All the New Horror, Romantasy, and Other SFF-Crossover Books Arriving in March!

Syrah Carthan doesn’t know why she accepted a job as the first female fire chief at Sequoia National Park, where, decades earlier, a forest fire killed her parents. That day, her brother, Romelo, disappeared, as if pulled into the scorched earth itself. Syrah has always had an uncanny affinity for the natural wonders of the park she protects, but after she sanctions a prescribed burn that goes terribly wrong, she quits her position in disgrace. However, when another devastating wildfire breaks out, Syrah, reluctantly pulled back into action, discovers an unknown world that has existed underground since the beginning of time. This secret society, built around the forest’s complex root system, is now divided into two factions. One is ruled by the Keeper, the giant sequoias’ benevolent caretaker. The other by a mysterious undoer, who’s determined to wage war on humanity. Through him, nature can retaliate and wipe out the earth’s careless ravagers for good. Torn between human loyalty and preserving the delicate balance of nature, Syrah must make a choice—one that will change both her destiny and that of the world above and below forever.

Sixteen years ago, Brigit Weylan’s older sister, Emma, walked into the woods in their small hometown of Ellis Creek. She never walked out. People said she was troubled—in the months leading up to her death, she was convinced there was a monster in those trees. Marked by the tragedy, Brigit left town and never looked back. Now Brigit travels around the country investigating paranormal activity (and faking the results) with her cameraman, Ian. But when she receives a call from Ellis Creek, she’s thrust into the middle of a search for two missing teenagers. As Brigit and Ian are drawn further into the case, the parallels to Emma’s death become undeniable. And worse, Brigit can’t explain what’s happening to her: trees appearing in her bedroom in the middle of the night, something with a very familiar laugh watching her out in the darkness, and Emma’s voice on her phone, reminding Brigit to finish what they started. More and more, it looks like Emma was right: there is a monster in Ellis Creek, and it’s waited a long time for Brigit to come home.

An angry mother turns into a literal monster. A company in San Francisco can scrub your entire reputation and create a new one… for a price. A failed actor on a reality show turns into an unlikely world savior. And much more. Through each of these twelve interconnected stories, Katie Flynn masterfully blends people, places, and even realities. From a powerful and “radiant” (Kassandra Montag, author of After the Flood) new literary voice to be reckoned with, this collection will stay with you after turn the final page.

Yewon dreams of a hotel. In the hotel, there are infinite keys to infinite rooms—and a quiet terror she is both eager to understand and desperate to escape. When Yewon wakes, she sees her life: a young woman, out of her job at a convenience store, trapped in the tiny South Korean village of her birth, watching her mother wash the bones of their ancestors in their decrepit bathtub. Every house has them, these rotting and fragmented ribs, tibias, and femurs, whose constant care and persistent stench serve as reminders of what they have all lost to the Forgotten War that never seems to end. Now Yewon’s brother is stationed near the North Korean border, her sister has experienced a life-changing tragedy, and her mother is overwhelmed by anxiety, her health declining. When Yewon begins to drive a local woman named Ms. Han, a mysterious and aging North Korean refugee, to visit her brother at a distant prison, Yewon’s dreams intensify. As the line between reality and illusion slowly begins to blur, Yewon is led to an unsettling truth about her country’s collective heritage.

Petra Grady has known since adolescence that she has no talent for magic—and that’s never going to change. But as a sweeper first-class, she’s parlayed her rare ability to handle dross—the damaging, magical waste generated by her more talented kin’s spellwork—into a decent life working at the mages’ university. Except Grady’s relatively predictable life is about to be upended. When the oblivious, sexy, and oh-so-out-of-reach Benedict Strom needs someone with her abilities for a research project studying dross and how to render it harmless, she’s stuck working on his team—whether she wants to or not. Only Benedict doesn’t understand the characteristics of dross like Grady does. After an unthinkable accident, she and Benedict are forced to go on the run to seek out the one person who might be able to help: an outcast exiled ten years ago for the crime of using dross to cast spells. Now Grady must decide whether to stick with the magical status quo or embrace her own hidden talents… and risk shattering their entire world.

