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A Feast of Sorrows--Angela Slatter's first U.S. collection--features twelve of the World Fantasy and British Fantasy Award-winning Australian author's finest, darkest fairy tales, and adds two new novellas to her marvelous cauldron of fiction. Stories peopled by women and girls--fearless, frightened, brave, bold, frail, and fantastical--who take the paths less traveled by, accept (and offer) poisoned apples, and embrace transformation in all its forms. Reminiscent of Angela Carter at her best, Slatter's work is both timeless and fresh: fascinating new reflections from the enchanted mirrors of fairy tales and folklore.

Long ago Miren O'Malley's family prospered due to a deal struck with the mer: safety for their ships in return for a child of each generation. But for many years the family have been unable to keep their side of the bargain and have fallen into decline. Miren's grandmother is determined to restore their glory, even at the price of Miren's freedom.

A spellbinding tale of dark family secrets, magic and witches, and creatures of myth and the sea; of strong women and the men who seek to control them.

Finnegan's Field by Angela Slatter is a dark fantasy novelette about a six year old child who mysteriously disappears for three years, only to return home just as mysteriously--but not quite the same. At least, not to her mother.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Mistress Gideon is a witch. The locals of Edda's Meadow, if they suspect it of her, say nary a word-Gideon has been good to them, and it's always better to keep on her good side. Just in case.

When a foolish young shapeshifter goes against the wishes of her pack, and gets herself very publicly caught, the authorities find it impossible to deny the existence of the supernatural in their midst any longer; Gideon and her like are captured, bound for torture and a fiery end.

Should Gideon give up her sisters in return for a quick death? Or can she turn the situation to her advantage?

Welcome to the beautiful magic, restless passion and exquisite horror of Angela Slatter's impeccably imagined tales.

In the cathedral-city of Lodellan and its uneasy hinterland, babies are fashioned from bread, dolls are given souls and wishes granted may be soon regretted. There are ghosts who dream, men whose wings have been clipped and trolls who long for something other. Love, loss and life are elegantly dissected in Slatter's earthy yet poetic prose.

As Rob Shearman says in his Introduction: 'Sourdough and Other Stories manages to be grand and ambitious and worldbuilding-but also as intimate and focused as all good short fiction should be... The joy of Angela Slatter's book is that she's given us a set of fairy tales that are at once both new and fresh, and yet feel as old as storytelling itself.'

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Robert Shearman
• The Shadow Tree - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• Gallowberries - novelette by Angela Slatter
• Little Radish - (2008) - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• Dibblespin - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• The Navigator - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• The Angel Wood - (2006) - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• Ash - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• The Story of Ink - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• Lost Things - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• A Good Husband - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• A Porcelain Soul - novelette by Angela Slatter
• The Bones Remember Everything - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• Sourdough - (2007) - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• Sister, Sister - (2009) - novelette by Angela Slatter
• Lavender and Lychgates - novelette by Angela Slatter
• Under the Mountain - shortstory by Angela Slatter
• Afterword : Sourdough and Gallowberries for Us All - essay by Jeff VanderMeer

This short story is the winner of the 2014 Aurealis Award for short fantasy fiction. It is included in the collection The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings (2014).

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings returns to the world of Sourdough and Other Stories (Tartarus, 2010), introducing readers to the tales that came before. Stories where coffin-makers work hard to keep the dead beneath; where a plague maiden steals away the children of an ungrateful village; where poison girls are schooled in the art of assassination; where pirates disappear from the seas; where families and the ties that bind them can both ruin and resurrect and where books carry forth fairy tales, forbidden knowledge and dangerous secrets.

Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations. The Briar family of witches run the town of Silverton, caring for its inhabitants with their skills and magic. In the usual scheme of things, they would be burnt for their sorcery, but the church has given them dispensation in return for their protection of the borders of the Darklands, where the much-feared Leech Lords hold sway.

Ellie is being trained as a steward, administering for the town, and warding off the insistent interest of the church. When her grandmother dies suddenly, Ellie's cousin Audra rises to the position of Briar Witch, propelling Ellie into her new role. As she navigates fresh challenges, an unexpected new ability to see and speak to the dead leads her to uncover sinister family secrets, stories of burnings, lost grimoires and evil spells. Reeling from one revelation to the next, she seeks answers from the long dead and is forced to decide who to trust, as a devastating plot threatens to destroy everything the Briar witches have sacrificed so much to build.

Asher Todd comes to live with the mysterious Morwood family as a governess to their children. Asher knows little about being a governess but she is skilled in botany and herbcraft, and perhaps more than that. And she has secrets of her own, dark and terrible -- and Morwood is a house that eats secrets.

