can turn to is a grizzled detective, who promises to help her become something...more.

In this gothic-styled ghost story that simmers with strange, Warren shows once again her flair for exploring the mundane - themes of love, loss, grief, and guilt manifest in a way that is both hauntingly familiar and eerily askew. People come to The Angelsea, a rooming house near the beach, for many reasons. Some come to get some sleep, because here, you sleep like the dead. Dora arrives seeking solitude and escape from reality. Instead, she finds a place haunted by the drowned and desperate, who speak through the sleeping inhabitants.

Sorting through the piles left behind by a grandmother who was both a stage magician and a hoarder, Persephone Aim finds a magical artifact from World War II that has shaped her family history. Faced with her mother’s desperate attempt to take the artifact for herself, Persephone must decide whether to hold onto the past or use it to reshape her future.

Behind the Mask is a multi-author collection with stories by award-winning authors Kelly Link, Cat Rambo, Carrie Vaughn, Seanan McGuire, Lavie Tidhar, Sarah Pinsker, Keith Rosson, Kate Marshall, Chris Large, and others. It is partially a prose nod to the comic world - the bombast, the larger-than-life, the save-the-worlds and the calls-to-adventure. But it’s also a spotlight on the more intimate side of the genre. The hopes and dreams of our cape-clad heroes. The regrets and longings of our cowled villains. That poignant, solitary view of the world that can be experienced only from behind the mask.

Agent Terrence Kovacs has worked for the New Petersburg Counter-Intel Department propagating fake UFO stories for so long that even he has a hard time separating fact from fiction. Especially when he's approached by a beautiful woman named Vita, who claims she's been sent from another planet to liberate Earth.