atmospheric - Stories

February 2011. Tripoli is burning.

Special Envoy Will Carter is trapped in a collapsing palace, hunted by militias and running out of time. His husband Andrew is the only thing standing between him and execution—but the city is a warzone, and the hunters are closing in.

From the corridors of power in Ottawa to the burning streets of the Libyan capital, the Carters are about to discover that some wars are fought with bullets, and some are fought with everything you have.

A note on this story: it is written in the dense, melancholy register of 19th-century Gothic fiction, and does not shy from grief, loneliness, or loss along its way to its ending.

For a hundred and fifty years, Jack has walked a county that has forgotten him, a farm boy who bartered his soul at a crossroads and paid twice over for it. Refused by Heaven, unclaimed by Hell, he has only a stolen coal to light his way, and windows he can watch but never touch.

Then he finds Julian's: nineteen, ill, certain no one would notice if he stopped waking. As October nears Halloween, the veil thins, and an old bargain comes due.

Meet the Harding boys: Matt and his big brother Justin, their hunky dad Richard, and their fun-loving uncle Patrick.

When Matt gives his father a lavish vacation, it's meant to bring them closer -- but a secret plan to indulge a forbidden curiosity unsettles everything. An old passion reawakens in Richard, soon ensnaring Justin and Patrick too.

Sons collide with fathers, uncles with nephews, and brothers with each other. As the Harding men circle the same questions, the past simmers beneath the surface, threatening to redraw the boundaries of family, loyalty, and lust.

The election is a massacre. The Liberal Party is in ruins. And Julian Dufresne—a sociopathic academic backed by dark money—is poised to seize the ashes.

Shadow Minister Will Carter survived the bloodbath, but surviving isn't enough. As his husband Andrew races to disarm a Russian cyber-weapon in the shadows of Hong Kong, Will must play the longest game of his career—surviving Dufresne's rise, holding his party together, and protecting the family he's built.

From the campaign trail to the backrooms of Hong Kong, the Carters are about to discover that the real war is only beginning.

Nate may have found the one. Cal is built like a farmboy, has the wholesome looks of a vintage baseball card, is amazing in bed, and actually texts back. Nate keeps waiting for the catch and not finding one.

Cal even invites Nate out to his family's timeshare at the coast to meet his mother. Diane is progressive, supportive, and fiercely, fiercely devoted. And that's the catch.

In a world where "magic" is just fear and misunderstanding, Shem is the worst swordsman in the valley. When goblins raid a nearby farm, he rides out with a bar mace he doesn't know how to use, a feral child who bites first and speaks second, and a crush who keeps stealing his left glove. The monsters aren't what they seem. Neither is he.

An elderly man hires Hollis to drive him across England to a retirement home. But the journey becomes a pilgrimage through a hidden life—a lost lover, a family's betrayal, and a final, defiant act. As Arthur's story unfolds, Hollis sees his own fears reflected back. A quiet, devastating story about the cost of waiting too long to be brave.