"Looking forward to a Christmas family reunion for the first time in years, the Birch family is upended by the news that their physician-activist daughter has been exposed to a foreign virus that forces the entire family into quarantine for a week also shaped by respective anxieties, past glory and a shocking secret." --

Waking up to discover that his girlfriend is a vampire and has transformed him into one, Thomas C. Flood adapts to his new powers while dealing with a dangerous faction of bloodsuckers trying to kill off all other vampires.

Arnie the talking doughnut convinces Mr. Bing that not all doughnuts are meant to be eaten. A deliciously imaginative story about friendship--from the author/illustrator of The Scrambled States of America. Arnie was fascinated as he watched the customers stream into the bakery. One by one, doughnuts were chosen, placed in paper bags, and whisked away with their new owners. Some went by the dozen in giant boxes. "Good-bye!" Arnie yelled to each doughnut....

Confronted by a bullying cat ghost when they move in with their new human family, two former shelter cats are blamed for all kinds of mischief before endeavoring to uncover the ghost's story.

When Nicholas Young hears that his grandmother, Su Yi, is on her deathbed, he rushes to be by her bedside--but he's not alone. The entire Shang-Young clan has convened from all corners of the globe to stake claim on their matriarch's massive fortune. With each family member vying to inherit Tyersall Park--a trophy estate on 64 prime acres in the heart of Singapore--Nicholas's childhood home turns into a hotbed of speculation and sabotage. As her relatives...

"Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay. People are dying, but their souls are not being collected. Someone, or something, is stealing them and no one knows where they are going, or why, but it has something to do with that big orange bridge. Death Merchant Charlie Asher is just as flummoxed as everyone else. He's trapped in the body of a fouteen-inch-tall "meat puppet" waiting for his Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey, to find...

A boy wins a $100,000 prize in a box of Frosted Flakes, only to discover that claiming the winnings may unravel his family. A woman sets out to seduce motivational speaker Tony Robbins. A school principal unveils a bold plan to permanently abolish arithmetic. An acclaimed ambulance driver seeks the courage to become a singer-songwriter. Author John Grisham contemplates a monumental typo. These and many more short stories are included in an original...

Andrew Yancy, late of the Miami Police, soon-to-be-late of the Key West Police, has a human arm in his freezer. There is a logical explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, his commander might relieve him of Health Inspector duties, aka Roach Patrol. But first Yancy will negotiate an ever-surprising course of events,...

"Make Something Up is a compilation of 21 stories and one novella (some previously published, some not) that will disturb and delight. The absurdity of both life and death are on full display: In "Zombies," the best and brightest of a high school prep school become tragically addicted to the latest drug craze: electric shocks from cardiac defibrillators. In "Knock, Knock," a son hopes to tell one last off-color joke to a father in his final moments,...

"A little penguin argues that home, far from being free from worries and responsibilities, is freezing, filled with natural predators, and overrun by identical penguins that make it difficult to find one's mom." --