Canines & Cocktails

Three genre-blending short stories unite around an unlikely shared theme: dogs and drinks. Kevin Hearne returns to his Iron Druid universe with a canine murder mystery starring Oberon and Starbuck, two sharp-nosed wolfhounds who witness both a crime and the unconscionable waste of sausage. Delilah S. Dawson opens her Arcadia Falls paranormal romance world, following a bartender who discovers her quiet Georgia mountain hometown holds far stranger secrets than she expected. Chuck Wendig closes the collection with a post-apocalyptic character study, one survivor's stubborn quest to mix a perfect whiskey sour in a world that has mostly ended.

Three narrators match the anthology's tonal range with precision. Luke Daniels brings warm comic timing to Hearne's Druid-adjacent mystery, while Shana Pennington-Baird grounds Dawson's Southern Gothic romance with genuine charm. Adam Verner carries Wendig's bleaker, quieter story with the unhurried weight it requires. The variety keeps nearly eight hours moving briskly, and the pairing of distinct voices with distinct tones makes the format feel purposeful rather than incidental.