New Releases by Jeffrey Ford

A man is hired to transcribe the words of a mysterious woman who speaks in "spews" during self-induced trances, but he soon discovers an intriguing story coalescing within her seemingly incoherent rambles. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A powerful sixth book in the horror anthology series which Booklist called "Highly recommended for longstanding horror fans and those readers who may not think horror is for them. There is something for everyone in this one." Fever Dreams is the sixth volume in the non-themed horror series of original stories, showcasing the very best short fiction that the genre has to offer, and edited by Mark Morris. This new anthology contains 20 original horror stories, 16 of which have been commissioned from some of the top names in horror, and 4 selected from the hundreds of stories sent to Flame Tree during a short open submissions window. A delicious feast of the familiar and the new, the established and the emerging. Previous titles in the series, all still in print, are: After Sundown, Beyond the Veil, Close to Midnight, Darkness Beckons and Elemental Forces FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing Independent Flame Tree Publishing, dedicated to full-length original fiction in the horror and suspense, science fiction & fantasy, and crime / mystery / thriller categories. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. Learn more about Flame Tree Press at www.flametreepress.com and connect on social media @FlameTreePress.

There are worse things than a local gangster’s cronies lurking in New Jersey’s wetlands... At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Even time travel can’t unravel love Time-travel is a way for writers to play with history and imagine different futures – for better, or worse. When romance is thrown into the mix, time-travel becomes a passionate tool, or heart-breaking weapon. A time agent in the 22nd century puts their whole mission at risk when they fall in love with the wrong person. No matter which part of history a man visits, he cannot not escape his ex. A woman is desperately in love with the time-space continuum, but it doesn’t love her back. As time passes and falls apart, a time-traveller must say goodbye to their soulmate. With stories from best-selling and award-winning authors such as Seanan McGuire, Alix E. Harrow and Nina Allan, this anthology gives a taste for the rich treasure trove of stories we can imagine with love, loss and reunion across time and space. Including stories by: Alix E. Harrow, Zen Cho, Seanan McGuire, Sarah Gailey, Jeffrey Ford, Nina Allan, Elizabeth Hand, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Catherynne M. Valente, Sam J. Miller, Rowan Coleman, Margo Lanagan, Sameem Siddiqui, Theodora Goss, Carrie Vaughn, Ellen Klages

World Fantasy Award finalist It sounds innocuous. The routine world of college teaching. Quiet evenings on a porch with your wife. And then . . . maybe it’s an unexpected light in a dark and uninhabited house, maybe it’s a drainage tunnel that some poor kid is suddenly compelled to explore. Maybe there’s a monkey in the woods or an angel that you’ll need to fight if you want to gain tenure. Jeffrey Ford''s stunning new collection Big Dark Hole is about those big, dark holes that we find ourselves once in a while and maybe, too, the big dark holes that exist inside of us.

After surviving a violent crime, a smalltown librarian begins leaving his body—and discovering dark secrets—in the award-winning author''s fantasy thriller. Owen is a creature of habit. Every morning just after seven a.m., he picks up his coffee and sweet roll at the local deli where he would invariably see young Helen Roan behind the counter. Then one morning changes everything for Owen. That morning, he attempts to save Helen from being murdered . . . and fails. Soon Owen discovers just how much the experience has changed him. What had once been routine sleep paralysis begins to transform into something far more disturbing. The trauma, it seems, is driving him out of his own body. The town he knows so well is suddenly revealed to him from a whole new perspective. Secrets are everywhere and demons fester behind closed doors. Worst of all, Owen discovers a serial killer who has been preying on the area for over a century . . . one capable of traveling with him through his dreams.

Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #3 is a curated selection of novellas by editor Ellen Datlow This collection includes: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson A cosmic horror is rising in Red Hook, and Black Tom must either stop it or help it grow in Victor LaValle’s award-winning The Ballad of Black Tom. Three friends go looking for treasure and find horror in Jeffrey Ford''s The Twilight Pariah. ("Poignant and punchy." —New York Times). Blackfeet author Stephen Graham Jones brings readers a spine-tingling Native American horror novella Mapping the Interior. Experience award-winning author Kelly Robson’s Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky, a far-reaching, mind-bending science fiction adventure that uses time travel to merge climate fiction with historical fantasy. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Dark Moon Books and editor Eric J. Guignard present this introduction to the work of Jeffrey Ford, #4 in a series of scholarly primers exploring modern masters of literary dark short fiction. With commentary by Michael Arnzen, PhD, and beautifully illustrated by artist Michelle Prebich, discover the vast and fantastic writing of Jeffrey Ford.

“Jeffrey Ford is one of the few writers who uses wonder instead of ink in his pen.” – Jonathan Carroll A bold and intriguing fabulist novel that reimagines two of the most legendary characters in American literature—Captain Ahab and Ishmael of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick—from the critically acclaimed Edgar and World Fantasy award-winning author of The Girl in the Glass and The Shadow Year. At the end of a long journey, Captain Ahab returns to the mainland to confront the true author of the novel Moby-Dick, his former shipmate, Ishmael. For Ahab was not pulled into the ocean’s depths by a harpoon line, and the greatly exaggerated rumors of his untimely death have caused him grievous harm—after hearing about Ahab’s demise, his wife and child left Nantucket for New York, and now Ahab is on a desperate quest to find them. Ahab’s pursuit leads him to The Gorgon’s Mirror, the sensationalist tabloid newspaper that employed Ishmael as a copy editor while he wrote the harrowing story of the ill-fated Pequod. In the penny press’s office, Ahab meets George Harrow, who makes a deal with the captain: the newspaperman will help Ahab navigate the city in exchange for the exclusive story of his salvation from the mouth of the great white whale. But their investigation—like Ahab’s own story—will take unexpected, dangerous, and ultimately tragic turns. Told with wisdom, suspense, a modicum of dry humor and horror, and a vigorous stretching of the truth, Ahab’s Return charts an inventive and intriguing voyage involving one of the most memorable characters in classic literature, and pays homage to one of the greatest novels ever written.

Descend into horror with witches, vampires, haunted houses, and murderous blood copies. Check out excerpts from four short works that will be going bump in the night in Fall 2017. A Long Day in Lychford by Paul Cornell, The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford, Switchback by Melissa F. Olson, and The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"Poignant and punchy." — The New York Times Three friends go looking for treasure and find horror in Jeffrey Ford''s The Twilight Pariah. All Maggie, Russell, and Henry wanted out of their last college vacation was to get drunk and play archaeologist in an old house in the woods outside of town. When they excavate the mansion''s outhouse they find way more than they bargained for: a sealed bottle filled with a red liquid, along with the bizarre skeleton of a horned child Disturbing the skeleton throws each of their lives into a living hell. They feel followed wherever they go, their homes are ransacked by unknown intruders, and people they care about are brutally, horribly dismembered. The three friends awakened something, a creature that will stop at nothing to retrieve its child.

The multiple Bram Stoker Award(R) nominated Horror Library anthology series is back! Shepherded by new editor Eric J. Guignard -- himself a past Stoker winner -- Horror Library Volume 6 is imbued with a new level of literary energy and purpose. It features 27 brand new horror short stories, written by 27 different authors, including well-known pros and up-and-coming new talents. As always, if you''d like a snapshot of where modern literary horror fiction is headed, you''ve found the right book. Don''t miss Horror Library Volume 6! The Librarian wants to see YOU.

A book of fantastic stories about the hell on earth that is living.

Prayers Before Meals offers the reader 365 different and thoughtful short prayers that are suitable for all ages and perfect for family mealtimes. Each prayer is unique in its simplicity and its relation to our daily life. There are also additional prayers for special occasions.

The World Fantasy Award–winning collection from the architect of the Well-Built City Trilogy No matter how far into the realms of space and fantasy Jeffrey Ford''s stories may venture, they have one trait in common: They''re grounded in the universal. The Fantasy Writer''s Assistant, Ford''s debut collection, is no exception. "Creation," which received the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story and a nomination for a Nebula Award, relates a boy''s attempts to animate a man made of sticks and pebbles. Even as the creature''s life fades along with the summer, its loneliness and yearning for contact are palpable. Other blends of the worldly and otherworldly are evident in "Bright Morning," in which a man searches far and wide for a cursed Kafka book, and "At Reparata," when the grief of a king over the death of his queen takes the form of a destructive moth that could overtake the entire kingdom. The Fantasy Writer''s Assistant, its titular story another Nebula Award finalist, reveals Jeffrey Ford at his creative best.

A modern fable based on the labyrinths created by us all Belius has led a peaceful if not uneventful existence until now, as far as minotaurs'' lives go. He mostly keeps to his house, avoiding anyone outside of his family. Despite his human parents'' efforts to shield him from the potential hysteria of the townspeople, Belius hears about something beyond his home''s walls, even beyond the town itself—something called the Wider World. He decides to explore this strange place where the possibilities far outnumber those of the mundane real world. Here, Belius has a chance to be the minotaur he has always wanted to be. He is joined by Vashti the owl and Pezimote the tortoise, creatures that provide the philosophical guidance he will need if he is to complete his physical and metaphysical journey. From World Fantasy Award winner Jeffrey Ford, The Cosmology of the Wider World is about the hopes, dreams, and visions we create for ourselves. This ebook includes an introduction by Jeff VanderMeer.

El retratista Piero Piambo, la gran sensación de Nueva York en 1893, siente menguar sus ambiciones artísticas, pese a in-mortalizar a todos los nuevos ricos de la ciudad en sus óleos. Pero entonces recibe un lucrativo encargo distinto a los demás. Su cliente es una tal señora Charbuque; el único problema es que Piambo no podrá verla, sino que tendrá que sentarse delante de un elegante biombo y su modelo le contará todo sobre su vida, dándole pistas por las que él debe adivinar su apariencia. Mientras se esfuerza lo indecible para capturar en el óleo el rostro de una mujer a la que no ha visto jamás, una serie de asesinatos tienen lugar en la ciudad. Y al tiempo que la relación de Piambo con la señora Charbuque va com-plicándose, este sospecha cada vez más que esos terribles acontecimientos, su encargo imposible y su extraña «benefactora» están íntimamente relacionados.

Diego, un joven inmigrante mexicano, es acogido por el as del timo Thomas Schell. Juntos capean con comodidad el tem-poral de la Gran Depresión estafando a los neoyorquinos pudientes mediante sesiones de espiritismo. Hasta que un acontecimiento imposible lo cambia todo. En una de sus sesiones Schell ve la imagen de una niña en una puerta de cristal, que suplica en silencio la ayuda del estafador. A pesar de saber que sus poderes paranormales son una farsa, Schell ofrece sus servicios para ayudar a encontrar a la niña perdida, arrastrando a Diego con él hacia el interior de un complejo laberinto de mortales secretos y terribles experiencias.

“Jeffrey Ford is one of the few writers who uses wonder instead of ink in his pen….A rare and wonderful talent.” —Jonathan Carroll, author of The Wooden Sea Eclectic is certainly an adjective that can be used to describe the work of the phenomenal Jeffrey Ford—along with imaginative, provocative, mesmerizing, and brilliant. His powerful dark fantasy, The Physiognomy, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; his novel, The Girl in the Glass, won the Edgar® Award, mystery and crime fiction’s most prestigious prize. Crackpot Palace is Ford’s fourth superb collection of short fiction, and in it, his prodigious talent shines as brightly as ever. Here are twenty tales both strange and wonderful, filled with mad scientists, vampires, lost souls, and Native American secrets, from an author who has been glowingly compared to Kafka, Dante, and Caleb Carr (The Alienist).

