Sample chapters are a great way to discover new books. Publishers often provide them to authors as a way to market books and to attract new readers. However, sample chapters are not always easy to find. Usually they live on an author’s website connected to the a page dedicated to the novel in question. The problem with this is that readers need to know the novel exists, they need to know who the author is, and they need to search out the sample chapter on their own.

The Free Fiction Sampler is UNDERWORD’s way of bringing authors, books, and readers together in one convenient location. This Sampler contains 27 authors from various publishers who are offering sample chapters for 38 different books. Feel free to poke around, check out the book blurbs, read sample chapters, and find new books to love. Let’s make 2011 the Year of the Book.

Thank you to all of the authors and publishers who gave their permission for me to add their sample chapters to the Free Fiction Sampler. The samples listed below are truly amazing and should easily provide you with several more titles to add to your reading list. Enjoy!

Note: That the Free Fiction Sampler is arranged alphabetically by the author’s last name. Each sample contains 3 links: 1) the author’s name will take you to her web site, 2) the book’s title will take you to the sample chapter or to a web page with a “read excerpt” link that will need to be clicked, and 3) the book’s cover will take you to an online store where you can buy the book. Young Adult fiction has the characters (YA) after the book title.

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Mike Allen, editor

• CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 3: New Tales of Beauty and Strangeness – The third volume of this extraordinary annual anthology series of fantastic literature dares to surpass the first two, with works that sidestep expectations in beautiful and unsettling ways, that surprise with their settings and startle with the manner in which they cross genre boundaries, that aren’t afraid to experiment with storytelling techniques, and yet seamlessly blend form with meaningful function. The effervescent offerings found within these pages come from some of today’s most distinguished contemporary fantasists and brilliant rising newcomers. Whether it’s a touch of literary erudition, playful whimsy, extravagant style, or mind-blowing philosophical speculation and insight, the reader will be led into unfamiliar territory, there to find shock and delight. Presenting four writers from Clockwork Phoenix 3:

• • “The Gospel of Nachash” by Marie Brennan, short story
  • “Braiding the Ghosts” by C.S.E. Cooney, short story
  • “Surrogates” by Cat Rambo, short story
  • “Lineage” by Kenneth Schneyer, short story

Terry Brooks

• Running With The Demon: The Word and The Void Trillogy, Book 1 – In a sleepy steel-mill town, the ultimate battle between Good and Evil is about to begin . . .  Sinnissippi Park, in Hopewell, Illinois, has long hidden a mysterious evil, locked away from humankind by powers greater than most could even imagine. But now the malevolent creatures that normally skulk in the shadows of the park grow bolder, and old secrets hint at a violent explosion.  The brewing conflict draws John Ross to Hopewell. A Knight of the Word, Ross is plagued by nightmares that tell him someone evil is coming to unleash an ancient horror upon the world. Caught between them is fourteen-year-old Nest Freemark, who senses that something is terribly wrong but has not yet learned to wield the budding power that sets her apart from her friends. Now the future of humanity depends upon a man haunted by his dreams and a gifted young girl–two souls who will discover what survives when hope and innocence are shattered forever . . .

Tobias Buckell

• Crystal Rain – Long ago the old-fathers came to Nanagada through a worms hole in the sky, looking for a new world to call their own. But that was many generations ago, and what was once known has long been lost. Steamboats and gas-filled blimps now traverse the planet, where people once looked up to see great silver cities in the sky. Like his world, John deBrun has forgotten more than he remembers. Twenty-seven years ago, he washed up onto the shore with no memory of his past. These mysteries take on new urgency when the fearsome Azteca storm over the mountains, in search of fresh blood and hearts to feed their cruel inhuman gods. Nanagada’s only hope lies in a mythical artifact said to be hidden in the frozen north. And only John deBrun knows the device’s secrets, even if he can’t remember why or how!

