“Among the stories collected in this omnibus, are some of the very first Joan Aiken stories that I ever fell in love with, starting with the title story ‘The People in the Castle,’ which is a variation on the classic tales of fairy wives.”—Kelly Link

“[A] haunting and wondrous book.”—Emily Nordling, Tor.com

“This short story collection, edited by Aiken’s daughter Lizza and the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist Kelly Link, compiles tales of the surreal and supernatural suited for an adult audience.”—Ryan Porter, Toronto Star

“Sprightly but brooding, with well-defined plots, twists, and punch lines, these stories deserve a place on the shelf with the fantasies of Saki (H.H. Munro), Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Susanna Clarke.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Here is the whisper in the night, the creak upstairs, the sound that raises gooseflesh, the wish you’d checked the lock on the door before it got really, really dark. Here are tales of suspense and the supernatural that will chill, amuse, and exhilarate.

Best known for The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken (1924–2004) wrote over a hundred books and won the Guardian and Edgar Allan Poe awards. She supported her family by copyediting at Argosy magazine and an advertising agency before turning to fiction and went on to write for Vogue, Good Housekeeping, Vanity Fair, Women’s Own, and many others. Visit her online at www.joanaiken.com.

The Elemental Logic series continues with its third novel in the series, Water Logic, where the patterns of history are made and unmade.

Laurie Marks’ Elemental Logic series introduced readers in Fire Logic to the realm of Shaftal, an intricately imagined land whose people operate within the boundaries of their basic natures—here defined as logics—which sometimes bequeath them with access to magical, elemental powers and sometimes embroil them in unsolvable internal conflicts. 

Readers will discover inside Water Logic that amid assassinations, rebellions, and the pyres of too many dead, a new government has formed in Shaftal—a government of soldiers and farmers, scholars and elemental talents, all weary of war and longing for peace. But some cannot forget their losses, and some cannot imagine a place for themselves in an enemy land. Before memory, before recorded history, something happened that now must be remembered. Zanja na’Tarwein, the crosser of boundaries, born in fire and wedded to earth, has fallen under the ice. Now, by water logic, the logic of patterns repeated, of laughter and music, the lost must be found—or the found may forever be lost.

A fabulous debut of folk tales and fantasies by an award winning author and illustrator.

Small fires start in the hearts of Kathleen Jennings’s characters and irresistibly spread to those around them. Journeys are taken, debts repaid, disguises put on, and lessons offered — although not often learned — in these fantastic tales. Jennings's confident voice lulls readers into stepping off the known paths to find "Undine Love,” “The Heart of Owl Abbas,” and further unexpected places and people.

"This beautiful, complex debut collection assembles some of Nebula winner Pinsker’s best stories into a twisting journey that is by turns wild, melancholic, and unsettling." ― Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Pinsker has shot like a star across the firmament with Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea.

In this collection, Pinsker weaves music, memory, technology, history, mystery, love, loss, and even multiple selves on generation ships and cruise ships, on highways and high seas, in murder houses and treehouses. They feature runaways, fiddle-playing astronauts, and retired time travelers; they are weird, wired, hopeful, haunting, and deeply human. They are often described as beautiful but Pinsker also knows that the heart wants what the heart wants and that is not always right, or easy.

The baker's dozen stories gathered here (including a new, previously unpublished story!) turn readers into travelers to the past, the future, and explorers of the weirder points of the present.