So much has been happening with the Uncollected Anthology project! This biggest news is that USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch is now a permanent member of UA! We’re thrilled to have her with us.
This issue’s theme is Portals & Passageways: urban fantasy stories about doorways. When I was first pondering the Uncollected Anthology idea—well before I even figured out how to uncollect the stories (if that makes any sense). I love secret doorways and passages: I cut my teeth on Narnia, The Secret Garden, any number of Nancy Drew books and Gothic romances…you get the picture.
We’re also excited to have bestselling author JC Andrejeski as our guest author this month! So many doorways to open…if you answer the call to adventure and magic…
“Save a Prayer”
Former Hollywood party girl Nikki Ashburne sees ghosts—in fact, many of them are her friends. Okay, they’re kind of her only friends. Most ghosts stick around because they’re happy here and have no desire to move on. So when she encounters a trapped and, quite frankly, batshit insane member of the formerly living, she’s driven to help…even though she hasn’t a clue how.
Another story in the Ghosted urban fantasy series featuring Nikki Ashburne.
Buy it at any of these fine online retailers:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Omnilit | Smashwords | iBooks
The other incredibly fabulous authors—go check out their stories!
“Darker Streets,” Phaedra Weldon
The Cavanaugh Family is known for banishing the last of the Twelve High Demons of Hell with the help of the magic sword, November.
Fifty years later, the most power of those Demons escapes its prison and kills the Demon Hunter who imprisoned her. The Demon’s next target—Taylor Cavanaugh, the latest and only Heir to November.
But Taylor doesn’t know how to swing a bat, much less a sword. Her family’s failure to educate her about any of its history could prove to be her undoing unless she proves herself the Heir and wields the sword before the Demon known as Abbadon destroys her.
“Rites of Passage,” Annie Reed
Finn guards this world from the monsters from the other side. Slays their servants before they can finish creating passageways into our world for their masters.
Important work. Lonely work. Work that killed Finn’s own master when he got careless after too many decades on the job.
And Finn’s been doing this work for a very, very long time.
“Silver Dust,” Leslie Claire Walker
Silver had it all—eternal life, long-term memory, and a real sweet princess gig as the heir to the Faery King’s throne. But then the Faery realm caught a terrible disease, and she tried to save her people by taking the sickness into herself. She ended up banished with a price on her head and only days to live. The cure cost her memory and left her in hiding, a stranger to herself.
When her one friend in all the worlds disappears while trying to help her find a way home, Silver must come out of the shadows to save him. She must face the danger and the unknown lurking in the Human and Faery realms—and in her own strange heart and soul.
“For more than a decade now,
I have adored the work of Leslie Claire Walker.”
— Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“The Streets Where We Live,” Kristine Kathryn Rusch
When Portia receives a call from an old friend she hasn’t talked to in years, she knows something terrible has happened. But when Portia realizes just how terrible—fifty kids missing from a Chicago theater with millions of dollars in damage left behind—she knows she’ll need backup from her magical sisters. Nothing about this latest case makes sense, magically or otherwise. And when she finally starts to discover the truth, Portia realizes that truth might be darker and more insidious than she ever imagined.
“War on All Fronts,” Leah Cutter
Tong Yi carries the mysterious message of Zhang Gua Loa back to his boss.
The immortal had said there would be war. But between whom? And why?
Huli Transport takes advantage of the situation to become the messenger service of choice in the war zone. They promise to remain neutral, and to deliver messages to all sides.
In the meantime, Tong Yi has battles of his own to fight, both with his older brother and his own growing understanding of magic.
But in the middle of a war, is it possible for him to remain neutral? Or has his side already been chosen for him?
This novella is a sequel to the story, “Dancing with Tong Yi” which appeared in Uncollected Anthology, Issue 1: Magical Motorcycles.
Guest Author
“Kirev’s Door,” J.C. Andrijeski
Kirev is a seer. Raised in an alternate version of our Earth, where his people are enslaved under human owners, Kirev joins a resistance army of rebel seers after spending most of his youth in work camps and brothels. He wants to help his people, but during his first mission with the seer rebels, Kirev faces a terrifying new future when a voice from his past intervenes and sends his life into a whole different direction.
~ A spinoff story from the ALLIE’S WAR series ~
Final Info
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This is one of those stories that I mostly forget about after writing it, and when I looked at it again, I thought, “Huh. That character would be great in a novel…dammit!” But for now, enjoy the short story, won’t you?
