Michael M. Jones

Welcome to Puxhill. It's a quiet little city just a half-step off the beaten path. Everything seems normal, but the walls between worlds run thin here, and magic seeps into everyday life. Forgotten gods and faded myths live amongst the humans, and passions run deep. In Puxhill, the impossible becomes real. In these eight erotic tales of magic, mystery, and lesbian lust, worlds collide in new and mesmerizing ways. The night manager of a seedy motel unlocks the secrets of an amnesiac girl's past, while an angry young rocker fights for her life in a back alley. A rogue A.I. assumes human form to romance the new owner of a comic book store, shapeshifting lovers must break an ancient curse or run the risk of killing one another, and much more. Puxhill by Night collects a mixture of reprints and original stories by acclaimed author Michael M. Jones.

Lesbian Erotic Urban Fantasy

Puxhill by Night

"Gender is flexible and surprising in 12 stories of characters transformed by the trappings of a different sex. ...[E]ach one is guaranteed to make the reader question the roles and qualities often assigned to gender and sex. Jones... provides a strong start for Circlet's new Gressive imprint of works that explore outside the gender binary."-Publishers Weekly History, literature, and mythology are replete with stories of those who, for one reason or another, disguise themselves as the opposite gender, or are transformed into that which they are not. From Bugs Bunny's dress-wearing shenanigans, to Mulan's impersonation of her father, from Tamora Pierce's Alanna of Trebond, to M*A*S*H's Klinger, this collection's antecedents are everywhere. For centuries, readers have thrilled to the tale of Scheherazade and One Thousand and One Nights. Taken as a bride by a king notorious for executing each wife after the marriage's consummation, Scheherazade spins stories for him to avoid that fate. But what if someone was not as they seemed? Through tales of magical transformation, cross-dressing, and gender bending, our storytelling heroine postpones her death even as she entertains and enlightens her audience. As editor Michael M. Jones writes in his introduction, "For this collection, I looked for a wide variety of things. First, all stories had to be fantasy. High, low, dark, historical, romantic, urban, mythical--just about anything goes as long as it has those fantastic elements to it. Second, I wanted stories in which the protagonist or other major characters are disguised or transformed, or otherwise challenge traditional gender roles ... heroes and villains, warriors and tricksters, drag queens and cross-dressers, cisgendered, transgendered, and everything in-between. The authors who responded knocked the requirements right out of the park." With stories by: Tanith Lee Sarah Rees Brennan Shanna Germain Alma Alexander C.S. MacCath Paolo Chikiamco Tiffany Trent Melissa Mead Aliette de Bodard Lyn C.A. Gardner Sunny Moraine David Sklar

Fantastical Tales of Gender Bending, Cross-dressing, and Transformation

Scheherazade's Facade

“I snagged a few pinches of herbs from the apothecary cabinet in the kitchen and ground them into a paste. The bruised leaves let out their oils, and the air filled with a sweet, green, medicinal smell. Just a small magic, friend-to-bees magic, and it didn't look like magic unless you knew.” From “The Delicate Work of Bees” by Emily Horner “What is the centaur philosophy of magic?” Clementine cleared her throat, cheeks flushing pink, and said, “That if it were easy, everyone would do it, and that means it must be hard.” From “Finals” by Seanan McGuire In this enchanting collection of young adult tales, 20 authors explore the overlap of the mundane and the fantastical, with LGBTQ protagonists juggling the pressures of school and the wonder of magic in its many forms. From entrance tests to final exams, casting spells to breaking curses, these teens seek to claim their place in the world. In these pages, you’ll find gay and lesbian, bisexual and asexual, trans and nonbinary characters, all experiencing sexy, strange, wicked, wonderful, romantic adventures. They deal with bad roommates and bullies, first loves and new friends, all while crafting and inhabiting their ideal identities. Featuring authors such as Seanan McGuire, Cheryl Rainfield, Cecilia Tan, E.C. Myers, Rajan Khanna, and many more. Step inside and experience Schoolbooks & Sorcery…

