The Fires in my Soul: 100 Magical Short Stories (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9783956812385)

Short stories give you a glimpse of fantastical worlds, hint at a future to come, or reminiscent times gone by. They force the author to create fascinating characters, real worlds, and deep emotions in the shortest room possible. This book will provide as much reading pleasure as an epic novel, but comes with a far greater variety. If you love short and to the point stories, get your collection of 100 short stories now.

Most stories are straight up fantasy like "A Twist in Katlani's Plan" where a young woman plans to kill the king but finds a task far more worthy of her attention. Others are fairy tale retellings like "Ivan's Horses" which is based on the Russian tale of the humpbacked horse. In this retelling, Ivan must defeat an evil tsar and befriend the Baba Yaga, possibly the grumpiest witch in all of Russia.

Of course there are also dark stories like "Witch Mountain at Full Moon" where a confused young woman must unravel the secrets of her past to right a wrong and stop a murder. And in the steampunk tale of "Tarek Ibn Imran and the Case of the Glowing Children", a foreigner must get the German "Amt f? Aetherangelegenheiten", a bureau for helping people changed by a magical substance, to support him in his fight against human trafficking.

There are also some soft SciFi stories set in a world where Earth is so overpopulated that people die from the stress alone. Naturally many try to leave for other planets. Some, like the girl in "The Cat's Way to Paradise", find their own way to cope with life on Earth.

Other stories are historical or historical fantasy, crime stories with a dash of fantasy, or romantasy (fantasy & romance). A tiny number are set in the real world and tell about what it was like for a child to visit the GDR or how my grandma felt when a thunderstorm hit.

If you burn for short stories, get a copy of this book now.

Around 60% of the stories have never been published before (the rest can be found in magazines like Pulphouse Magazine, in anthologies like "Whimsical Winter Wonderland: a Holiday Hijinks anthology", or in collections of my own). This will be the first time everything will be gathered in one place.