In order to fool her 17-year-old boyfriend into thinking she is older than 13, Jessie begins an intricate pattern of lies.

She saw him in the shadows. She felt him watching her. She knew he was going to get her... The killer always left a signature on his victims...an X carved in their flesh. But he'd spent the last twenty years in a mental hospital. Long enough for the world to forget him. But not long enough for him to forget the rich old woman who had him committed--or her pretty granddaughter. Now he's been set free. Ellie Duveen was busy running her own restaurant and tenderly watching over her fragile grandmother. Then she met former cop Dan Cassidy, the owner of a local vineyard, and Ellie's hectic life slowed just enough to let her fall in love. So Ellie didn't notice when police found a dead body marked with a grisly X. She only felt someone watching her. Following her. And as a terrifying secret came back from the past to haunt her, Ellie needed an ex-cop's instincts and more. She needed her own unshakable courage to outsmart a killer's deadly, twisted plan.

She saw him in the shadows. She felt him watching her. She knew he was going to get her... The killer always left a signature on his victims...an X carved in their flesh. But he'd spent the last twenty years in a mental hospital. Long enough for the world to forget him. But not long enough for him to forget the rich old woman who had him committed--or her pretty granddaughter. Now he's been set free. Ellie Duveen was busy running her own restaurant and tenderly watching over her fragile grandmother. Then she met former cop Dan Cassidy, the owner of a local vineyard, and Ellie's hectic life slowed just enough to let her fall in love. So Ellie didn't notice when police found a dead body marked with a grisly X. She only felt someone watching her. Following her. And as a terrifying secret came back from the past to haunt her, Ellie needed an ex-cop's instincts and more. She needed her own unshakable courage to outsmart a killer's deadly, twisted plan.

WINNER OF THE PHILIP K. DICK AWARD The baker's dozen stories gathered here turn readers into travellers to the past and the future, and explorers of the weirder points of the present. The journey is the thing as 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 travellers. Weird, wired, hopeful, haunting, and often beautiful, Sarah Pinsker's stories cast a searching light on human nature. But what the heart wants is not always right, or easy. Praise for Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea: 'Simply wonderful... Each story is generous and original' KAREN JOY FOWLER 'An auspicious start to what promises to be one wild ride of a literary career' KIRKUS 'Stories that are as delightful and surprising to pore through as they are introspective and elegiac' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Iryss Dulay has been best friends and next door neighbors with Courtney King all her life. But along with Courtney, comes her twin brother Cory, whom happens to be the school's number one heartthrob. But, Iryss doesn't like Cory, and she's probably the only girl in school who doesn't; minus Courtney, of course. Due to a little prank played in class one day, Iryss and Cory find themselves in a "I'm better than you" game. This game consist of sexual teasing, flirting, and taunting. Who will be victorious? Which guilty party will be left lovestruck?