Releases Nov 3, 2025
ISBNs: Print: 978-1-953736-45-1 EBook: 978-1-953736-44-4 Download the Press Kit (PDF) Request a review copy Now Available on NetGalley |
The House of Illusionists
by Vanessa Fogg A short story collection reflecting the light and dark in human emotion and fantasy. A sea-witch calls to souls from the deep. In modern suburbia, a middle-aged woman fights to keep her daughter from the clutches of a Faerie Queen. . . and finds herself confronting her own past and deepest desires. Sinister clowns run a candy shop on an idyllic resort island. A pair of neuroscientists fall in love amidst their quest to map the human mind. A woman is haunted by a starving ghost, and professors of magic do their best to keep students safe during a time of terrible war. In her debut collection, Vanessa Fogg spins fantastical tales set in worlds both close and distant from our own, exploring relationships, love, passion, and connection across space and time. About the Author Vanessa Fogg dreams of selkies, dragons, and gritty cyberpunk futures from her home in western Michigan. She spent years as a research scientist in molecular cell biology and now works as a freelance medical/science writer and editor. Her fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Podcastle, GigaNotoSaurus, The Deadlands, Neil Clarke’s The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Vol 4, and more. For a complete bibliography, visit her website at vanessafogg.com.
Praise for The House of Illusionists Read an interview with Vanessa at Myna Chang's Blog "Amidst fantastical settings, these are stories of relationships—relationships between mothers and daughters, parents and children, siblings and friends and lovers. They’re stories about the desire for human connection, and the difficulties inherent to it; about the pain and complexity—as well as the joy—of relationships."
"Vanessa Fogg’s speculative fiction anthology, The House of Illusionists, spins emotions into threads of earnest prose, and deftly weaves these thread into tapestries of fantasy and sci-fi. There is genuine magic in the way that these disparate stories knit together to transcend the sum of their parts, imbuing The House of Illusionists with the sentimentality of a frayed childhood quilt. Much like how, pulled taut, threads can slice as well as any knife, The House of Illusionists isn’t afraid to nick us on occasion with it’s affect to reminding us of the heart’s vulnerability, but also the latent beauty that comes from opening your heart to others." —Kevin @ NewMyths.com “The House of Illusionists is a treasure box for anyone who loves exquisitely crafted speculative fiction. Every story spins its own kind of quiet, lustrous magic, and in every story, in every character, Fogg finds a twist, a turn, a chink, a crack, a different point of view. One of the things I love most about Fogg’s stories is that she has a singular ability to portray love in all its messy, complex, everyday glory, always finding beauty in the darkness, and the darkness in what’s beautiful.” --Maria Haskins, editor, reviewer, and author of Wolves & Girls “Vanessa Fogg’s ethereal stories have the alarming delicacy of an unbreakable wire net that, when pulled tight, can cut right through your heart. Encompassing science fiction, folklore-informed fantasy, humor, and horror, The House of Illusionists holds human relationships cupped in its hands and gently, mercilessly reveals their paradoxical fragility and strength. The sweetness, but also the bitterness.” --Francesca Forrest, author of the novellas, The Inconvenient God and Lagoonfire, and the novel Pen Pal. “Fogg’s gorgeous language and fantastical worlds are a means of exploring the human heart. Each story in this collection is masterfully done, and the whole is absolutely stunning!” --A.C. Wise, author of Out of the Drowning Deep “In The House of Illusionists, author Vanessa Fogg guides us through black lakes of despair, starving cities, and fanfiction futures, breaking barriers in a sweeping, otherworldly collection that speaks to the heart of humanity. This book squeezed every emotion out of me. Possibly my favourite read of the year. Transcendent and timely.”—Lee Murray, five-time Bram Stoker Award®-winning author of Grotesque: Monster Stories “Vanessa Fogg is one of my favourite writers, living or dead, and The House of Illusionists and Other Stories is my favourite collection of short fiction - full stop. Fogg’s stories are deeply atmospheric and transporting, lush with beautiful prose and imagery, and steeped in wonder and love. Fogg is equally skilled at crafting her magic and science with one hand, and at exploring intricate and realistic relationships with the other, and in her fiction she merges these elements together into a brilliant whole. I cried multiple times. A real treat.” —Ephiny Gale, author of the story collections Next Curious Thing and Pick Your Potion "The House of Illusionists is a stunning collection that takes you through autumn night hunts, strange holiday islands, space-faring multiverses, and sentient ancient gardens. Fogg expertly meshes genre, showing us heartbreakingly real romance in far futures, creeping horror in beautiful fantasy worlds, and even fanfiction reimagined as a platform for exploring alternative universes. Immersive and profoundly moving, The House of Illusionists is a feat of untethered imagination with a raw human heart. I didn't want to leave some of these worlds." --Angela Liu, two-time Nebula Award finalist for the speculative fiction novelettes, “Another Girl Under the Iron Bell” and Imagine: Purple-Haired Girl Shooting Down the Moon.” |
