Excerpt from The Privilege of the Happy Ending by Kij Johnson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Was that a sound? Yes. It was the ripple of running water where a brook ran along the bottom of a clearing clotted with grasses and encircled by young trees. Across the clearing was a pile of stones that had once been a house: French or Saxon or Roman or any of the races that had swept across England's face. Gone now, all gone: absorbed into Englishness, into legend and folktale.

Was that a sound? Yes.

Excerpted from The Privilege of the Happy Ending by Kij Johnson. Copyright © 2023 by Kij Johnson. Excerpted by permission of Small Beer Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.