I Disappeared Them is a brutal, boy meets girl love story that delves into the Periwinkle Killer’s childhood to confront the age-old question, is a serial killer designed or destined? Like Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and Joyce Carol Oates’s Zombie, Preston L. Allen‘s immersive narrative hauntingly occupies the peculiar psychological landscape of a murderer. […]

When I was first approached about writing a story for an anthology covering the Changing Breeds, I was intrigued by the possibilities. Changing Breeds refers to White Wolf’s Werewolf: the Apocalypse game: more specifically, Changing Breeds are all the other were-creatures besides wolves: tigers, foxes, panthers, crows, bears, and many more. Werewolves are by far the most numerous of the werecreatures in White Wolf’s World of Darkness, but the others still exist, and most are still fighting the good fight against the Wyrm’s agents.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is an epic novel that follows Kira Navárez, who, during a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, finds an alien relic that thrusts her into the wonders and the nightmares of first contact. Epic space battles for the fate of humanity take her to the farthest reaches […]

Flamesrising.com is pleased to present you with an exclusive excerpt of the upcoming book by author Robyn Bennis. The Devil’s Guide to Managing Difficult People will be released on Kindle. You can buy the book before it debuts on May 21st or you can pre-order it now! If you like the author’s style, please visit […]

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present an excerpt from Haven, Kansas. This YA horror novel, written by Aletheia Kontis, takes place in the spooky town of Haven filled with secrets, mystery, and dread. Interested in this latest novel from Kontis? Here’s more information about the book, to help set the mood as you read chapter one. […]

Today, FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with a preview from Mask of the Other, a Lovecraft-inspired novel written by Greg Stolze. If you like this excerpt, you can also read a chapter preview on Greg’s website, or you can support the author by picking up a copy at DriveThruFiction.com. Excerpt from Mask of the […]

Don’t embrace the darkness. Fear it.

The Gothic is the most enduring literary tradition in history, but in recent years friendly ghosts and vegetarian vampires threaten its foundations. The New Gothic is a collection of short stories which revisits the core archetypes of the Gothic – the rambling, secret-filled building, the stranger seeking answers, the black-hearted tyrant – and reminds us not to embrace, but to fear the darkness. A dozen tales of terror fill this anthology including an original, never-before-seen story from the godfather of modern horror, Ramsey Campbell.

Flames Rising is pleased to present a selection of excerpts from this collection.

R.A. Salvatore’s New York Times best-selling saga continues as Drizzt Do’Urden and the Companions of the Hall join forces in an adventure filled with drow intrigue, the likes of which have not been seen in Salvatore’s work since the hugely successful the War of the Spider Queen series.

With faithful friends by his side once again, Drizzt Do’Urden returns to Gauntlgrym, to find and turn Pwent, Bruenor’s loyal shield dwarf, from vampire back to mortal once again. But not only do he and his cohorts face a perilous journey through the Underdark and the dangers of the undead that lie within, but in order to do so, they must face a colony of drow and their leader, who would like nothing better than to see Drizzt Do’Urden dead.

Flames Rising is pleased to offer a short excerpt from this new Forgotten Realms novel from Wizards of the Coast.

In the land of Eranon, the Reach is a desolate place where people journey to forget who they are. Now, a menace rises from this wasteland, and he is hunting for someone. To keep the madman and his chaos behind the Reach, four adventurers with haunted pasts must rise to the challenge. But how can failed heroes bring hope to others when they doubt themselves?

Originally published in 2006 as a tie-in novel to the Chronicles of Ramlar role playing game, Into the Reach is now re-released in a newly edited e-book edition.

Flames Rising is pleased to present the first chapter of this new edition by Alana Abbott.

The Flames of Shadam Khoreh is the concluding volume in The Lays of Anuskaya trilogy. It brings the story full circle from where it began in The Winds of Khalakovo. In that first novel, Nikandr Khalakovo, a prince of the Grand Duchy of Anuskaya, learns of Nasim, an autistic savant with wondrous powers. Through Nasim, Nikandr learns of the Al-Aqim, three wizards who long ago tore rifts between the material and elemental worlds. Those rifts have been growing, and things are coming to a head at last. The story expands in the second book, The Straits of Galahesh, moving from the archipelagos where Nasim was discovered to the island of Galahesh. It is there that a plot by Al-Aqim is revealed. And in The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, the rifts have spread to places that once thought themselves safe. It falls to the heroes to close the rifts before the entire world suffers the consequences.

From a world magically transformed entirely into glass to a distant future where the Catholic Church of Osirus uses two singularities to manipulate time, the science fiction and fantasy stories of Small Matters take the readers to places unlike any they have visited before.

Brought to you from the mind of master world-builder and storyteller Monte Cook, these seven short stories tell tales of vengeance and honor. Love and murder. Loyalty and greed. As the title suggests, these are personal tales, not of world-saving quests but of people who face tough decisions that affect their own lives. Not all of them choose wisely…

Flames Rising is pleased to present an exclusive pair of excerpts from this collection.

In the deep forests of Kyonin, elves live among their own kind, far from the prying eyes of other races. Few of impure blood are allowed beyond the nation’s borders, and thus it’s a great honor for the half-elven Count Varian Jeggare and his hellspawn bodyguard Radovan to be allowed inside. Yet all is not well in the elven kingdom: demons stir in its depths, and an intricate web of politics seems destined to catch the two travelers in its snares. In the course of tracking down a missing druid, Varian and a team of eccentric elven adventurers will be forced to delve into dark secrets lost for generations—including the mystery of Varian’s own past.

