Thirteen Tales of Forbidden Wishes and Dangerous Desires
by
Welcome, Gentle Stranger. The Night Bazaar is open to you, once more. But this mysterious midnight gathering isn’t the usual marketplace. It’s a vendor's faire not constrained by geography or time. One week it appears in present-day New York, the next in . . . well, let’s say 14th century Venice, shall we?
For this time, Madame Vera and the other peripatetic denizens of The Night Bazaar return to the Bazaar’s roots. Its origin story and inaugural appearance, as the exotic marketplace pitches its colorful tents in La Serenissima, the city of a hundred canals, host to fancy glassworks, masked revelries, and singing gondoliers. And – you guessed it. Unfortunately, in 1348, to the Black Death.
The market's aisles are still crowded with vendors of the rare and unusual, exotic dancers, assorted faeries, jongleurs, acrobats, mountebanks, courtesans, and purveyors of curious objets d’art. Booths feature medical oddities and strange instruments of all sorts. Tents offer passersby unusual, uncanny services. But this time, the Plague threatens the complacent citizens of Venice. Who will survive, and at what cost?
The Bazaar always sells that which cannot be had elsewhere, at any price. Everything you’ve read about, but thought had passed away, or perhaps never existed. How wrong you were! For Madame Vera and her staff can take you anywhere, and anytime. You need only be Invited . . . and now you have been.
(Volumes of The Night Bazaar can be read in any order; each anthology is designed to stand alone as well. Time is relative, after all!)
In "Plenty of Fish in the Sea," a Nixie has left her stern, abusive father and traditional home in the mountain lakes of Germany, to cast a net out in the wider world -- as a vigilante of very bad boyfriends. She patrols bars, cafes, and other establishment, and if her prey ignores their one chance to repent and reform, the Nixie applies an unexpected yet deeply fitting form of punishment.
Publisher: Northampton House Press
Editors:
Illustrators:
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Tropes: Band of Misfits, Becoming a Monster, Beyond the Grave Communication, Body Modifications, Book of Spells, Cryosleep, Demonic Possession, Immortality, Magic Talisman, Museum/Store of the Unusual, Possession, Powerful Artifact, Pseudo European Society, Redemption Arc, Reluctant Hero, Time Travel
Setting: Venice, Italy and elsewhere
Languages Available: English
Tropes: Band of Misfits, Becoming a Monster, Beyond the Grave Communication, Body Modifications, Book of Spells, Cryosleep, Demonic Possession, Immortality, Magic Talisman, Museum/Store of the Unusual, Possession, Powerful Artifact, Pseudo European Society, Redemption Arc, Reluctant Hero, Time Travel
Setting: Venice, Italy and elsewhere
Languages Available: English
Hart invites readers to return to the delightfully inventive setting of the Night Bizarre with this second anthology of fantastical short stories featuring a magical traveling market that visits any given city only once. These 14 linked stories chronicle the Night Bazaar’s appearance in Venice during the plague year of 1348. A pious monk’s foray into the market leads him to encounter an artist who uses the human body as a canvas in “The Exquisite Hide of Brother Eduard” by Edison McDaniels. “Posione D’Amore” by Dana Miller sees a witch-hunter turn against his calling after a witch offers him a chance at finding true love. David Poyer’s “The Thousand Injuries of Fortunato” sets a prequel to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” in the bazaar, revealing the monstrous betrayal that sparks the revenge plot of the original, and Naia Poyer’s “Cinnabar and Stone” is a lively story of a modern day PhD student reckoning with the ghosts of the past. Together the tales form a sumptuous carnival, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the mystical underworld of plague-ridden Europe. These dark flights of fancy delight. (Aug.) -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