With a monstrous revenge in mind, Asher plans to make it choke. However, she becomes fond of her charges, of the people of the Tarn, and she begins to wonder if she will be able to execute her plan -- and who will suffer most if she does. But as the ghosts of her past become harder to control, Asher realises she has no choice.

Winter Children and Other Chilling Tales collects some of Angela Slatter's finest horror stories to date. From the Lovecraftian laments of "The Song of Sighs" and "Only the Dead and the Moonstruck" to the uncanny notes of "The October Widow" and the stunning new "The Red Forest", it's clear that Slatter is, in the words of Stephen Jones, 'a powerful and eloquent voice in horror fiction.' Each tale is a darkly crafted gem.

Table of Contents:

• Only the Dead and the Moonstruck - (2014) - short fiction
• Cuckoo - (2013) - short story
• The Burning Circus - (2013) - short story
• Home and Hearth - (2014) - novelette
• Winter Children - (2014) - short story
• Pale Tree House - short story
• The Red Forest - short story
• The Song of Sighs - (2013) - short story
• The Dead Ones Don't Hurt You - (2010) - short story
• Sun Falls - (2011) - short story
• The Way of All Flesh - (2014) - short story
• The October Widow - (2014) - short story

In The Female Factory, procreation is big business. Children are a commodity few women can afford.

Hopeful mothers-to-be try everything. Fertility clinics. Pills. Wombs for hire. Babies are no longer made in bedrooms, but engineered in boardrooms. A quirk of genetics allows lucky surrogates to carry multiple eggs, to control when they are fertilised, and by whom--but corporations market and sell the offspring. The souls of lost embryos are never wasted; captured in software, they give electronics their voice. Spirits born into the wrong bodies can brave the charged waters of a hidden billabong, and change their fate. Industrious orphans learn to manipulate scientific advances, creating mothers of their own choosing.

From Australia's near-future all the way back in time to its convict past, these stories spin and sever the ties between parents and children.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Amal El-Mohtar
• Vox
• Baggage
• All the Other Revivals
• The Female Factory

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Sprawl (2010), edited by Alisa Krasnostein and was reprinted in Lightspeed, August 2013. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2011, edited by Paula Guran.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Verity Fassbinder has her feet in two worlds.

The daughter of one human and one Weyrd parent, she has very little power herself, but does claim unusual strength - and the ability to walk between us and the other - as a couple of her talents. As such a rarity, she is charged with keeping the peace between both races, and ensuring the Weyrd remain hidden from us.

But now Sirens are dying, illegal wine made from the tears of human children is for sale - and in the hands of those Weyrd who hold with the old ways - and someone has released an unknown and terrifyingly destructive force on the streets of Brisbane.

And Verity must investigate - or risk ancient forces carving our world apart.

Life in Brisbane is never simple for those who walk between the worlds.

Verity's all about protecting her city, but right now that's mostly running surveillance and handling the less exciting cases for the Weyrd Council - after all, it's hard to chase the bad guys through the streets of Brisbane when you're really, really pregnant.

An insurance investigation sounds pretty harmless, even if it is for 'Unusual Happenstance'. That's not usually a clause Normals use - it covers all-purpose hauntings, angry genii loci, ectoplasmic home invasion, demonic possession, that sort of thing - but Susan Beckett's claimed three times in three months. Her house keeps getting inundated with mud, but she's still insisting she doesn't need or want help... until the dry-land drownings begin.

V's first lead in takes her to Chinatown, where she is confronted by kitsune assassins. But when she suddenly goes into labour, it's clear the fox spirits are not going to be helpful.

Walking between the worlds has always been dangerous - but this time V's facing the loss of all she holds dear.

Verity Fassbinder thought no boss could be worse than her perfectionist ex-boyfriend - until she grudgingly agreed to work for a psychotic fallen angel. And dealing with a career change not entirely of her own choosing is doing nothing to improve V's already fractious temper. The angel is a jealous - and violent - employer, so she's quit working for the Weyrd Council and sent her family away, for their own safety. Instead of indulging in domestic bliss, she's got to play BFFs with the angel's little spy, Joyce the kitsune assassin... and Joyce comes with her own murderous problems.

The angel has tasked V with finding two lost treasures, which would be hard enough even without a vengeful Dusana Nadasy on her heels. And Inspector McIntyre won't stop calling: the bodies of Normal women who disappeared decades before are turning up, apparently subjected to Weyrd magics. Angelic demands or not, this isn't something she can walk away from.

And the angel is getting impatient for results...