Dry As Dust
by Marian Allen
Lisette had lost count of the men she had met at the pool, at the beach, on the river. This latest one, Hayden, she had run across at Cumberland Falls. She was alone, of course, and he was with his parents and their other grown children. It hadn’t been difficult to [...]

Revenge of the Little Mermaid
By Kat Parrish
Every morning the prince swam in the cold ocean that lapped at the edge of the island that was his home. Every morning the mermaid swam to the surface to watch him, her silvery scales lost in the mirror of the glassy water so that she was invisible to [...]

Kaidan
By Blue Jackson
They made a mistake when they took Chika.
Her name meant “near and dear” and so she was to Akihiro Tsukimoto. They had known each other since childhood and now, when both were in the winter of their lives, she remained his most trusted confidante, his closest companion, and his only friend.
Unlike Hiro, whose [...]

the miniseries.  If you haven’t already discovered the darkly fantastic medieval Game of Thrones series by George R. R.  Martin, there’s still plenty of time to get caught up before HBO’s series airs in April.  The series is actually called The Song of Ice and Fire, but most people know Thrones best.  (It’s the first [...]

R.A. MacAvoy’s urban fantasy Tea With the Black Dragon is now available in a Kindle edition and if you haven’t read it, now’s the time.  (It’s also available in both new and used paperback from amazon.com.)  Set in San Francisco, the story features a mature love story, a plot involving a missing daughter, and Asian [...]

Dolphin Safe
By Tina Starr
Part One
The thirsty vampire stood on the edge of the cliff.
Please don’t drink their blood, Cara had requested. It’s barbaric. We’re not animals. If you love me, promise me.
He’d promised.
Then Cara had gone the way of all humans.
If only he could emulate them. If only he could die.
What trick of chemical [...]

Marian Allen reviews Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell:
I have a new boyfriend. Not Tobias Buckell. The guy I’m talking about is named Pepper, and he’s an enhanced human. Okay, get your minds out of the gutter; I mean he can move fast and kill people with his bare hands and run like the [...]

You think we’ll get some good deals today, Ma?” Greta asked.

“Of course we will. We came to the store early this time. We will get the first picks,” Sandra replied.

Greta looked up at the large glass doors of the store in front of her.

A large iron gate rested in front of the closed glass doors.

The child had the face of his dead mother. Around the age of four those sweet apple cheeks had melted away and his face took on a melancholy look with large mournful eyes. They were deep penetrating eyes – just like his mother’s.

I had only seen Maria once before her passing. One time. I knew about her, of course, as the young wife of my then-colleague, Luis Ramirez.

Luis and I had been paired up on the Jenkins/Mueller account. Luis was the exciting new engineer at the firm and I was the visionary design executive who was supposed to bring an organic flow of energy and movement to the Jenkins/Mueller office suites. Sanchez and Ramirez – we were young, hip, fresh, and oh by the way, Hispanic. We were the right people to dangle in front of an advertising firm that was remolding new offices after an enormously profitable soup campaign that crossed over into the Hispanic market. We fit the bill of how Jenkins/Mueller wanted to present themselves to their next wave of clients. Shortly after the assignment was made public, the phrase “Team Taco” was snickered in soft voices around the cubicles and stairwells of the firm. I rolled my eyes when I first overheard. How original.

Beginning 2/20, the Dark Water fiction frenzy will bring you water-themed stories in honor of the astrological month of Pisces.  We have mermaids, we have water spirits, we have tales of drowned cities and more.