• Ragamuffin – The Benevolent Satrapy rule an empire of forty-eight worlds, linked by thousands of wormholes strung throughout the galaxy. Human beings, while technically “free,” mostly skulk around the fringes of the Satrapy, struggling to get by. The secretive alien Satraps tightly restrict the technological development of the species under their control. Entire worlds have been placed under interdiction, cut off from the rest of the universe. Descended from the islanders of lost Earth, the Ragamuffins are pirates and smugglers, plying the lonely spaceways around a dead wormhole. For years, the Satraps have tolerated the Raga, but no longer. Now they have embarked on a campaign of extermination, determined to wipe out the unruly humans once and for all. But one runaway woman may complicate their plans. Combat enabled, Nashara is more machine than flesh, and she carries inside her a doomsday weapon that could reduce the entire galaxy to chaos. A hunted fugitive, she just wants to get home before she’s forced to destroy civilization—and herself.

• Sly Mongoose – Welcome to Chilo, a planet with corrosive rain, crushing pressure, and deadly heat. Fortunately, fourteen-year-old Timas lives in one of the domed cities that float 100,000 feet above the surface, circling near the edge of a monstrous perpetual storm. Above the acidic clouds the temperature and pressure are normal. But to make a living, Timas like many other young men, is lowered to the surface in an armored suit to scavenge what he can. Timas’s life is turned upside down when a strange man crash-lands on the city. The newcomer is fleeing an alien intelligence intent on invading the planet and discovering the secret hidden deep inside the perpetual storm — a secret that could lead to interplanetary war. As the invaded cities fall silent one by one, Chilo’s citizens must race against time to stop the enemy. And Timas will find out what kind of man he has become in the harsh conditions of Chilo’s surface.

David Anthony Durham

• Pride of Carthage – This epic retelling of the legendary Carthaginian military leader’s assault on the Roman empire begins in Ancient Spain, where Hannibal Barca sets out with tens of thousands of soldiers and 30 elephants. After conquering the Roman city of Saguntum, Hannibal wages his campaign through the outposts of the empire, shrewdly befriending peoples disillusioned by Rome and, with dazzling tactics, outwitting the opponents who believe the land route he has chosen is impossible. Yet Hannibal’s armies must take brutal losses as they pass through the Pyrenees mountains, forge the Rhone river, and make a winter crossing of the Alps before descending to the great tests at Cannae and Rome itself.

• Acacia: The War With The Mein – Leodan Akaran, ruler of the Known World, has inherited generations of apparent peace and prosperity, won ages ago by his ancestors. A widower of high intelligence, he presides over an empire called Acacia, after the idyllic island from which he rules. He dotes on his four children and hides from them the dark realities of traffic in drugs and human lives on which their prosperity depends. He hopes that he might change this, but powerful forces stand in his way. And then a deadly assassin sent from a race called the Mein, exiled long ago to an ice-locked stronghold in the frozen north, strikes at Leodan in the heart of Acacia while they unleash surprise attacks across the empire. On his deathbed, Leodan puts into play a plan to allow his children to escape, each to their separate destiny. And so his children begin a quest to avenge their father’s death and restore the Acacian empire—this time on the basis of universal freedom.

• Walk Through Darkness – “Walk Through Darkness is the tale of two very different men, each on a quest, both tied together by a history of remorse, jealousy, and a love that crosses the barriers of race during the time of slavery.” “William, a fugitive slave from Maryland, is driven by two powerful needs – to find his wife, Dover, who is pregnant with his child, and to live as a free man. He undertakes the treacherous journey north to restore meaning to his life, putting him at odds with the law and the sentiments of a nation. Morrison, who fled a painful youth in Scotland, had once hoped to establish a new life in America with his brother, but the unforeseen realities of immigrant life drove them apart.” As David Anthony Durham traces the physical and spiritual journeys of William, Dover, and Morrison, he captures in detail the events and the landscape of America just before the turmoil of the Civil War. Interweaving tragedy and hardship with a profound understanding of enduring love and the desire for freedom, Walk Through Darkness is a complex story that is uniquely American, reflecting the tortured nature of the country’s bloodlines and uncovering the deep bonds – and wounds – that exist across racial lines. This is a work of “fiction in history” that follows two very different men’s paths to freedom, and places a difficult part of our nation’s history under a magnifying glass to search for something beyond pain. In the end, it also presents a new possibility of healing – for the characters, and for the larger racial divide that still haunts the United States.

