In Butcher's Little Things, the pixie Toot-Toot, leader of Harry Dresden's Za-Lord's Guard, finds that he has to help keep his lord's new home safe from an invading army of gremlins. While Toot isn't exactly clear what their plans are, he recognizes that the strange devices going tick tick tick don't belong and he will work with anyone, even the cat Mister, in order to stop the invading force from reaching its goals. After all, the pizza that Harry just put in the oven might be at risk.
The Dark Ship by Anne Bishop is part of her The Others world. The story follows a young woman in a small fishing village. Unlike her neighbors, Dett seems to have some ability to sense the future. Nothing too strong as far as she can tell. She knows when a ship will have a good haul or when the ocean will be more unforgiving than normal, but given stories she's heard about others with her ability, she keeps her knowledge a secret. Dett's little island is "protected" by Captain Starr. Starr and his men take what they want and do what they want while they are on Pyetra, claiming that it is their right because they are keeping outsiders from doing even more damage to the population.
One day, a strange ship docks, and it's clear that this ship's even stranger captain, Captain Crow, isn't normal. Dett soon realizes that Crow and his crew are terra indigene, and it seems they don't like what Captain Starr does while he is at sea. It looks like, regardless of what happens between Crow and Starr, the events surrounding the dark ship's arrival on Pyetra will change Dett's life forever.
Comfort Zone by Kelley Armstrong appears to be a part of Armstrong's Otherworld universe. In this story, Chloe, a necromancer, and her boyfriend Derek, a werewolf, are confronted by a ghost begging Chloe to help find the recently deceased's sister. It seems the ghost was involved in a drug deal gone wrong and the people he was dealing drugs for think that the young lady knows the location of the missing drugs. Despite Chloe's attempts to shut out the requests of every random ghost, this one gets through to her and she has to find a way to help, even if it puts her in grave danger.
In Annie Bellet's Train To Last Hope, Cassidy has moved to a town on the brink of two worlds where a train bringing souls to the afterlife has one last stop before leaving the living behind forever. In the time since her daughter's disappearance, she has come to believe that the only way she is going to see Mairi again is to catch sight of her while on the train. One day, Cassidy's ex-wife, now Reaper, Raina shows up at Cassidy's place claiming to have found the trail of their long lost daughter, but she needs help if she is going to get anything more out of the clues she's picked up over the years. While Cassidy has resigned herself to their daughter's death, she decides to help Raina one last time. Who knows, maybe they can finally get closure on the loss that drove the couple apart all those years ago.
Fire Hazard takes place in Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles and is from the perspective of Atticus O'Sullivan's trusted familiar, Oberon the wolfhound. In this story, Atticus takes a short break from his work in Tasmania to investigate some wildfires happening in Australia. Believing he can help appease some enraged elemental in the area, Atticus, Oberon, and Starbuck, a Boston terrier, will brave the harsh environment and, hopefully, make it back out, not only alive, but with a better idea of what exactly is going on in the outback. While I haven't read The Iron Druid Chronicles before, the tone and wit I found in this story seems right up my alley. I will be sure to check out the rest of this series soon. Given the tonal similarity between this story and The Dresden Files, I don't think I will be the last person to check out Hearne's other works because of this snippet.
R.R. Virdi's Grave Gambles is another entry in the author's Grave Report series following a paranormal investigator who just happens to be a free-floating spirit that gets put into bodies to help solve murders. In the case of this story, Vincent Graves wakes up in the body of an HVAC technician that helps out at a local daycare center. As Graves investigates the local area, he learns that there are children going missing, and given that he has only one hour to figure out what is going on around here and put an end to it, he works as fast, hard, and smart as possible to get to the bottom of the local troubles.
Chloe Neill's Heirs of Chicagoland series gets a new story with Silverspell. Taking place after Shadowed Steel and before the upcoming Devouring Darkness novels, this story follows Elisa Sullivan and Theo Martin, two Ombuds who work with the human and supernatural worlds to help mediate problems that brew between them. When a shifter death in the wrong territory calls the pair into duty, they start to draw connections between this murder and that of some normal humans that happened recently. Unfortunately for those previous victims, the Ombuds weren't called in because there was no apparent supernatural connection to the crimes. Now, it's all too obvious that something foul is afoot.
Troll Life By Kerrie L. Hughes takes place in an interesting location, a train station that is on the border between the mortal and supernatural worlds. Harzl is working hard to keep his station tidy and stocked because of an upcoming inspection that could help him reach his goal of becoming a Station Manager one day. Unfortunately, while preparing for the visit, Harzl becomes aware of a woman and child, both whom appear to be bruised and cut and both very nervous. When a trio of supernaturals come into the station looking for the pair, Harzl decides he has only one choice; he must protect the pair, because it's clear that the woman and child are in danger.
Charlaine Harris's entry into Heroic Hearts, The Return Of The Mage follows Batanya and Clovache, minor characters introduced late in The Southern Vampire Mysteries. In this story, the pair of interdimensional, interplanetary bodyguard-mercenaries are being called to help track down a distress beacon on a primitive planet. Oddly enough, the mages that the beacon belongs to seem to have all died off years ago, so what has suddenly triggered the beacon? Suffice it to say, the people they find aren't exactly what is expected and the duo might find more than a little trouble ahead of them. Between this and another recent short story featuring Batanya and Clovache, it's clear that Harris is planning to make them more front-and-center characters in her future works.
In The Vampires Karamazov, Nancy Holder follows a family of vampires who've lived in New York City for over 100 years. While each member of the Karamazov family has their own little quirks, they all obey rules to keep their presence a secret to the normal people that live around them. Alexei is peculiar, even for a vampire, as he has turned to the cloth and is striving to find redemption, even though he knows that his very nature means he could never meet that goal. When Alexei's brothers decide that their father, the overbearing patriarch of the group, is not respecting the rules that keep them hidden, Alexei is forced to make some tough decisions.
The Necessity Of Pragmatic Magic is a short story in Jennifer Brozek's Karen Wilson Chronicles series, though, besides a brief mention of the main character, Wilson doesn't actually show up in this tale. Maureen works as a docent for the Steward Historic Museum, and when a new Egyptian artifact gets brought in, it starts to put the people in the museum under a strange spell. Maureen seeks the help of another magic user, Felicia. The unlikely duo work off of each other in order to trace down the source of the spell and hopefully break it before anyone does anything too drastic.
In Heroic Hearts' final story, Patricia Briggs' entry, Dating Terrors, is part of her growing Mercy Thompson world. Ruby Kowalczyk has decided to set a trap for a monster that has ruled over her for her whole life. But, in order to do that, she needs the help of an even stronger monster. With the help of a dating site that uses ghost hunting as the common ground amongst its members, Ruby gets the attention of Asil, an old werewolf. Under the guise of a simple date in the form of a ghost hunting exercise, Ruby and her team get to know Asil and soon realize that this centuries old creature might be able to handle the situation, but can they convince Asil to help, or will they find themselves between a rock and a hard place when the trap is sprung.
Heroic Hearts is filled with a great collection of stories. While other anthologies might have more than the dozen found in this book, what Heroic Hearts lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. Each story is a fun read and really fits the titular theme. That, plus the fact that it acts as a gateway to get readers into new series and authors, makes this a collection worth picking up. I know that I will be exploring more than one new series because of this book.