Nell Ingram draws her powers from deep in the earth, and uses them to help Psy-LED, the Psychometric Law Enforcement Division, which solves paranormal crimes. When a local vampire calls to report a dead body on her compound, Nell knows she and her team have to be ready for anything. But the dead body is just the beginning of a mystery that involves supernaturals of all kinds, including some of the most powerful vampires in the country. As Nell gets closer to the truth, she begins to understand that the perpetrator is tracking her too—and that there is something personal about this crime. Something with roots that go almost as deep as those in Soulwood.

The Velkwood Vicinity was the topic of occult theorists, tabloid one-hour documentaries, and even some pseudo-scientific investigations as the block of homes disappeared behind a near-impenetrable veil that only three survivors could enter—and only one has in the past twenty years, until now. Talitha Velkwood has avoided anything to do with the tragedy that took her mother and eight-year-old sister, drifting from one job to another, never settling anywhere or with anyone, feeling as trapped by her past as if she was still there in the small town she so desperately wanted to escape from. When a new researcher tracks her down and offers to pay her to come back to enter the vicinity, Talitha claims she’s just doing it for the money. Of all the crackpot theories over the years, no one has discovered what happened the night Talitha, her estranged, former best friend Brett, and Grace, escaped their homes twenty years ago. Will she finally get the answers she’s been looking for all these years, or is this just another dead end?

All children are told fairytales. Some are epic adventures with high stakes and exciting twists, while others are tales of pitiful princesses trapped in boring towers pining for their Prince Charmings to come and rescue them. Growing up, Cherry always hated those stories. Why didn’t the princesses just get up and rescue themselves? Little did she know that her own fate would take an ironically similar turn. Because now, here she is. Stuck. In a tower. Turns out, when a dragon holds you hostage, he doesn’t just let you get up and leave. Who knew? And just when Cherry thinks she sees hope on the horizon, that hope is smashed to bits by—you guessed it—another damn dragon.

Camp counselor Cory Ansel, eighteen and aimless, afraid to face her high-strung single mother in New York, is no longer sure where home is when the father of one of her campers offers an alternative. The CEO of a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company, Rolo Picazo is middle-aged, divorced, magnetic. He is also intoxicated by Cory. When Rolo proffers a childcare job (and an NDA), Cory quiets an internal warning and allows herself to be ferried to his private island. Plied with luxury and opiates manufactured by his company, she continues to tell herself she’s in charge. Her mother, Emer, head of a teetering agricultural NGO, senses otherwise. With her daughter seemingly vanished, Emer crosses land and sea to heed a cry for help she alone is convinced she hears.

For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline, and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend Sofie. Little does she know she’s arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her mind: the text changes depending on when it’s being read and who’s doing the reading, revealing startling new stories of fictional Praguers past and present. Uninvited companions appear at bachelorette activities and at city landmarks, offering opinions, humor, and even a taste of treachery. When a third woman from Hero and Sofie’s past appears unexpectedly, the tensions between the friends’ different accounts of the past reach a new level. An adventurous, kaleidoscopic novel, Parasol Against the Axe considers the lines between illusion and delusion, fact and interpretation, and weighs the risks of attaching too firmly to the stories of a place, or a person, or a shared history. How much is a tale influenced by its reader, or vice versa? And finally, in a battle between friends, is it better to be the parasol or the axe?

July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them. When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.

It is the twilight of Europe’s bloody bacchanals, of murder and feasting without end. In the nineteenth century, a vampire arrives from Europe to the coast of Buenos Aires and, for the second time in her life, watches as villages transform into a cosmopolitan city, one that will soon be ravaged by yellow fever. She must adapt, intermingle with humans, and be discreet. In present-day Buenos Aires, a woman finds herself at an impasse as she grapples with her mother’s terminal illness and her own relationship with motherhood. When she first encounters the vampire in a cemetery, something ignites within the two women—and they cross a threshold from which there’s no turning back.

