Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century

Twelve impossibly unique tales make up Fu’s (The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore) story collection about things that go bump in the night, lurk in the shadows, and cavort in the daylight. Each of the unlinked stories introduces a different “monster” and takes place in the modern world—at a vendor show, in a suburb, at a dinner show, in an old house. Fu delights in giving us wholly new and imaginative monsters that defy expectations. There’s a career woman who can fall asleep at night only if she is visited by the sandman; a haunted doll that gives nightmares to neighborhood children; a preteen who sprouts wings on her ankles to the delight of her friends; and a bug-infested house that steadily grows more unstable. Piper Goodeve and Sean Patrick Hopkins narrate with calm, earnest deliveries that make the stories even more intense.