Situada en la mítica ciudad de Sparta, en Nueva York, Ave del paraíso es una punzante y vívida combinación de romance erótico y violencia trágica en la Norteamérica de finales del siglo XX. Cuando Zoe Kruller, una joven esposa y madre, aparece brutalmente asesinada, la policía de Sparta se centra en dos principales sospechosos, su marido, Delray, del que estaba separada, y su amante desde hace tiempo, Eddy Diehl. Mientras tanto, el hijo de los Kruller, Aaron, y la hija de Eddy, Krista, adquieren una mutua obsesión, y cada uno cree que el padre del otro es culpable. Una clásica novela de Oates, autora también de La hija del sepulturero, Mamá, Infiel, Puro fuego y Un jardín de poderes terrenales, en la que el lirismo del intenso amor sexual está entrelazado con la angustia de la pérdida y es difícil diferenciar la ternura de la crueldad

This sixth anthology in the adult fairy-tale series by acclaimed editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling presents another diverse collection of stories and poems loosely based on folklore traditions around the world. Readers familiar with previous books in the series will recognize the names of many regular contributors, including Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen, Esther Friesner, and Joyce Carol Oates, as well as works from Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint, and others. Tanith Lee's "Rapunzel" opens the collection with a charmingly simple reconstruction of that classic fairy tale. Esther Friesner's "Big Hair" takes the same theme into the present with less cheerful results. Greg Costikyan considers the fate of an ensorcelled sleeping beauty dug up by archaeologists centuries later in "And Still She Sleeps," while Jane Yolen's "Snow in Summer" turns the tables on Snow White's evil stepmother with a deep-dish apple pie and a fry pan. Scott Bradfield's "Goldilocks Tells All" is especially memorable for its Jerry Springer-like portrayal of the ultimate dysfunctional family. Leah Cutter considers the loneliness of living under a curse in her Texas two-step story "The Red Boots." Severna Park's feminist "The Golem" revives a Jewish folktale, while Bryn Kanar's haunting "Dreaming Among Men" draws on Native American legend. Howard Waldrop's "Our Mortal Span" is perhaps the most unique story here, a surprising blend of black comedy, killer-robot story, and fairy tale. While on the whole this collection isn't as strong as previous volumes, it still delivers a fine array of thoughtful writing on some of the best-known-and yet unknown-stories we love. — Charlene Brusso.

DESCRIPTION: From some of the greatest literary minds of our time comes a collection of stories about dangerous women.With an unprecedented lineup of authors, Mysterious Press proudly presents an extraordinary collection of short stories. Lorenzo Carcaterra, Michael Connelly, John Connolly, Jeffery Deaver, Nelson DeMille, J.A. Jance, Andrew Klavan, Elmore Leonard, Laura Lippman, Ed McBain, Jay McInerney, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Perry, Ian Rankin, S.J. Rozan, and Thomas H. Cook combine their talents in a collection which is certain to find a large audience eager to read stories by some of the most distinguished names in the genre.

Stephen King, Lisa Morton, Nell Quinn-Gibney, Norman Prentiss, Joyce Carol Oates, and Tim Curran plunge readers into the dark side in this deeply unsettling short-story collection curated by legendary horror editors Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar.THE OLD DUDE’S TICKER by Stephen KingRichard Drogan has been spooked ever since he came back from Nam, but he’s no head case, dig? He just knows the old dude needs to die.THE RICH ARE DIFFERENT by Lisa MortonEven though she made her name revealing the private lives of the rich and famous, Sara Peck has no idea how deep their secrets really go… or the price they’ll pay to get what they desire.THE MANICURE by Nell Quinn-GibneyA trip to the nail salon is supposed to be relaxing. But as the demons of the past creep closer with every clip, even the most serene day of pampering can become a nightmare.THE COMFORTING VOICE by Norman PrentissIt’s a little strange how baby Lydia can only be soothed by her grandfather’s unnatural voice, ravaged by throat cancer. The weirdest part? What he’s saying is more disturbing than how he says it.THE SITUATIONS by Joyce Carol OatesThere are certain lessons children must learn, rules they must follow, scars they must bear. No lesson is more important than this: Never question Daddy. Or else.THE CORPSE KING by Tim CurranGrave robbers Kierney and Clow keep one step ahead of the law as they ply their ghoulish trade, but there’s no outrunning a far more frightening enemy that hungers for the dead.

