"A form-shifting and soul-crunching chronicle of grief and crisis, Venita Blackburn's debut novel, Dead in Long Beach, California, is a fleet-footed marvel of self-discovery and storytelling that explores the depths of humankind's capacity for harm and healing. With the daring, often hilarious imagination that made her an acclaimed short-fiction innovator, Blackburn crafts a layered, page-turning reckoning with what it means to be alive, dead, and...

In the wake of her husband Adam's death, Sarah, with a daughter and a baby on the way-and left with no money-moves in with Adam's mother, whom he always said was dead, but soon discovers why Adam lied as she becomes trapped in a house with a madwoman.

"How far would you go to keep your family safe? Lorraine Henry is generally content to keep her head down and get on with her work as a records clerk at the Masterton police station. But when children start going missing in her small town, Lo can't help but pay attention. After all, she has Bradley, her young nephew, to worry about, and the cops don't seem to be putting much effort into finding the kids. And then the unthinkable happens: Bradley disappears....

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...

"A collection of stories that take an intimate look at the moments when a person's life changes forever"--

"Geno is living out his final days in a nursing home, bored, curmudgeonly, and struggling to connect with his nursing assistant, Angel, who he sees as being different from him in every way possible, and unable to understand him in any way. Perhaps no one really can, since Geno has been telling everyone who will listen that he's not just Geno-in fact, he's lived many past lives, dating back 1000 years, and since that first life in Seville, Spain, he...

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...

"A boy searches for his father, a prison guard on Sakhalin Island. In Barcelona, a woman is tasked with spying on a prizefighter who may or may not be her estranged son. A samurai escorts an orphan to his countrymen in the Edo Period. A formerly incarcerated man starts a new life in a small town in upstate New York and attempts to build a family. How does a North Korean defector connect with the child she once left behind? What are the traumas that...

Deciding a new haircut will give her the boost she needs, Karen is devastated when the hairstylist cuts her hair all wrong and wonders if she will ever get back to feeling like her usual confident self.

After 30 years as a manga editor, Kazuo Shiozawa suddenly quits. Although he feels early retirement is the only way to atone for his failures as an editor, the manga world isn't done with him. On his final day as an editor, Shiozawa takes a train he's ridden hundreds of times to impart some last advice to a manga creator whose work he used to edit. Later, he is drawn to return to a bookshop at the request of a junior editor who wants his help dealing...