Christopher Golden

• The Gathering Dark, The 4th Peter Octavian Novel: (Prologue) – Sneak Peak! Available 1/25/2011. Once upon a time, the world believed that demons and supernatural creatures were figments of imagination. Then The Gospel of Shadows was destroyed — the one magical weapon capable of keeping the monsters at bay. Now, the barriers between the human world and paranormal realms are being torn asunder, as beings born of nightmares swarm across the globe. And humanity’s only hope lies in Peter Octavian — a powerful mage who’s held in suspicion for once being mankind’s worst enemy. A vampire.

BA Goodjohn:

• Sticklebacks and Snowglobes – Tot is good at watching, waiting and working things out. And there s a lot that demands close attention: her own epilepsy, an older sister who never wants to play anymore, a best friend who s changed her name to Roger, and a girl across the road with a star entry in the Stanley Close Spy Club notebook for doing it with a gypsy man. And then to crown it all, her dad has dreams of New Orleans. Sticklebacks and Snowglobes is a story of tangled destinies unravelled and made sense of by an eight-year-old girl called Tot, a child as yet untouched by hormones, and whose belief system is shored up by fishing nets, a healthy respect for exploding saints and faith in both the inherent goodness of people and in the way things are.

Nancy Holder

• Possessions: Possessions Series, Book 1 (YA) – The It Girl meets The Exorcist in this chilling, haunted boarding school tale. New-girl Lindsay discovers all is not right at the prestigious Marlwood Academy for Girls. Ethereal, popular Mandy and her clique are plotting something dangerous. Lindsay overhears them performing strange rituals, and sees their eyes turn black. It doesn’t help that the school itself is totally eerie, with ancient, dilapidated buildings tucked into the Northern California woods, a thick white fog swirling through campus. There are hidden passageways, odd reflections in the windows at night, and scariest of all is the vast lake rumored to have captured the ghost of a girl who drowned many years ago. What Lindsay doesn’t yet realize is that Mandy and her cohorts are becoming possessed by spirits who have haunted the school for two hundred years. Spirits who want someone dead…And that someone is Lindsay.

• The Evil Within: Possessions Series, Book 2 (YA) – In this sequel to New York Times bestselling author Nancy Holder’s Possessions, Lindsay finds out that she, too, is possessed, and must return to creepy Marlwood Academy in order to rid herself of the spirit. Lindsay’s afraid of what the spirit is telling her to do—kill Mandy! But the secrets of Marlwood go much deeper than Lindsay thought. Sometimes the girls who seem like enemies are actually on your side. And the voices you trust the most—the voices that come from within—are the ones that want you dead.

Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie

• Crusade (YA) – For the past two years, Jenn has lived and trained at Spain’s Sacred Heart Academy Against the Cursed Ones. She is among the few who have pledged to defend humanity or die trying. But the vampires are gaining power, and the battle has only just begun. Forced to return home after death takes a member of her family, Jenn discovers that San Francisco is now a vampire strong-hold. As a lone hunter apart from her team, Jenn is isolated—and at risk. She craves the company of her fighting partner, Antonio: his protection, his reassurance, his touch. But a relationship with Antonio comes with its own dangers, and the more they share of themselves, the more Jenn stands to lose. Then Jenn is betrayed by one who was once bound to protect her, causing her to doubt all she had held as true. To survive, Jenn must find the courage to trust herself—and her heart.

