A collection of 25 short stories

The fireplace -- Cyan, magenta, yellow, the key -- Who brings a baby? -- The spew of news -- Stowaway -- Baby carrots -- Fairy ring -- Room with a boo -- Pump and dump -- Keep it civil -- Battlefield seances -- Pick of the litter -- Sisterhood of the salamander -- Knockoffs -- Debridement -- Psychic Santa -- Posterboard -- Our summer in the pit -- Sweetmeat -- Nail on the head -- The nocturnal gardener -- Hermit -- All ears -- Story on the line -- Nathan Ballingrud's haunting horror recs

"A father returns from serving in Vietnam with a strange and terrifying addiction; a man removes something horrifying from his fireplace, and becomes desperate to return it; and a right-wing news channel has its hooks in people in more ways than one. From department store Santas to ghost boyfriends and salamander-worshipping nuns; from the claustrophobia of the Covid-19 pandemic to small-town Chesapeake USA, Clay McLeod Chapman takes universal fears of parenthood, addiction and political divisions and makes them uniquely his own." --