En 1960, una pequeña comunidad de Long Island se ve afectada por extraños sucesos. Tras las huellas de estos se encuentran un joven y su hermano mayor, Jim, que pasan los últimos días del verano sumergidos en un ambiente asfixiante, con un padre pluriempleado y una madre alcohólica.Un merodeador anda suelto por las calles y un hombre observa amenazador a los dos jóvenes desde un coche frente a su casa. Pero cuando un chico del pueblo desaparece sin dejar rastro, ambos tienen claro que el culpable es el señor White. La sorpresa llega cuando descubren que Mary, la hermana pequeña de los chicos, mueve de manera misteriosa figuritas en una maqueta del pueblo, mostrando sucesos antes de que ocurran.

Strane cose succedono in una tranquilla cittadina di Long Island. È solo l''inizio di una scia di delitti e avvenimenti misteriosi. Due ragazzini decidono di indagare, guidati dalle premonizioni della sorella più piccola. Ma una volta scoperta l''identità del killer, i tre si ritrovano nel suo mirino e quello che era iniziato come un gioco si trasforma in un incubo destinato a segnare la loro infanzia.

Explores how even small changes in the way we talk with one another can produce extraordinarily positive outcomes. Describes how to get maximum results from four types of conversations we use every day Research-based and practical, with sample dialogues and personal stories that show how to put the four conversations into practice Talk is powerful. Engaging in the right conversation at the right time is key to both personal and organizational success. And it isn''t just difficult'' conversations that matter. The Four Conversations clearly demonstrates it is the everyday dialogue we have with one another that is critical. Armed with a solid body of research and their own first-hand observations, Jeffrey and Laurie Ford identify four types of conversations that every one of us must use to get things done; initiative conversations to introduce something new; understanding conversations to help people relate to new ideas or processes; performance conversations to request specific actions and results; and closure conversations to complete work and give people a sense of accomplishment . They identify the specific elements that make each of these conversations successful and show how they can be put together in different ways to achieve different objectives. The Four Conversations demonstrates how to use the right conversation at the right time - planning and starting each one well, and finishing every conversation effectively - to produce the results we want and the improved productivity our organizations need. And through dozens of personal stories and sample dialogues, the authors illustrate how real people in real situations have used the four conversations, either alone or in combination, to more effectively combat common workplace problems and lay the foundations for enduring success; stronger relationships, better buy-in, and a greater feeling of personal and professional achievement for everyone.

Arnaquer des riches crédules en organisant chez eux des séances de spiritisme est une chose, être soi-même la victime d''une sorte d''hallucination inexplicable en est une autre. Schell, illusionniste de talent, bien placé pour être le plus sceptique des hommes, a pourtant bien vu dans le reflet d''une baie vitrée l''image d''une fillette disparue. Fantôme ? Hallucination ? Mauvaise farce ? Dans l''Amérique en crise puritaine et hypocrite de la prohibition et alors qu''en Europe les thèses nazies donnent de la voix, Schell, accompagné d''un immigré mexicain de dix-sept ans et d''un ancien hercule de foire, refuse de trancher et décide de retrouver l''enfant. Pouvait-il imaginer qu''il allait, par sa curiosité, heurter de plein fouet un monde obscur et terrifiant ?...