• Wicked 1: Witch & Curse (YA) – Holly Cathers’s world shatters when her parents are killed in a terrible accident. Wrenched from her home in San Francisco, she is sent to Seattle to live with her relatives, Aunt Marie-Claire and her twin cousins, Amanda and Nicole. In her new home, Holly’s sorrow and grief soon give way to bewilderment at the strange incidents going on around her. Such as how any wish she whispers to her cat seems to come true. Or the way a friend is injured after a freak attack from a vicious falcon. And there’s the undeniable, magnetic attraction to a boy Holly barely knows. Holly, Amanda, and Nicole are about to be launced into a dark legacy of witches, secrets, and alliances, where ancient magics yield dangerous results. The girls will assume their roles in an intergenerational feud beyond their wildest imaginations…and in doing so, will attempt to fulfill their shared destiny.

• Wicked 2: Legacy & Spellbound (YA) – Holly Cathers is not the same person she was almost a year and a half ago. After discovering her connection to an ancient legacy of witches, Holly has accepted her destiny as a descendant of the House of Cahors. She is determined to end an intergenerational feud that has plagued her family for centuries. Holly will have to overcome unworldly obstacles as she battles to protect her loved ones — including Jer, a member of the rival House of Deveraux and her one true love. A war of magical proportions is being waged, and Holly is at the center of it all. Lives will be lost, and sacrifices will have to be made….

• Wicked: Resurrection (YA) – What the Cahors witches thought was the end of their troubles was only the beginning. A threat more powerful and more frightening than anything they have faced has been watching and waiting. The Cahors witches must come together and find Jer and Eli as both the Deveraux and the Cahors family lines face eradication. All the secrets of the Cahors will be revealed, forcing them to overcome their greatest weaknesses in order to achieve their most powerful strengths. And only united do they have any chance at victory. Before the end, sacrifices will be made, alliances forged, and old friends lost forever.

Katharine Kerr

• License to Ensorcell – Sneak Peak! Available 2/1/2011. Psychic Agent Nola O’Grady isn’t sure returning to San Francisco, and living near her unusual family, is a good idea. Her job, with a psychic agency so obscure even the CIA doesn’t know it exists, can be perilous, and she’s afraid of the relatives getting involved. Then the Agency saddles her with Israeli secret agent Ari Nathan, and she has a bigger problem on her hands, because tact and compromise are not Ari’s strong points. Their mission is to track down a serial killer obsessed with werewolves. He sees them everywhere and shoots whenever he thinks he has one in his sights. Ari assumes the man’s psychotic, but in truth he’s murdering actual werewolves. Nola should know. Her younger brother Pat, a lycanthrope, was the first victim. Can Nola’s psychic talents and Ari’s skill with guns keep them alive long enough to unravel the greater mystery behind the killings? Can they save the werewolves and the world while stopping Nola’s family from running headlong into danger?

Mary Robinette Kowal:

• Shades of Milk and Honey: Chapter One
• Shades of Milk and Honey: Chapter Two – Shades of Milk and Honey is exactly what we could expect from Jane Austen if she had been a fantasy writer: Pride and Prejudice meets Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It is an intimate portrait of a woman, Jane, and her quest for love in a world where the manipulation of glamour is considered an essential skill for a lady of quality. Jane and her sister Melody vie for the attentions of eligible men, and while Jane’s skill with glamour is remarkable, it is her sister who is fair of face. When Jane realizes that one of Melody’s suitors is set on taking advantage of her sister for the sake of her dowry, she pushes her skills to the limit of what her body can withstand in order to set things right—and, in the process, accidentally wanders into a love story of her own.

Ellen Kushner

• Swordspoint – On the treacherous streets of Riverside, a man lives and dies by the sword. Even the nobles on the Hill turn to duels to settle their disputes. Within this elite, dangerous world, Richard St. Vier is the undisputed master, as skilled as he is ruthless–until a death by the sword is met with outrage instead of awe, and the city discovers that the line between hero and villain can be altered in the blink of an eye. Read more about the world of Swordspoint.

