Many Bloody Returns

You're invited to a celebration of vampires by a baker's dozen of favorite authors. Sink your teeth into 13 stories, each one a fresh and unique take on the concept of what birthdays mean to the undead.

In New York Times best-selling author Charlaine Harris's "Dracula Night", Sookie Stackhouse is the only human at the annual commemoration of Dracula's birth. But this year, the Prince of Darkness actually shows up - and finds Sookie a tasty-looking present.

New York Times best-selling author Jim Butcher's crime-solving wizard Harry Dresden, of the Dresden Files novels, heads to a role-playing party to give his vampire brother a birthday present in "It's My Birthday, Too", only to discover there are some bloodthirsty party crashers who don't share their brotherly love.

In "Twilight", Cassandra DuCharme, from New York Times best-selling author Kelley Armstrong's Dime Store Magic, knows she has to kill to live as a vampire another year - but finds herself disturbingly disinterested in the hunt.

National best-selling author P. N. Elrod's hardboiled vampire PI Jack Fleming, from The Vampire Files, infiltrates a suspicious séance on the eve of the dearly departed's birthday in "Grave-Robbed".

And in award-winning author Toni L. P. Kelner's "How Stella Got Her Grave Back", vampires become amateur sleuths (with breaks for feeding) to solve the murder of a Jane Doe.

Suspenseful, surprising, sometimes dark, sometimes humorous - these and eight more frighteningly original stories will ensure you'll never think of vampires or birthdays quite the same again.

The list of authors also includes Jeanne C. Stein, Rachel Caine, Tanya Huff, Carolyn Haines, Christopher Golden, Bill Crider, Tate Hallaway, and Elaine Viets. This anthology was edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner.