Hired as the mechanic for a traveling troupe of musicians, Tempest, gifted with the ability to communicate with animals, is astounded to discover an overpowering attraction to Darius, the troupe's leader.

"Bestselling author Walter Mosley has proven himself a master of narrative tension, both with his extraordinary fiction and gripping writing for television. The Awkward Black Man collects seventeen of Mosley's most accomplished short stories to display the full range of his remarkable talent. Mosley presents distinct characters as they struggle to move through the world in each of these stories - heroes who are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved,...

Act One: At a kitchen table, a husband and wife discuss the news, nudists, and lie to each other about the ways they no longer connect. Act Two: At a kitchen table, a man and his friend discuss the weather, the state of public transportation, and lie to each other for the sake of something to say. Act Three: At a kitchen table, three people discuss, mostly, nothing, and watch the threads unravel as their lives come apart at the seams. Told in a genre-defying...

"Woody Bookman hasn't spoken a word in his eleven years of life. Not when his father died in a freak accident. Not when his mother, Megan, tells him she loves him. For Megan, keeping her boy safe and happy is what matters. But Woody believes a monstrous evil was behind his father's death and now threatens him and his mother. And he's not alone in his thoughts. An ally unknown to him is listening. A uniquely gifted dog with a heart as golden as his...

"The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From here on in she would be known as Sankofa--a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past. Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks--alone, except for her fox companion--searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers. But is there...

As a volunteer at the San Diego Zoo in California, Margaret has been making good use of her psychic ability to communicate with animals such as Zaran, a stubborn tigress who refuses to accept her cub. Late one night, just as she shuts Zaran's cage, Margaret feels a gun in her back. John Lassiter, a former CIA operative, is prepared to use force to ensure that she joins him on a mission to rescue his mentor, CIA agent Sean Patrick. Patrick has been...

Isabel Winton had planned to spend the last few days of her marriage at her vacation home, intending to reflect, regroup...or maybe just do some solitary sulking. Instead, she collides with her almost ex, Paul, who has the same idea. Too stubborn to leave, Isabel figures this is a chance for them to get some closure. But she's astonished to see that months apart have transformed her emotionally aloof husband into "Paul 2.0," more open than ever before....

In an Edenic future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They possess a few remnants of civilization: some books, a pane of glass, a set of flint and steel, a comb. The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature, for they are the last of humankind. But when the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape,...

"Biologist Julie E. Czerneda's new standalone science fiction novel, To Each This World follows a desperate mission to reconnect with long lost sleeper ships, sent centuries earlier from Earth to settle distant worlds. A trio of Humans must work with their mysterious alien allies to rescue any descendants they can find on those worlds. Something is out there, determined to claim the cosmos for itself, and only on Earth will Humans be safe. Or will...

A physicist receives mysterious information about how to enable immortality in a city torn by the agendas of "fast ones," shadow players, jinni, and two revolution-minded sisters; while a thief on the edge of reality is aided by a sardonic ship to risk his freedom and find his patron.