Fierce, seductive mermaid Syrenka falls in love with Ezra, a young naturalist. When she abandons her life underwater for a chance at happiness on land, she is unaware that this decision comes with horrific and deadly consequences. Almost one hundred forty years later, seventeen-year-old Hester meets a mysterious stranger named Ezra and feels overwhelmingly, inexplicably drawn to him. For generations, love has resulted in death for the women in her family. Is it an undiagnosed genetic defect . . . or a curse? With Ezra's help, Hester investigates her family's strange, sad history. The answers she seeks are waiting in the graveyard, the crypt, and at the bottom of the ocean - but powerful forces will do anything to keep her from uncovering her connection to Syrenka and to the tragedy of so long ago.

Seven tales of supernatural horror . . . A maiden in a tower. A grandmother in a cottage. A stranger at a ball. None of them are what they seem, in this collection of very brief stories from fantasy author Marie Brennan. The dark forest of fairy tales hides things more perilous than wolves and wicked stepmothers. Are you prepared for what you’ll find? TABLE OF CONTENTS * The Snow-White Heart * Footprints * Shadows’ Bride * Tower in Moonlight * The Wood, the Bridge, the House * Kiss of Life * Waiting for Beauty Total length: 40 pages, including Story Notes

Divided by day and night and on the run from authorities, star-crossed young lovers unearth a sinister conspiracy in this compelling romantic thriller. Seventeen-year-old Soleil Le Coeur is a Smudge—a night dweller prohibited by law from going out during the day. When she fakes an injury in order to get access to and kidnap her newborn niece—a day dweller, or Ray—she sets in motion a fast-paced adventure that will bring her into conflict with the powerful lawmakers who order her world, and draw her together with the boy she was destined to fall in love with, but who is also a Ray. Set in a vivid alternate reality and peopled with complex, deeply human characters on both sides of the day-night divide, Elizabeth Fama's Plus One is a brilliantly imagined drama of individual liberty and civil rights, and a fast-paced romantic adventure story.

If you’re excited about the upcoming Disney film Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson, don’t miss Cruel Beauty. The romance of Beauty and the Beast meets the adventure of Graceling in this dazzling fantasy novel about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny. Perfect for fans of bestselling An Ember in the Ashes and A Court of Thorns and Roses, this gorgeously written debut infuses the classic fairy tale with glittering magic, a feisty heroine, and a romance sure to take your breath away. Betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom, Nyx has always known that her fate was to marry him, kill him, and free her people from his tyranny. But on her seventeenth birthday when she moves into his castle high on the kingdom's mountaintop, nothing is what she expected—particularly her charming and beguiling new husband. Nyx knows she must save her homeland at all costs, yet she can't resist the pull of her sworn enemy—who's gotten in her way by stealing her heart.

What if Beauty became the Beast? Discover a new angle on the classic fairytale in this fantasy retelling that's perfect for anyone who can't get enough of Beauty and the Beast. In the city of Yuan, the blind Princess Isra is raised to be a human sacrifice. Her death will ensure her city’s vitality. In the desert, a mutant beast named Gem fights to save his people, known as the Monstrous, from starvation. Neither dreams that, together, they can return balance to their worlds. When Gem is captured for trying to steal Yuan’s enchanted roses, he becomes a prisoner of the city. Isra enlists his help, and soon begins to care for him—and to question everything she has been brought up to believe. . . . “Engrossing tale . . . [an] intense love story.” —Kirkus Reviews “The bones of the classic Beauty and the Beast story are all here, imaginatively fleshed out with tropes from science fiction, fantasy, and even political drama.” —The Bulletin, Recommended “Jay’s characters are well-realized . . . [the] setup is intriguing and her writing assured.” —Publishers Weekly “Revelations and plot twists keep the action flowing and romance growing. . . . A satisfying read for fans of romantic fantasy.” —School Library Journal

"This book is as seductive as the phenomenon that it explores. With courage, love, and joy, Frueh crosses into unexplored terrains of beauty and pleasure, where she finds a grotesquely captivating creature: Monster/Beauty. By illuminating her journey with thoughtful insight and engaging prose, she encourages readers to join her in her quest to articulate fresh ways of thinking about the aesthetic and the erotic and of theorizing the flux of lived experience." —John Alan Farmer, senior editor of Art Journal "Monster/Beauty is a daringly provocative experiment in personal and erotic writing and an important book for anyone interested in breaking normative codes of beauty, pedagogy, and authorial methodology. In a richly self-revealing text, Frueh proposes nothing less than a Rabellaisian re-ordering of aesthetic embodiments within social relations." —Mira Schor, author of Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture "Giving new meaning to "embodied writing," this book goes farther than any other toward getting the body into the text. Joanna Frueh is a performance artist first-she is also an art historian, a singer, a poet, a bodybuilder, a professor, an academic celebrity of modest fame, but her performances collapse these distinctions. Frueh's intensely personal, intensely physical prose brings an aura of presence to the book that rivals the effect she achieves on stage." —Robyn Warhol, co-editor of Feminisms "This book is monstrous--full of gorgeous hypermuscular women, step-mothers, and vampires; full of ravishing muscular sex, classroom erotics, splendid aging. It is a performance in which Frueh explores and celebrates her body, its powers and beauties, and those of her friends and lovers." —Alphonso Lingis, author of Excesses, Abuses, and Dangerous Emotions "A welcome voice in contemporary feminist theory, Frueh's Monster/Beauty reminds us of the pleasures of thinking, teaching and creating in wholly embodied, sensual and passionate acts. Frueh poetically enacts the self as an aesthetic/erotic project, affirming the many different and beautiful selves we can become. It is a joy to read." —Marsha Meskimmon, author of We Weren't Modern Enough: Women Artists and the Limits of German Modernism "Joanna Frueh is a hero. I sleep better knowing she's out there writing and thinking." —Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours