Washoe County Library System

"A rural town finds itself under the authoritarian sway of a tree that punishes children. A pair of old friends navigate their fraught history as strange happenings escalate in a Mexican restaurant. A pair of narcissistic friends wreak havoc on an activist community. An aloof young man finds himself living through his lover's memories. And a day of LARPing takes a cosmic turn. In each of the seven stories in this collection, characters pursue their...

"An abandoned restaurant on a hill off the highway in Western Massachusetts doesn't look like much. But to Rio, a young Black woman bereft after the loss of her newborn child, this hill becomes more than a safe haven—it becomes a place to start over. She convinces her husband to help her construct a society underground, somewhere safe, somewhere everyone can feel loved, wanted, and accepted, where the children learn actual history, where everyone...

''A cursed statue . . . A haunted house . . . A seemingly supernatural death . . . The unexpected arrival of a friend from his past plunges musician, sleuth and free man of color Benjamin January into an old, unsolved case in this historical mystery set in New Orleans "Outstanding . . . fastidious period detail, and a consistently surprising investigation" Publishers Weekly Starred Review. December 1840. Surgeon turned piano-player Benjamin January...

A corporate workaholic facing a health scare asks a former high school classmate and current yoga studio owner to help him get into shape and win back the one who got away, despite really getting on each other's nerves. "Free-spirited yoga guru Shay Davis has only ninety days to get her workaholic former classmate Colin Anderson from work all day to namaste. All they need is a little common ground. Accountant Colin Anderson is working himself into...

"A bold and haunting debut story collection that follows various characters as they navigate the day-to-day perils of Jim Crow racism from Diane Oliver, a missing figure in the canon of twentieth-century African American literature. A remarkable talent far ahead of her time, Diane Oliver died in 1966 at the age of twenty-two, leaving behind these crisply told and often chilling tales that explore race and racism in 1950s and '60s America. In this...

Black Mirror meets Get Out in this gripping story collection reminiscent of the work of Octavia E. Butler, which deftly blends science fiction, horror, and fantasy to examine issues of race, class, and prejudice—an electrifying, oftentimes heartbreaking debut from an extraordinary new voice. Justin C. Key has long been obsessed with monsters. Reading R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps as a kid, he imagined himself battling monsters and mayhem to a triumphant...