Jay Lake

• Green, Chapter One – She was born in poverty, in a dusty village under the equatorial sun. She does not remember her mother, she does not remember her own name—her earliest clear memory is of the day her father sold her to the tall pale man. In the Court of the Pomegranate Tree, where she was taught the ways of a courtesan…and the skills of an assassin…she was named Emerald, the precious jewel of the Undying Duke’s collection of beauties. She calls herself Green. The world she inhabits is one of political power and magic, where Gods meddle in the affairs of mortals. At the center of it is the immortal Duke’s city of Copper Downs, which controls all the trade on the Storm Sea. Green has made many enemies, and some secret friends, and she has become a very dangerous woman indeed.

Jack McDevitt

• Time Travelers Never Die, Prologue – When physicist Michael Shelborne mysteriously vanishes, his son Shel discovers that he had constructed a time travel device. Following his father’s trail through history-from the enlightenment of Renaissance Italy through the American Wild West to the civil-right upheavals of the 20th century-Shel makes a devastating discovery that sends him feeling back through the ages, and changes his life forever.

Sandra McDonald

• Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories (Prologue) – A writer of whimsy and passion, Sandra McDonald has collected her most evocative short fiction to offer readers in Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories. A beautiful adventuress from the ancient city of New Dalli sets off to reclaim her missing lover. What secrets does she hide beneath her silk skirts? A gay cowboy flees the Great War in search of true love and the elusive undead poet Whit Waltman, but at what cost? A talking statue sends an abused boy spinning through a great metropolis, dodging pirates and search for a home. On these quests, you will meet macho firefighters, tiny fairies, collapsible musicians, lady devils and vengeful sea witches. These are stories to stir the heart and imagination.

Carlos Meza

• Silicon – Jordan Hamilton, a brilliant immunologist, works at a major teaching hospital in Sacramento, California. When a young woman dies during a routine operation to remove her ruptured breast implants, Jordan realizes the victim reacted to a deadly element in silicone. When more women die, Jordan is determined to find the explanation. What follows is a whirlwind tale of power, medicine, politics, and greed that takes readers from a prestigious hospital to the sordid world of drug distribution.

Vera Nazarian and Jane Austen

• Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons – Dragons in the skies of Regency England! Gothic horrors collide with high satire in this elegant, hilarious, witty, insane, and unexpectedly romantic supernatural parody of Jane Austen’s classic novel. Young and naive Catherine Morland is constantly surrounded by angels only she alone can see. Leaving her country home for the first time, to embark on a grand adventure that begins in fashionable Bath, our romantic heroine must not only decrypt the mystery of the Udolpho Code but win her true love Henry Tilney. Meanwhile she is beset by all the Gothic horrors known to Impressionable Young Ladies — odious demons, Regency balls, elusive ghosts, pleasure excursions, temperature-changing nephilim, secret clues, ogre suitors, and a terrifying ancient Dragon who has very likely hidden a secret treasure hoard somewhere in the depths of Northanger Abbey. Gentle Reader — this Delightful Illustrated Edition includes Scholarly Footnotes and Appendices.

• Mansfield Park and Mummies – Ancient Egypt infiltrates Regency England in this elegant, hilarious, witty, insane, and unexpectedly romantic monster parody of Jane Austen’s classic novel. Our gentle yet indomitable heroine Fanny Price must hold steadfast not only against the seductive charms of Henry Crawford but also an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh! Meanwhile, the indubitably handsome and kind hero Edmund attempts Exorcisms… Miss Crawford vamps out… Aunt Norris channels her inner werewolf… The Mummy-mesmerized Lady Bertram collects Egyptian artifacts… There can be no doubt that Mansfield Park has become a battleground for the forces of Ancient Evil and Regency True Love! Gentle Reader—this Delightful Edition includes Scholarly Footnotes and Appendices.

Vera Nazarian

• Dreams of the Compass Rose (Dream Two: “The Miracles of Ris”) – What is the nature of evil? When a young warrior of a dark race finds himself bound in servitude to a beautiful cruel princess, his loyalty becomes entwined with something more horrifying and mysterious than endless night falling over the ancient desert. When a courageous young servant reveals her hidden wisdom to the madman conqueror of the world, her fate is joined to a nightmare suspended beyond death and outside the universe. Two souls from different times–their destinies connected through hundreds of other lives and generations, through soft whispers of the wind, through ancient truths that lie buried in an island between worlds. Both souls enslaved through dream and desire in an endless conflict between truth and illusion. They can only be set free by the wonder of the Compass Rose.

Larissa Niec

• Shorn – The land of Avelos is beset by enemies conspiring to destroy her–and killing winds that confound her wisest seers. But the greatest danger may lie with the Avelune, once the rulers of Avelos and now an abused minority. Their oppression, and the truth suppressed by those who fear them, may prove the country’s undoing.

Naomi Novik

• His Magesty’s Dragon: Temeraire, Book 1 – Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain’s defense by taking to the skies . . . not aboard aircraft but atop the mighty backs of fighting dragons. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future–and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

Thomas Randall

• The Waking: Dreams of the Dead (YA) – Kara Foster thinks the hardest thing about moving to Japan will be fitting in as an outsider. But dark secrets are stirring at her new school. When Kara befriends Sakura, a fellow outsider whose rebellious nature sets her apart from the crowd, she learns that Sakura’s sister was the victim of an unsolved murder on school grounds. And before long, terrible things begin to happen.

Joe Schreiber

• Chasing the Dead – “You have a very lovely little girl,” breathed the voice on the phone. And just like that, Susan Young is drawn into a living nightmare. A stranger has kidnapped Sue’s daughter, Veda. But he doesn’t want her money, only her suffering–and he will kill Veda if Sue doesn’t follow his every command. With detailed instructions, the faceless abductor leads Sue into a blinding snowstorm on the longest night of the year, to a place she has not traveled to since childhood. The voice on the other end of the line somehow knows Sue’s deepest, most chilling secret–an ominous incident from her past, buried long ago… Across the loneliest back roads of Massachusetts, in the black expanse of a New England winter, Sue is forced to confront her most awful fears as she is met at each step by ever increasing horrors created by a monster who is surely something less than human. In the hope of saving her daughter from a kidnapper whose origin seems darker than anything she could ever have imagined, Sue will discover just how much trauma and fright the human body is capable of absorbing. Set over the course of a single night, Chasing the Dead is a fast-paced, ferociously tense supernatural thriller. With the skill of masters like Dean Koontz and David Morrell, Joe Schreiber has created a tableau of shock and horror, death and destruction, that will draw you in and never let you go.

Sherwood Smith

• Crown Duel (on right hand side of screen, click on “Read First Chapter Free” button) (YA) -Young Countess Meliara swears to her dying father that she and her brother will defend their people from the growing greed of the king. That promise leads them into a war for which they are ill-prepared, which threatens the very people they are trying to protect. But war is simple compared to what follows, in peacetime. Meliara is summoned to live at the royal palace, where friends and enemies look alike, and intrigue fills the dance halls and the drawing rooms. If she is to survive, Meliara must learn a whole new way of fighting-with wits and words and secret alliances. In war, at least, she knew in whom she could trust. Now she can trust no one.

• A Stranger to Command (YA) – In this much-anticipated prequel to CROWN DUEL, Vidanric Renselaeus, fifteen-year-old Marquis of Shevraeth, finds himself sent across the continent to a military academy in Marloven Hess, a kingdom known for its violent history. Vidanric is used to civilized life in pleasant Remalna–except that the evidence is increasingly clear that the civilization is only on the surface. Too many young, smart heirs have suffered accidents of late, and the evidence is beginning to point to the king, Galdran, who has grandiose plans for expansion. In Marloven Hess, no one can pronounce his real names, and they assume his title is his name. He becomes Shevraeth–discovering that there are no marquises or dukes or barons in this kingdom, and no one has the slightest interest in Remalna. Or in foreigners. Until very recently, the academy was closed to outsiders. But the king–also fifteen, and recently come to his throne after a nasty civil war–wants him there. Learning about command turns out to be very different than Shevraeth had assumed, and the Marlovens, who are going through political and social change at all levels, are not at all what he expected. He makes friends as well as enemies; experiences terror and laughter as well as challenges on the field and off. He discovers friendship, loyalty–and love. All the while greater events in the world are moving inexorably toward conflagration, drawing the smartest of the young people into key positions–whether they want it or not. They’re going to have to be ready.