In New York''s Long Island, in the unpredictable decade of the 1960s, a young boy laments the approaching close of summer and the advent of sixth grade. Growing up in a household with an overworked father whom he rarely sees, an alcoholic mother who paints wonderful canvases that are never displayed, an older brother who serves as both tormentor and protector, and a younger sister who inhabits her own secret world, the boy takes his amusements where he can find them. Some of his free time is spent in the basement of the family''s modest home, where he and his brother, Jim, have created Botch Town, a detailed cardboard replica of their community, complete with clay figurines representing friends and neighbors. And so the time passes with a not-always-reassuring sameness—until the night a prowler is reported stalking the neighborhood. Appointing themselves ad hoc investigators, the brothers set out to aid the police—while their little sister, Mary, smokes cigarettes, speaks in other voices, inhabits alternate personas . . . and, unbeknownst to her older siblings, moves around the inanimate residents of Botch Town. But ensuing events add a shadowy cast to the boys'' night games: disappearances, deaths, and spectral sightings capped off by the arrival of a sinister man in a long white car trawling the neighborhood after dark. Strangest of all is the inescapable fact that every one of these troubling occurrences seems to correspond directly to the changes little Mary has made to the miniature town in the basement. Not since Ray Bradbury''s classic Dandelion Wine has a novel so richly evoked the dark magic of small-town boyhood. At once a hypnotically compelling mystery, a masterful re-creation of a unique time and place, a celebration of youth, and a poignant and disquieting portrait of home and family—all balancing on a razor''s edge separating reality from the unsettlingly remarkable—The Shadow Year is a monumental new work from one of contemporary fiction''s most fearless and inventive artists.

The Great Depression has bound a nation in despair -- and only a privileged few have risen above it: the exorbitantly wealthy ... and the hucksters who feed upon them. Diego, a seventeen-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant, owes his salvation to master grifter Thomas Schell. Together with Schell''s gruff and powerful partner, they sail comfortably through hard times, scamming New York''s grieving rich with elaborate, ingeniously staged séances -- until an impossible occurrence changes everything. While "communing with spirits," Schell sees an image of a young girl in a pane of glass, silently entreating the con man for help. Though well aware that his otherworldly "powers" are a sham, Schell inexplicably offers his services to help find the lost child -- drawing Diego along with him into a tangled maze of deadly secrets and terrible experimentation. At once a hypnotically compelling mystery and a stunningly evocative portrait of Depression-era New York, The Girl in the Glass is a masterly literary adventure from a writer of exemplary vision and skill.

A mysterious and richly evocative novel, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque tells the story of portraitist Piero Piambo, who is offered a commission unlike any other. The client is Mrs. Charbuque, a wealthy and elusive woman who asks Piambo to paint her portrait, though with one bizarre twist: he may question her at length on any topic, but he may not, under any circumstances, see her. So begins an astonishing journey into Mrs. Charbuque''s world and the world of 1893 New York society in this hypnotically compelling literary thriller.

There is a town that brews a strange intoxicant from a rare fruit called the deathberry—and once a year a handful of citizens are selected to drink it. . . . There is a life lived beneath the water—among rotted buildings and bloated corpses—by those so overburdened by the world''s demands that they simply give up and go under. . . . In this mesmerizing blend of the familiar and the fantastic, multiple award-winning New York Times notable author Jeffrey Ford creates true wonders and infuses the mundane with magic. In tales marked by his distinctive, dark imagery and fluid, exhilarating prose, he conjures up an annual gale that transforms the real into the impossible, invents a strange scribble that secretly unites a significant portion of society, and spins the myriad dreams of a restless astronaut and his alien lover. Bizarre, beautiful, unsettling, and sublime, The Drowned Life showcases the exceptional talents of one of contemporary fiction''s most original artists.

Offering a freshly-imagined world of bizarre creatures and strange customs, this unique and sardonic allegory explores the power and price of science and the ambiguity of morality. Humorless and drug addicted, physiognomist Cley is ordered by the Master of the Well-Built City to investigate a theft in a remote mining town. Well-versed in serving justice, arrogant Cley sets out to determine the identity of the thief using the pseudo-science of judging people by their features, but becomes distracted from his task by a beautiful girl from town. When the young-but-wise woman rejects him, he looses faith in his abilities, and in a drug-induced frenzy he "remakes" her features. The subsequent horror of what he has done, what he represents, and the shallow life he leads forces him to seek atonement and true justice, risking the Master''s wrath, which may entail death by head explosion.