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He is the perfect presidential candidate. Conservatives love his hard-hitting Republican résumé. Liberals love his passion for peaceful diplomacy. The media can’t get enough of his larger-than-life personality. Regular folks can identify with his larger-than-life physique. And all the American people love that he’s an honest, hard-working man who tells it like it is.

There’s just one problem: He is William Howard Taft… and he was already U.S. president a hundred years ago. So what on earth is he doing alive and well and considering a running mate in 2012?

Jason Heller’s extraordinary debut novel presents the Vonnegut-esque satire of a presidential Rip Van Winkle amid 21st-century media madness. It’s the ultimate what-if scenario for the 2012 election season!

JASON HELLER is an American culture journalist whose work appears in The A.V. Club, Village Voice Media, Alternative Press, Tor.com, Weird Tales, and Quirk’s 2011 release The Captain Jack Sparrow Handbook. Taft 2012 is his first novel. He lives in Denver.

FOR RENT: Top two floors of beautifully renovated brownstone, 1300 sq. ft., 2BR 2BA, eat-in kitchen, one block to parks and playgrounds. No broker’s fee.

Susan and Alex Wendt have found their dream apartment.

Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric. And the elderly handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the basement. But the rent is so low, it’s too good to pass up.

Big mistake. Susan soon discovers that her new home is crawling with bedbugs . . . or is it? She awakens every morning with fresh bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter Emma has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists her building is clean. Susan fears she’s going mad—until a more sinister explanation presents itself: she may literally be confronting the bedbug problem from Hell.

Remember the bestselling Choose Your Own Adventure series that you read as a kid? This hilarious parody features the same format and similar illustrations-but the stories offer a whole new kind of adventure!

This hilarious sci-fi parody chronicles one man’s weekend vacation on Fire Island, where-amid all the cocktails, Speedos, and circuit parties-he’s hoping to find true love. But these amorous plans are foiled when a vat of toxic waste washes ashore-and it’s up to him to save Fire Island from a plague of zombie drag queens!

On every page, YOU have control of the story: If you ask the lifeguard to bring you to the sheriff’s office, turn to page 108. If you ask the lifeguard to warn everyone at the night club, turn to page 32. If you ask the lifeguard if he’d like to work out sometime, turn to page 140.

With more than 35 illustrations throughout-and more hot bods than a year’s subscription to Men’s Health magazine-Escape from Fire Island! is the most campy and hilarious read of the summer.

JAMES H. ENGLISH based this book on his experiences at Fire Island (except for all the zombie stuff-he made those parts up). He lives in Astoria, New York.

“Choose Your Own Adventure” is a registered trademark of Chooseco LLC, Waitsfield, Vermont.

This book is in no way sponsored by or affiliated with Bantam Books, Inc. or the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books and its owner, Chooseco Inc.

In 1897, Archibald Constable & Company published Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the most famous horror novel of all time. For reasons still widely debated by critics, the first chapter of Dracula was cut just weeks before publication. Here, it becomes the central clue in a spine-tingling interactive mystery.

Dracula’s Heir begins ten years after the horrific events described in the original novel. Jonathan and Mina Harker are happily married and enjoying life in Bixby, England. Meanwhile, their friend Dr. John Seward is tracking a string of crimes that seems eerily familiar: A 14-year-old girl sleepwalks out of her parent’s house and disappears into the night. Two “accident victims” are found drained of their blood, yet there is no crime-scene evidence to explain what happened.

As with The Crimes of Dr. Watson, Dracula’s Heir features an original novella plus several removable clues, including a private journal, a death certificate, a newspaper, and more. Once you’ve solved the mystery, you can open the final signature (sealed at the printer) to test your sleuthing skills.

SAM STALL is a writer in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Quirk Books is excited to announce the discovery of a never-before-published adventure from the pen of Dr. John Watson, steadfast companion of the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes. As the tale opens, we discover that Holmes has vanished–and Watson has been framed for a grisly murder! Writing from a damp cell in Coldbath Fields penitentiary, the falsely convicted prisoner recounts the events leading to his arrest . . . and provides twelve removable, facsimile clues that point to the true culprit. Among them are:

–An article torn from a newspaper in California
–A puzzling manuscript ripped into several pieces
–A catalog of Victorian medicines and marital aids
–Plus a telegram, an arrest report, an empty matchbook, and much more

It’s up to you to sift through the clues and solve the thrilling whodunit. When you think you’ve identified the culprit, slice open the final signature of the book (sealed at the printer) to read the remainder of the story. With beautiful Victorian-style illustrations, The Crimes of Dr. Watson will appeal to mystery lovers of all ages.

JOHN H. WATSON, M.D., authored dozens of adventures about the great detective Sherlock Holmes (most were published under the name of his literary agent, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI’S crime novels include The Wheelman, The Blonde, and Severance Package (all from St. Martin’s Press). He lives in Philadelphia."

It’s been called the greatest novel ever written. Now, Tolstoy’s timeless saga of love and betrayal is transported to an awesomer version of 19th-century Russia. It is a world humming with high-powered groznium engines: where debutantes dance the 3D waltz in midair, mechanical wolves charge into battle alongside brave young soldiers, and robots—miraculous, beloved robots!—are the faithful companions of everyone who’s anyone. Restless to forge her own destiny in this fantastic modern life, the bold noblewoman Anna and her enigmatic Android Karenina abandon a loveless marriage to seize passion with the daring, handsome Count Vronsky. But when their scandalous affair gets mixed up with dangerous futuristic villainy, the ensuing chaos threatens to rip apart their lives, their families, and—just maybe—all of planet Earth.