And what if in each universe there reigned other Black woman gods? One million versions of god, and one million saints to watch over us? And what if this Black woman god were placed here on earth? These are just a few of the questions Anastacia-Reneé asks in this daring and mind-bending hybrid collection. Hers is a universe of striking variety—monsters, nontraditional saints, witches, zombies, the couple in the apartment next door, the wise elders from down the block, and gods watching over us all—as well as community and connectedness. With a prose storyline and characters that connect through family, time, and place, Anastacia-Reneé paints world(s) rich with wonder and the paranormal as she peers into the lives of everyday people and spectacular creatures inhabiting not just our neighborhoods, but other dimensions. Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere is about interstellar ancestry, community and spirituality. It is about the things we invoke, conjure, and rely on to maintain joy as we keep it moving through difficult eras. Anastacia-Reneé’s power imbues her spellbinding storytelling with lovingly rendered characters brought to life in lyrical poetry. She builds worlds within worlds and dares us to fully see and love ourselves in all our complexity.

Barbara Waugh’s daughter Angela was kidnapped aged four, and when a disfigured body turns up that appears to be the end of the matter. Dealing with grief, Barbara establishes herself as a literary agent. Years after the disappearance she receives a phone call from Angela. Convinced her daughter is alive, Barbara’s investigations take her deep into London, New York, and Scotland. Was a brainwashing cult responsible for Angela’s abduction? The more Barbara learns, the less she can trust, including those closest to her. Will she succumb to an evil so murderous it might not be of human origin?

Alefret, the founder of Varkal’s pacifist resistance, was bombed and maimed by his own government, locked up in a secret prison and tortured by a ‘visionary’ scientist. But now they’re offering him a chance of freedom. Ordered to infiltrate one of Med’ariz’s flying cities, obeying the bloodthirsty zealot Qhudur, he must find fellow anti-war activists in the enemy’s population and provoke them into an uprising against their rulers. He should refuse to serve the warmongers, but what if he could end this pointless war once and for all? Is that worth compromising his own morals and the principles of his fellow resistance members?

Scotland, the 11th Century. Born in a noble household and granddaughter of a forgotten Scottish king, a young girl carries the guilt of her mother’s death and the weight of an unknowable prophecy. When she is married, at fifteen, to the Mormaer of Moray, she experiences firsthand the violence of a sadistic husband and a kingdom constantly at war. To survive with her young son in a superstitious realm, she must rely on her own cunning and wit, especially when her husband’s downfall inadvertently sets them free. Suspicious of the dark devices that may have led to his father’s death, her son watches as his mother falls in love with the enigmatic thane Macbeth. Now a woman of stature, Lady Macbeth confronts a world of masculine power and secures the protection of her family. But the coronation of King Duncan and the political maneuvering of her cousin Macduff set her on a tragic course, one where her own success might mean embracing the very curse that haunts her and risking the child she loves.

One Eye Opened in That Other Place collects Christi Nogle’s best weird and fantastical stories. The collection focuses on liminal spaces and the borders between places and states of mind. Though you might not find a traditional portal fantasy here, you will travel across thresholds and arrive at other places and times that are by turns disquieting, terrifying, and wonderful. Get up close with the local flora and fauna, peruse the weird art exhibits and special shows, and consider taking a dip in the mossy, snail-filled tank of water. Make sure to bring your special glasses. This new collection will appeal to readers of Jeff VanderMeer, Charles Wilkinson, Steve Rasnic Tem, M. Rickert, Lynda E. Rucker and Stephen King’s novel Lisey’s Story.