An Anthology of Inclusive YA Urban Fantasy

Schoolbooks & Sorcery

Marie Brennan

John Grant

Tanith Lee

Nicole Kornher-Stace

John C. Wright

Gemma Files

Cat Rambo

C.S.E. Cooney

Gregory Frost

Georgina Bruce

Tori Truslow

Shweta Narayan

S.J. Hirons

Kenneth Schneyer

The third volume in the ground-breaking, genre-bending, boundary-pushing CLOCKWORK PHOENIX anthology series, now available in digital format. Includes critically-acclaimed and award-nominated stories by Marie Brennan, Tori Truslow, Georgina Bruce, Michael M. Jones, Gemma Files, C.S.E. Cooney, Cat Rambo, Gregory Frost, Shweta Narayan, S.J. Hirons, John Grant, Kenneth Schneyer, John C. Wright, Nicole Kornher-Stace and Tanith Lee. With a whimsical introduction and new afterword by Nebula Award-nominated editor Mike Allen. CONTENTS The Gospel of Nachash • Marie Brennan Tomorrow Is Saint Valentine's Day • Tori Truslow Crow Voodoo • Georgina Bruce Your Name Is Eve • Michael M. Jones Hell Friend • Gemma Files Braiding the Ghosts • C.S.E. Cooney Surrogates • Cat Rambo Lucyna's Gaze • Gregory Frost Eyes of Carven Emerald • Shweta Narayan Dragons of America • S.J. Hirons Where Shadows Go at Low Midnight • John Grant Lineage • Kenneth Schneyer Murder in Metachronopolis • John C. Wright To Seek Her Fortune • Nicole Kornher-Stace Fold • Tanith Lee Praise for CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 3 . . . . Allen’s third volume of extraordinary short stories reaches new heights of rarity and wonder. Marie Brennan sets the bar high with “The Gospel of Nachash,” a fine reinterpretation of the Adam and Eve legend from a fresh perspective. Tori Truslow’s scholarly “Tomorrow Is Saint Valentine’s Day” tells the story of the Great Ice Train and its encounter with the merfolk on the Moon. Gemma Files’s “Hell Friend” and C.S.E. Cooney’s “Braiding the Ghosts” are sinister, spine-tingling ghost stories. Cat Rambo deals with realism and escapism in her futuristic “Surrogates,” where appearances and reality are mutable. Shweta Narayan’s “Eyes of Carven Emerald” eloquently rewrites the history of Alexander the Great to include mechanical entities. Without a wrong note, all the stories in this anthology admirably fulfill Allen’s promise of “beauty and strangeness.” — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review With a balance of new names and established authors, the third Clockwork Phoenix installment collects some magnificent interpretations of fantastic ideas. “The Gospel of Nachash” opens, Marie Brennan’s haunting tale of the beginning of time, and a very interesting reinterpretation of a gospel it is, too. Tanith Lee’s “Fold” is a story of a man who wrote love letters to the people he saw passing beneath his window, and only left his apartment once. Gemma Files’ “Hell Friend” is really a heart-warming ghost story; Georgina Bruce’s “Crow Voodoo” is an unnerving take on something common to fairy tales; and Gregory Frost’s “Lucyna’s Gaze” starts off sweet, and grows more awful with every revealed detail. Clockwork Phoenix delivers on its promise of both beauty and strangeness, and adds in some fright and a few new ways of looking at old tropes. All in all, it’s a very successful collection of thematically similar, but wildly varied in subject, works. — Booklist CLOCKWORK PHOENIX is a series of anthologies from Norilana Books, edited by Mike Allen, that bears the subtitle “New Tales of Beauty and Strangeness”. This seems a quite appropriate subtitle — the stories really do seem attempts at evoking both beauty and the strange. This makes them consistently interesting . . . There is a mixture of wild science fiction (as with John C. Wright’s “Murder in Metachronopolis”, a convoluted time travel mystery) with what seems best called slipstream (say, Tanith Lee’s curious “Fold”, about a man who sends people paper airplane love letters) with out and out fantasy. One of the latter is my favorite here: C. S. E. Cooney’s “Braiding the Ghosts”, in which a girl goes to her grandmother after her mother’s death, and learns from the older woman the secret of “braiding” ghosts — which is to say enslaving them. So ghosts are the servants of the older woman. But the girl is not so happy with this . . . especially when she falls for the ghost she is forced to braid. And the ghosts — are they happy? Read the story and find out . . . lovely stuff. — Locus For the past three years editor Mike Allen has been publishing his unique CLOCKWORK PHOENIX anthologies, inviting authors like Tanith Lee and Catherynne M. Valente to give us their take on the concepts of, as the title has it, “beauty and strangeness.” The result has been a critical and artistic success and, if volume three is any indication, the spell won’t be lifting any time soon. Allen continues to assemble some of the most adventurous, beauteous, and just plain weird stuff our current crop of speculative authors are capable of producing. Adventurous minds are invited to attend. — Strange Horizons

New Tales of Beauty and Strangeness

Clockwork Phoenix 3

Michael M. Jones

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