From crime stories in the classic hard-boiled style to the vividly experimental, from the determination of those risking everything to the desperation of those with nothing left to lose, Detroit Noir delivers unforgettable tales that capture the city’s dark vitality.Includes stories by: Joyce Carol Oates, Loren D. Estleman, Craig Holden, P.J. Parrish, Desiree Cooper, Nisi Shawl, M.L. Liebler, Craig Bernier, Joe Boland, Megan Abbott, Dorene O’Brien, Lolita Hernandez, Peter Markus, Roger K. Johnson, Michael Zadoorian, and E.J. Olsen.

In her bewitching 30th novel, I'll Take You There, Joyce Carol Oates returns again to neurotic female post-adolescence. The unnamed narrator attends an upstate New York university in the early 1960s. In those times of tightly prescribed femininity, she joins a sorority in a bald attempt to become part of the sisterhood of normalcy. It doesn't work. She reads philosophy, she works for a living, she's asexual, she's an orphan, she's a Jew: "I was a freak in the midst of their stunning, stampeding, blazing female normality." Booted from the sorority, she falls hard for a thirtyish black philosophy student who seems to her to live on a higher plane than the rest of humanity. In the final section, she is called west to the deathbed of someone she thought was lost to her forever. Oates brings together some of her strongest trademark qualities: She writes her character's life as though it were a fairy tale. She sells her material, bringing dramatic tension to the very first page: "They would claim I destroyed Mrs. Thayer… Yet others would claim that Mrs. Thayer destroyed me." And she writes with tender care about the intellectual life of her young protagonist. Some find Oates's obsession with nascent womanhood claustrophobic, but in this heroine she finds a vein of integrity and intellectual probity peculiar to those who are not quite adult. Most writers treat college life as comedy or romance. Oates, on the other hand, seriously explores an age when we are most terribly ourselves. She seems to find something deeply human and pleasingly dramatic in this time wedged between childhood and adulthood.

Rockstar Games has partnered with Mulholland Books to publish a collection of short fiction expanding the world of the newest groundbreaking achievement in storytelling: the interactive crime thriller L.A. Noire.1940s Hollywood, murder, deception and mystery take center stage as readers reintroduce themselves to characters seen in L.A. Noire. Explore the lives of actresses desperate for the Hollywood spotlight; heroes turned defeated men; and classic Noir villains. Readers will come across not only familiar faces, but familiar cases from the game that take on a new spin to tell the tales of emotionally torn protagonists, depraved schemers and their ill-fated victims.With original short fiction by Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Joe Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, Jonathan Santlofer, Duane Swierczynski and Andrew Vachss, L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories breathes new life into a time-honored American tradition, in an exciting anthology that will appeal to fans of suspense and gamers everywhere.

Following the commercial success of the original Manhattan Noir, mystery titan Lawrence Block explores the historic literary roots of this dark island.Featuring stories by: Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, O. Henry, Langston Hughes, Irwin Shaw, Jerome Weidman, Damon Runyon, Evan Hunter, Jerrold Mundis, Edgar Allan Poe, Horace Gregory, Geoffrey Bartholomew, Cornell Woolrich, Barry N. Malzberg, Clark Howard, Jerome Charyn, Donald E. Westlake, Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, and Susan Isaacs.