The gods are at war, the Titans have been released, and Hades and Persephone must fight tooth and nail for their happy ending.  Persephone, Goddess of Spring, never guessed that a chance encounter with Hades, God of the Underworld, would change her life forever—but he did. Now embroiled in a fight for humanity and battles between the gods, Persephone and Hades have entered a world they never thought they would see. To end the chaos, Persephone must draw upon her darkness and embrace who she’s become—goddess, wife, queen of the Underworld.  Once, Persephone made bargains to save those she loves. Now, she will go to war for them.

Fox is a memory editor—one of the best—gifted with the skill to create real life in the digital world. When he wakes up in Field of Reeds Center for Memory Reconstruction with no idea how he got there, the therapists tell him he was a victim in a terrorist bombing by Khadija Banks, the pioneer of memory editing technology turned revolutionary. A bombing which shredded the memory archives of all its victims, including his husband Gabe. Thrust into reconstructions of his memories exploded from the fragments that survived the blast, Fox tries to rebuild his life, his marriage and himself. But he quickly realises his world is changing, unreliable, and echoing around itself over and over. As he unearths endless cycles of meeting Gabe, falling in love and breaking up, Fox digs deep into his past, his time in the refugee nation of Aaru, and the exact nature of his relationship with Khadija. Because, in a world tearing itself apart to forget all its sadness, saving the man he loves might be the key to saving us all.

Violeta Sanoguera had always done what she was told. She left the man she loved in Colombia in pursuit of a better life for herself and because her mother and grandmother didn’t approve of him. Chasing dreams of education and art in New York City, and with a new love, twenty-eight-year-old Violeta establishes a new life for herself, on her terms. But when her grandmother suddenly dies, everything changes. After years of being on her own in NYC, Violeta finds herself on a plane back to Colombia, accompanied at all times by the ghost of her grandmother who is sending her messages and signs, to find she is the heir of the failing family restaurant, the very one Abuela told her to run from in the first place. The journey leads her to rediscover her home, her grandmother, and even the flame of an old love.

It’s 1995, and Alex Dean has it all: a spot at Cambridge University next year, the love of an amazing woman named Holly and all the time in the world ahead of him. That is until a brutal encounter with a ghost from his past sees him beaten, battered and almost drowning in the Thames. He wakes the next day to find he’s in a messy, derelict room he’s never seen before, in grimy clothes he doesn’t recognize, with no idea of how he got there. A glimpse in the mirror tells him he’s older—much older—and has been living a hard life, his features ravaged by time and poor decisions. He snatches a newspaper and finds it’s 2010—fifteen years since the fight. After finally drifting off to sleep, Alex wakes the following morning to find it’s now 2019, another nine years later. But the next day, it’s 1999. Never knowing which day is coming, he begins to piece together what happens in his life after that fateful night by the river. But what exactly is going on? Why does his life look nothing like he thought it would? What about Cambridge, and Holly? In this page-turning adventure, Alex must navigate his way through the years to learn that small actions have untold impact. And that might be all he needs to save the people he loves and, equally importantly, himself.

Leslie Bruin is assigned to the backwoods township of Spar Creek by the Frontier Nursing Service, under its usual mandate: vaccinate the flock, birth babies, and weather the judgements of churchy locals who look at him and see a failed woman. Forged in the fires of the Western Front and reborn in the cafes of Paris, Leslie believes he can handle whatever is thrown at him—but Spar Creek holds a darkness beyond his nightmares. Something ugly festers within the local congregation, and its malice has focused on a young person they insist is an unruly tomboy who must be brought to heel. Violence is bubbling when Leslie arrives, ready to spill over, and he’ll have to act fast if he intends to be of use. But the hills enfolding Spar Creek have a mind of their own, and the woods are haunted in ways Leslie does not understand.

For a sixteen-year-old, a summer internship working for a private investigator seems like a dream come true—particularly since the PI is investigating the most shocking crime to hit Bloomington, Indiana, in decades. A local woman has vanished, and the last time anyone saw her, she was in the backseat of a police car driven by a man impersonating an officer. Marshall Miller’s internship puts him at the center of the action, a position he relishes until a terrifying moment that turns public praise for his sharp observations and uncanny memory into accusations of lying and imperiling the case. His detective mentor withdraws, friends and family worry and whisper, and Marshall alone understands that the darkness visiting his town this summer goes far beyond a single crime. Now his task is to explain it—and himself.

