Nobody delights—or devastates—readers quite like DeAnna Knippling, veteran author of 80+ strange stories for interesting people.

DeAnna collects new systems the way crows collect shiny things. She makes cocktails to understand flavor logic, reads tarot cards to study psychology, plays a number of musical instruments badly, loves museums, explores via kayak whenever possible, and picks up a new hobby four times a year...because that's just how her brain (over) works.

She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. Find her at WonderlandPress.com.

The Fold Magic Stories: Vol. 1-3 by DeAnna Knippling

Nobody folds—or unfolds—tales quite like DeAnna Knippling, veteran author of over 80 books.

Along Colorado's Front Range, reality creases. Red sandstone rears out of the earth like something badly buried. Suburbs thin into open space with no fence to mark where civilization ends. In the folds between the, magic waits for anyone who hesitates too long.

Three volumes. Three doors.

In Doctor Rudolfo Knows All, high-school student Connor pulls on a purple robe in a toy store, picks up a tarot deck he cannot read, and tells fortunes sixty seconds at a time—while his little brother vibrates with restless energy and his father waits in the living-room chair for a fist-bump, patient in the particular way only ghosts can manage.

At Lavinia's Tragic and Magic Brewpub, the foodies clear out at ten and Denver's night folk take their seats: a revenant fry cook, a vampire sire with a heavy foot, a hipster werewolf in plaid. House rules apply. Break them at your peril.

And in Missed Connections, the in-between spaces themselves come calling: prehistoric bears in a snowstorm, a hotel room with two of everything, sidewalk trails that go nowhere in particular until, one day, they go somewhere.

Every fold holds two points that should never touch. And of course these stories document where those two points meet.

Contemporary fantasy set in the Colorado Front Range: ghost-touched, wicked, and spellbinding, for readers who like their maps folded until the far edges touch.

CURATOR'S NOTE

DeAnna Knippling often writes about edges and in doing so, produces edgy fiction. Her work is often dark, and always interesting. Here she picks the edges of magic—that fold between reality and the magical world. Only her magical world has one foot in a real setting— Colorado's Front Range. Somehow, though, she adds toys and ghosts and brewpubs and prehistoric bears. Yes, prehistoric bears. You'll have to read everything to find out why. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

REVIEWS

  • "...like a hit of the good drugs."

    – Michael W. Lucas

  • "One suspects the author was possessed by the spirit of Lewis Carroll while penning this delightful and thoroughly entertaining novel."

    – James Aquilone

  • "I've always been partial to horror that goes beyond trap doors and bloody knives; the kind that sticks with you and returns to your thoughts on random Tuesdays. This is that type of story, in that all of its secrets aren't apparent on the first read."

    – Goodreads Reviewer
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

1. Epic Toys & Games

It was one of those mornings where I poured myself an insulated car-mug full of coffee and could still taste the plastic of the mug even after I added some sugary creamer. Mom had come back from work on the night shift and crashed, dead asleep, in her bed. She doesn't snore all the time but I could hear her even with the bedroom door closed.

I crossed my fingers that it didn't mean she'd lost a patient. She's a nurse at the Memorial Hospital in Englewood, not emergency room or pediatrics or anything, but regular patient rooms. Mostly nobody dies where she works, but sometimes it happens. She always snores when it does.

My little brother Aiden was awake in his room. I could tell because that kid can't spend five minutes without hitting the wall. It's like he's a human ping-pong ball or something. He's seven, though, and Mom says he has to burn off all that energy somewhere and I was just as bad when I was that age.

She's lying, though. I can tell by the way she rolls her eyes at him when he's all spun up.

I scratched on his door and the noise stopped.

"Aiden," I whispered. "Time to get up, bud."

He didn't answer me, and I opened the door slowly, pushing something heavy out of the way.

No sign of Aiden—or, should I say, there were about ten thousand too many signs of Aiden. The kid had trashed his room again, and trying to find him in the mess was gonna be an effort.

"Mom's snoring," I said, "so we're going out today."

He didn't answer again, but it was a different kind of non-answer. He was considering.

"Where?" came his voice from somewhere under the mess. It could have been from under his bed or above the ceiling. He had this trick of throwing his voice. I'd taught it to him, more fool me.

"Let's go to Epic."

To Epic Toys & Games, that was. Which was only two steps down from Willy Wonka's candy factory in terms of cool places to take a kid on the day after Thanksgiving. They were open early and were doing giveaways and stuff. We'd already missed out on the 6 a.m. doorbusters.

Aiden stepped out from behind the door. For a freakin' miracle, he was already dressed and ready to go, as long as you didn't count matching socks or a right-side-out shirt as requirements for leaving the apartment. I made him brush his hair and brush his teeth and eat his cereal while I drank the coffee from the travel mug. I barely had time to finish a third of it before he was seriously ready to go. He did not screw around when the word Epic was being thrown around. He loved that place.

Meanwhile I had found the note Mom had left on my computer desk. Connor, please take Aiden with you today if you go out. He has to blow that energy off somewhere. It was a bad night and I need sleep. I know you planned to spend time with friends, and I'm sorry. Just tell everyone he's a little alien who has never experienced sugar before in his life. It won't be too much of a lie. Good luck, God speed, etc. etc. $20 for lunch. Love you, Mom.

I topped off my mug as I waited for Aiden to put his shoes on, then shrugged into my hoodie and backpack. As we left the apartment, we both held out a fist toward where Dad's ghost leaned against the kitchen table. One fist-bump each and out the door.

Mom didn't like to see us doing it. It made her upset. But then...she was asleep.

What she didn't know couldn't hurt her. And it always made Dad's ghost smile.