Hair Side, Flesh Side

A child receives the body of Saint Lucia of Syracuse for her seventh birthday. A rebelling angel rewrites the Book of Judgement to protect the woman he loves. A young woman discovers the lost manuscript of Jane Austen written on the inside of her skin. A 747 populated by a dying pantheon makes the extraordinary journey to the beginning of the universe.

Lyrical and tender, quirky and cutting, Helen Marshall’s exceptional debut collection weaves the fantastic and the horrific alongside the touchingly human in fifteen modern parables about history, memory, and cost of creating art.

The Jook

Zelmont Raines has slid a long way since his ability to jook, to out maneuver his opponents on the field, made him a Super Bowl winning wide receiver, earning him lucrative endorsement deals and more than his share of female attention. But Zee hasn’t always been good at saying no, so a series of missteps involving drugs, a paternity suit or two, legal entanglements, shaky investments and recurring injuries have virtually sidelined his career.

That is until Los Angeles gets a new pro franchise, the Barons, and Zelmont has one last chance at the big time he dearly misses. Just as it seems he might be getting back in the flow, he’s enraptured by Wilma Wells, the leggy and brainy lawyer for the team–who has a ruthless game plan all her own. And it’s Zelmont who might get jooked.

Late Rain

Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, August 2011.

Corrine Tedros is a Lady Macbeth wannabe who sets in motion the murder of her uncle-in-law (a soft-drink mogul), and things go awry when the murder is witnessed by a senior citizen in the late stages of Alzheimers. Things are complicated by the fact that the daughter of the man with Alzheimers is involved with a former homicide detective who has resigned and moved South in an attempt to reshape and simplify his life; on his own, Decovic starts to make connections in the case that cause Corrine Tedros to up the ante in keeping herself out of the murder investigation.

Cover photo by Chris Darling.

Listen to the Dead

Inspired by one of the largest unsolved cases of serial killings in the United States, the New Bedford Serial Killings of 1988.

Harbormaster Corby Church finds the bones of a human body on Bird Island off Cape Cod. As brassy, young police detective Yemanjá Colón struggles with the case, she realizes that Church may know more than he’s letting on, and a trip he took to the Bahamas in the ’80s may prove the key.

The Man Who Folded Himself

The Man Who Folded Himself, written in 1973 (and reissued by BenBella in 2003) is a classic science fiction novel by award-winning author David Gerrold. This work was nominated for both Hugo and Nebula awards and is considered by some critics to be the finest time travel novel ever written.

Trash Sex Magic

Jennifer Stevenson’s debut novel starts with Raedawn Somershoe who lives in a trailer on the banks of the Fox River. She likes men and men like her. It runs in the family: her mother, Gelia, can seduce a man just by walking across a road. When they set their sights on a man, something magical happens.

Alexander Caebeau drives a bucketloader for a construction company. He’s lonely, homesick, tired of cutting down trees and putting up ugly buildings. He dreams of going back to the Bahamas, but when Alexander meets Raedawn Somershoe, something magical happens.

Raedawn has just lost her lover. Her mother is keeping secrets from her. Her childhood sweetheart has come home and is looking for answers. Riverfront developers want Rae and her family gone. She may just be falling in love with Alexander Caebeau. And the Fox River is beginning to rise. . . . Something magical is about to happen.