For more than twenty years, Paul Jessup has been dreaming of people and places that shouldn’t exist. From an infection that allows lost children to see beyond the pale in The Silence That Binds or the way the universe bends and gives birth when stars explode in Open Your Eyes or the tragic consequences of imbuing the inanimate with an all-too-human need to be loved in Glass House, his writing explodes with a surreal energy. In his latest collection, The Skinless Man Counts to Five and Other Tales of the Macabre, there are ghosts and butterflies, serial killers and dying stars, mermaids and monsters. You will find death cults, sewer elves, the apocalypse of youthful fervor, card games that require blood sacrifices, and self-immolation as an expression of devotion. Paul Jessup’s fiction eviscerates, shatters, and slurps the marrow from the bones of the world.

It’s been four years in prison since Jade Daniels last saw her hometown of Proofrock, Idaho, the day she took the fall, protecting her friend Letha and her family from incrimination. Since then, her reputation, and the town, have changed dramatically. There’s a lot of unfinished business in Proofrock, from serial killer cultists to the rich trying to buy Western authenticity. But there’s one aspect of Proofrock no one wants to confront… until Jade comes back to town. The curse of the Lake Witch is waiting, and now is the time for the final stand.

Gold. Gold floors, gold walls, gold furniture, gold clothes. In Highbell, in the castle built into the frozen mountains, everything is made of gold. Even me. King Midas rescued me. Dug me out of the slums and placed me on a pedestal. I’m called his precious. His favored. I’m the woman he Gold-Touched to show everyone that I belong to him. To show how powerful he is. He gave me protection, and I gave him my heart. And even though I don’t leave the confines of the palace, I’m safe. Until war comes to the kingdom and a deal is struck. Suddenly, my trust is broken. My love is challenged. And I realize that everything I thought I knew about Midas might be wrong. Because these bars I’m kept in, no matter how gilded, are still just a cage. But the monsters on the other side might make me wish I’d never left.

When a trip into the forest to collect a rare mushroom for her research goes horribly wrong, biologist Callie Peterson finds herself falling through a fairy portal and straight into the arms of the Unseelie Fae prince. The dangerously unhinged and viciously handsome Unseelie Fae prince. He thinks she’s an assassin sent by the humans to kill him, not a scientist, and he imprisons her in his realm—where unwillingly, unwittingly, his obsession with her begins to grow. Prince Mendax has never felt anything but loathing until his eyes met hers: this vile human assassin’s. He believes she’s here to kill him, and yet her beauty is a parasite that has mercilessly latched onto his mind and won’t let go. He itches to feel her smooth skin, even though the Unseelie royals would rather burn than touch a human. It’s a dangerous desire. If he does not destroy the girl soon, she may be the only thing capable of destroying him. Mendax needs to be rid of her—but he also needs to entertain his people. And so, he challenges Callie to three deadly trials. If she survives, she gains her freedom. If she doesn’t? His wrath is only just beginning.

Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive. It isn’t easy when she’s the only one in the family who doesn’t quite fit in. Her twin brother, Benny, goes with the flow so much he’s practically dissolved, and her older sister, Nicole, is so used to everyone—including her blandly docile husband and two kids—falling in line that Anna often ends up in trouble for simply asking a question. Mom seizes every opportunity to question her life choices, and Dad, when not reminding everyone who paid for this vacation, just wants some peace and quiet. The gorgeous, remote villa in tiny Monteperso seems like a perfect place to endure so much family togetherness, until things start going off the rails—the strange noises at night, the unsettling warnings from the local villagers, and the dark, violent past of the villa itself. (Warning: May invoke feelings of irritation, dread, and despair that come with large family gatherings.)