• A Posse of Princesses (on right hand side of screen, click on “Read First Chapter Free” button) (YA) – Rhis, princess of a small kingdom, is invited along with all the other princesses in her part of the world to the coming of age party of the Crown Prince of Vesarja, which is the central and most important kingdom. When Iardith, the prettiest and most perfect of all the princesses, is abducted, Rhis and her friends go to the rescue. What happens to Rhis and her posse has unexpected results not only for the princesses, but for the princes who chase after them. Everyone learns a lot about friendship and hate, politics and laughter, romantic ballads and sleeping in the dirt with nothing but a sword for company. But most of all they learn about the many meanings of love.

Ray Vukcevich

• Boarding Instructions – Ray Vukcevich’s new collection includes 33 previously uncollected stories, all with his trademark whimsical skewed look at the world around us. It’s a world seemingly not our own, and yet if we look hard enough we’ll find that world just out of sight around the corner. A world of hidden stairs, funny smells, vampire girlfriends, fire women, missle boys, secret libraries, and impractical (and yet frighteningly real) airline procedures. Wonderfully inventive and wildly unpredictable, these stories are sure to entertain you and keep you wondering: “Are we there yet?”
  • A Funny Smell, short story

Matthew Warner

• Blood Born – Sneak Peak! Available spring 2011. When a rapist stalks the nation’s capital, Detective Christina Randall tries to keep an astounding clue from going public: all the victims become pregnant. The latest victim is teenager Daniella Connolly. Her mother, Margaret, is a doctor at CalPark Fertility Clinic. But Margaret can’t fathom the bizarre conceptions, either. Isolated in a special hospital ward, they all come to term in just one week. Multiply on the earth and increase upon it. Randall learns the rapes are connected to a series of missing-person cases. When a young woman disappears near CalPark — also home to a secretive research lab — suspicion falls on Margaret. But soon, the rapist returns to claim his progeny. He is not really a he — but an “it.” Worse, the children have appetites just like papa’s. …

Kiersten White

• Paranormalcy: Paranormalcy Trillogy, Book 1 (on right hand side of screen, click on “Read First Chapter Free” button) (YA) – Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through paranormals’ glamours. But Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures. So much for normal.

Ann Wilkes:

• Awesome Lavratt – Beautiful Aranna Navna plans to conquer the galaxy one planet at a time. She steals the Awesome Lavratt, a mind control device, from a freighter in Horace Whistlestop’s junkyard. She takes Horace, too. With the Lavratt, Aranna manipulates the thoughts and desires of everyone around her—until she gets to the Emperor of Calistania. Then things go from bad to worse for Aranna.

Tad Williams:

• Shadowheart: Volume Four of the Shadowmarch Series – Southmarch Castle is about to be caught between two implacable enemies, the ancient, immortal Qar and the insane god-king, the Autarch of Xis. Meanwhile, its two young defenders, Princess Briony and Prince Barrick, are both trapped far away from home and fighting for their lives. And now, something is awakening underneath Southmarch Castle, something powerful and terrible that the world has not seen for thousands of years. Can Barrick and Briony, along with a tiny handful of allies, ordinary and extraordinary, find a way to save their world and prevent the rise of a terrible new age—an age of unending darkness?

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Neither UNDERWORDS or Erin Underwood are being compensated in any way for listing books in the Free Fiction Sampler or for any sales it may generate.