Stranger Things Happen

This first collection by award-winning author Kelly Link takes fairy tales and cautionary tales, dictators and extraterrestrials, amnesiacs and honeymooners, revenants and readers alike, on a voyage into new, strange, and wonderful territory. The girl detective must go to the underworld to solve the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers. A librarian falls in love with a girl whose father collects artificial noses. A dead man posts letters home to his estranged wife. Two women named Louise begin a series of consecutive love affairs with a string of cellists. A newly married couple become participants in an apocalyptic beauty pageant. Sexy blond aliens invade New York City. A young girl learns how to make herself disappear.

These eleven extraordinary stories are quirky, spooky, and smart. They all have happy endings. Every story contains a secret prize. Each story was written especially for you.

Stories from *Stranger Things Happen* have won the *Nebula*, *Tiptree*, and *World Fantasy Award*. *Stranger Things Happen* was a *Salon* Book of the Year, one of the *Village Voice's* 25 Favorite Books of 2001, and was nominated for the *Firecracker Alternative Book Award*.

Contents:

- *Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose* (1998)

- *Water Off a Black Dog's Back* (1995)

- *The Specialist's Hat* (1998)

- *Flying Lessons* (1995)

- *Travels with the Snow Queen* (1996/1997)

- *Vanishing Act* (1996)

- *Survivor's Ball, or, The Donner Party* (1998)

- *Shoe and Marriage* (2000)

- *Most of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water* (2001)

- *Louise's Ghost* (2001)

- *The Girl Detective* (1999)

*Cover painting by Shelley Jackson*