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We've got two words for you: Goth Barbie.

Not only does such a thing exist, but after Barbie, it's the best-selling doll in the world. The dolls of Monster High are bone-thin beauties all related to famous monsters. They come with books and Web episodes that follow their stories in that place where everyone feels like a freak — in high school.

Monster High is made by the world's biggest toy company, which also manufactures Barbie. But no one at Mattel expected Monster High to become one of the biggest retail sensations of the past several years. Last spring at Toy Fair, New York's annual showcase of top toys, Monster High wannabes were everywhere — even zombie princesses that Walt Disney could have never imagined, including zombie Snow White and a zombie Little Mermaid.

In the hopping Toy Fair compound run by Mattel, Barbie's pink displays seemed almost dowdy and passe next to Monster High's glamorous dolls, which look like the underfed love children of Tim Burton and Lady Gaga. Mattel's Dana De Celis is showing off a pretty brunette doll with flowing hair and wolfish ears: "She's our werewolf so she's gonna howl for us," De Celis says as the doll issues an electronic wolf howl. "She tosses her head back, she arches her back, she closes her eyes and she is literally howling at the moon."

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Liz Cheney, the elder of former Vice President Dick Cheney's two daughters, a former State Department official and a conservative commentator who's often on Fox, is going to challenge Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi in next year's Republican primary.

According to The Associated Press, Cheney, 46, confirmed what had been wide speculation about her plans on Tuesday — not long after the 69-year-old Enzi said that he will seek a fourth term.

Her family's roots are in Wyoming. Dick Cheney was the state's congressman from 1979-89.

According to The Hill, Cheney could give Enzi, "a tough race. She is well-known to national Republican donors, especially those focused on international issues."

The New York Times has noted that a Cheney run:

"Threatens to start a civil war within the state's Republican establishment, despite the reverence many hold for her family. Mr. Enzi, 69, says he is not ready to retire, and many Republicans say he has done nothing to deserve being turned out. It would bring about 'the destruction of the Republican Party of Wyoming if she decides to run and he runs, too,' Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from the state, said in an interview. ... 'It's a disaster — a divisive, ugly situation — and all it does is open the door for the Democrats for 20 years.' "

Most of us are familiar with that hot, musky-smelling, cloudy drink served in teacups at sushi bars and sometimes called, erroneously, "rice wine." In other words, most of us have had bad sake.

But finally, Americans are learning to love the good stuff.

Imports of high-end sake from Japan are escalating, and countless sake-focused bars and restaurants in cities across the country are carrying hundreds of bottles each. Savvy gourmands are pairing sake with cheese and chocolate. Mixologists are making sake cocktails. Portland, Ore., has hosted a sake festival three summers in a row.

Perhaps best of all, Americans are now making their own sake. SakeOne, in Portland, Ore., has been doing so since the 1990s and now sells almost a million bottles per year. Much more recently, microbreweries have begun appearing in garages, warehouses and restaurant kitchens across America, turning white pearls of rice into Japan's most famous table beverage.

Several such operations are already in business, while a half-dozen others are gearing up to go. In Asheville, N.C., two microbreweries may be just weeks away from launching: Blue Kudzu and Ben's American Sake.

The latter will be based out of an izakaya-ramen restaurant called Ben's Tune-Up. Co-owner and brewer Jonathan Robinson says that, in a local market saturated with craft beers, sake helps his place stand out.

"I wouldn't want to be opening a brewery now," Robinson tells The Salt. "Everyone is making beer now, and here a lot of people have been brewing for twenty years. But with sake, we're breaking new ground."

Ben's American Sake will be brewed onsite and served on tap. The bar list will include a sake infused with honey and kumquats as well as a carbonated, bubbly sake. Robinson also has plans to borrow a trick from the specialty beer world to make a decidedly nontraditional brew: bourbon barrel-aged sake.

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Then, he sent the book to two linguistic analysts who compared it to Rowling's other work. "Both said that this book, The Cuckoo's Calling, had similarities in the style of writing, the words that were used, punctuation, to J.K. Rowling's book."

Initially, Brooks says, he played a "cat and mouse game" with the publisher. "I ... went to them and said I'd been reading this Cuckoo's Calling, and I didn't think it was actually written by this guy Robert Galbraith. I said, 'Who is he? Can I interview him?' And they came back and said, 'Sorry, no.' So I put a very, very direct question: Is it Rowling?"

So, is it all a public relations stunt? "Of course I'm aware of it," Brooks says. "That original tweet, perhaps, might have been from Rowling herself — who knows — who wanted to be outed. Who knows?"

Read an excerpt of The Cuckoo's Calling