«Le hipnotizará y le conmoverá… Un libro más dolorosamente autorrevelador de lo que la Oates novelista o crítica se haya atrevido a publicar jamás.» – Ann Hulbert, The New York Times Book ReviewEn una mañana gris de febrero, Joyce Carol Oates llevó a su marido Raymond Smith a urgencias aquejado de una neumonía; una semana después, ciertas complicaciones terminaban con su vida. Estas deslumbrantes páginas capturan el estado emocional de Oates tras la repentina muerte de su marido, y cómo se ve obligada a hallar su equilibrio sin la alianza que la había sostenido durante cuarenta y siete años y veinticinco días.Llenas de agudas reflexiones y, a veces, de humor negro, estas Memorias de una viuda narran también una conmovedora historia de amor, lírica, moral e implacable, como las que pueblan sus novelas, y ofrecen un inédito retrato de su intimidad, hasta ahora celosamente guardada.«Impecable… No cometa el error de pasar por alto este libro; simplemente, es demasiado bueno para perdérselo.» – Dave Moyer, The New York Journal of Books«Sorprendente… Periodística e intuitiva, emocional y reflexiva… Oates comenzó escribiendo el diario de una viuda, y lo que ha logrado es la historia de un matrimonio.» – Geeta Sharma Jensen, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel«Oates pertenece a la vieja estirpe de Poe, Borges, Kafka, Cortázar o Chéjov…» – Ángeles López, Qué Leer«Una novela maravillosamente escrita y muy conmovedora… Una compra valiosa para el lector de memorias y, en especial, para los más mayores.» – Library Journal«Oates escribe con una honestidad visceral y no ceja en obligar a sus lectores a las conjeturas al respecto de su próxima y estremecedora empresa.» – Kirkus Reviews«Las memorias de Oates se unirán a Antonia Fraser y Joan Didion en la sección de obras esenciales sobre la pérdida.» – The Daily Beast«Tiene tanto de retrato de un matrimonio único como de crónica del duelo… Inmensamente conmovedora.» – Kim Hubbard, People Magazine«Tan cautivadora como dolorosa… un relato desgarrador… Esta posibilidad que Oates ofrece al lector de experimentar la muerte de Smith del mismo y dramático modo en que lo hizo ella es algo muy característico del excelente equilibrio de la autora entre lo intelectual y lo emocional.» – Valerie Sayers, The Washington Post

Las mujeres más peligrosas son aquellas que resultan irresistibles. ¿Qué hace peligrosa a una mujer? Su gran belleza, su encanto, su inteligencia, la manera en que se aparta el cabello de los ojos, o el modo de reírse. Puede tener conciencia absoluta de su poder, o desconocerlo por completo. Utilizarlo comoa rma o protegerse detrás de él. La intención y el propósito no aumentan ni disminuyen el poder, y ése es mayor peligro de todos los que son seducidos y sometidos por él.

An anthology of stories edited by Otto PenzlerThis is a collection of 12 original stories by such crime writers as Lawrence Block, Mary Higgins Clark, Thomas H. Cook, Eric Lustbader, Philip Margolin, David Morrell, Joyce Carol Oates and Peter Straub.

Michael Cunningham, Francine Prose, Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, Jim Shepard, and more than thirty other extraordinary writers celebrate fairy tales in this thrilling new volume. Inspire by everything from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" and "The Little Match Girl" to Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard" and "Cinderella" to the Brothers Grimm's "Hansel and Gretel" and "Rumpelstiltskin" to fairy tales by Goethe and Calvino and from China, Japan, Vietnam, Russia, Norway, and Mexico, here are stories that soar into boundless realms, filled with mischief and mystery and magic, and renewed by the lifeblood of invention. Although rooted in hundreds of years of tradition, they chart the imaginative frontiers of the twenty-first century as powerfully as they evoke our earliest encounters with literature.

This second volume of the Alien Sex anthology series brings together authors Neil Gaiman, Robert Silverberg, Samuel R. Delany, Joyce Carol Oates, Elizabeth Hand, and many others to explore the mysteries of sex, alien and human alike.From an alien spy who falls in love with one of the earthlings he’s monitoring, to a woman whose souvenir dream-catcher calls to her bedroom more than she bargained for, to a genetically engineered sex object aboard a space station, these thought-provoking tales of alien sex open up new worlds for fantastical exploration.