From fan favorite Dave Gross, author of Prince of Wolves and Master of Devils, comes a fantastical new adventure set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Flames Rising is pleased to offer an excerpt from this Pathfinder Tales novel.

Our gaze into the shadows of Halloween past continues today with the one-year celebration of our first anthology! Not only has Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror been well-received by the community, earning a special mention in Ellen Datlow’s Year of Best Horror, but our debut collection also won a Reader’s Choice award. Your can read a round-up of reviews and our award announcement here on the site, by the way.

In honor of our one-year anniversary, we would like to provide you with an excerpt from two of these tales. First, we’d like to share with you the nascent beginnings from Jess Hartley’s story titled “Immaterial Witness.” Then, we’ll share Alex Bledsoe’s unusual take on ghost hunters from his spooky tale titled “What’s the Frequency, Francis?“

Recently were posted some design notes from author Corissa Baker about her novel, The Shadow of Dracula: Harker’s Inheritance. She has also sent us the first chapter of the book, which gives you the opportunity to explore her tale.

The Shadow of Dracula: Harker’s Inheritance Chapter One

This was compiled after such dreadful events as should provoke lunacy and challenge one’s understanding of this modern world of 1935. What follows in these pages may be dismissed as wild and irrational fiction, even unworthy of broader attentions. It will be ridiculed and those named in these accounts risk social stigmata and questions of their mental health. If it weren’t that a doctor of psychology and head of a lunatic asylum was involved I should think that I would have kept this all very much in the dark.

The Stoker-award winning editor of the acclaimed, eclectic anthology The New Dead returns with 21st Century Dead, and an all-new lineup of authors from all corners of the fiction world, shining a dark light on our fascination with tales of death and resurrection… with ZOMBIES!

The stellar stories in this volume includes a tale set in the world of Daniel H. Wilson’s Robopocalypse, the first published fiction by Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter, and a tale of love, family, and resurrection from the legendary Orson Scott Card. This new volume also includes stories also from other award-winning and New York Times bestselling authors, such as: Simon R. Green, Chelsea Cain, Jonathan Maberry, Duane Swiercyznski, Caitlin Kittredge, Brian Keene, Amber Benson, John Skipp, S. G. Browne, Thomas E. Sniegoski, Hollywood screenwriter Stephen Susco, National Book Award nominee Dan Chaon, and more!

Flames Rising is pleased to present an excerpt from this collection by editor Christopher Golden.

It’s 1999 and the world is falling apart at the seams. The sky is afire, the oceans are rising—and mankind is to blame. While the spoils of the 20th Century dwindle, Jack Finnegan lives on the fringes in his decaying mansion, struggling to keep his life afloat and his loved ones safe while battling that most modern of diseases—AIDS.

As the New Millennium approaches, Jack’s former lover, a famous photographer reveling in the world’s decay, gifts him with a mysterious elixir called Fusax, a medicine rumored to cure the incurable AIDS. But soon, the “side effects” of Fusax become more apparent, and Jack gets mixed up with a bizarre entourage of rock stars, Japanese scientists, corporate executives, AIDS victims, and religious terrorists. While these larger players compete to control mankind’s fate in the 21st Century, Jack is forced to choose his own role in the World’s End, and how to live with it.

Originally published in 1997, Glimmering is a visionary mix of fantasy and science fiction about a world in which humanity struggles to cope with the ever-approaching “End of the End.” Flames Rising is pleased to present an excerpt from this new edition of Glimmering.

From Hugo Award–winner Tim Pratt comes a new fantastical adventure set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

In City of the Fallen Sky, a young alchemist named Alaeron flees an apprenticeship with the dark scholars of Numeria’s Technic League, only to find himself in trouble once more as a chance encounter sends him and several reluctant companions into the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse. Tracked by a high-tech assassin, and armed only with his inquisitive nature—and a few mysterious artifacts stolen from the Technic League—Alaeron must find the ruins of a legendary flying city, or face the wrath of a cruel crime lord…

Flames Rising is pleased to present an excerpt from this new novel.

Twenty years ago, a barmaid in a harbor town fell for a young sailor who turned pirate to make his fortune. But what truly became of Black Edward Tew remains a mystery—one that has just fallen into the lap of freelance sword jockey Eddie LaCrosse.

To find the truth, and earn his twenty-five gold pieces a day, Eddie must take to sea in the company of a former pirate queen in search of the infamous Black Edward Tew…and his even more legendary treasure.

Flames Rising is pleased to present the first chapter of Wake of the Bloody Angel, a new Eddie Lacrosse new novel by Alex Bledsoe.

A zombie virus of guest articles, Q&As and excerpts from new urban fantasy novel, Plague Town, will be infecting websites, blogs and social media accounts across the globe to offer readers the chance to win a signed copy of Plague Town and have a character named after them in the next novel in the series!

Flames Rising is the 8th stop on the ‘Plague Town Pandemic Tour’.

Collect the 8th word hidden in CAPS at the end of this article along with a sequence of eight others on blogs and websites outlined in the link below; tweet the sentence you’ve discovered to @TitanBooks and @zhadi1 with #PlagueTown before April 23rd.

Happy Hunting.

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .