Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Anthologies & Short Stories

"A Kingdom and a Horse" is set in the universe of the Valhalla Saga. It contains the story of legendary Viking captain Sigurd and his trusty right-hand man Sven's youthful escapades in England. If your trade is to be looting and pillaging, you have to learn somewhere...right?

When five college friends cross America in a minivan to find themselves, they chance upon a road that isn’t on any map. They can’t resist exploring it. The van breaks down. They find a town, a massive trailer park steeped in squalor. The town isn’t on any map either. They find people in town. They’ll wish they hadn’t. The only sanctuary is the Big House - a giant mansion at the center of town that appears to be abandoned, only all the lights come on at night. Inside the Big House is the secret of the town. Inside, they’ll finally find themselves. They won’t like what they find.

The first collection by writer Matthew Hughes, and the perfect companion to his acclaimed novel Black Brillion, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories features nine stories taking place in the universe of The Archonate, as well as four non-series stories. The stories of Henghis Hapthorn, Old Earth's "foremost freelance discriminator", combine mystery and science fantasy while simultaneously recalling the arch irony of Gene Wolfe and the sly fancies of Jack Vance.

Brian Evenson’s hallucinatory and darkly comic stories of paranoia, pursuit, sensory deprivation, amnesia, and retribution rattle the cages of the psyche and peer into the gaping moral chasm that opens when we become estranged from ourselves. From sadistic bosses with secret fears to a woman trapped in a mime’s imaginary box, and from a post-apocalyptic misidentified Messiah to unwitting portraitists of the dead, the mind-bending world of this modern-day Edgar Allan Poe exposes the horror contained within our daily lives.

Shortly before her death Angela Carter was preparing this volume of short stories, one which does full justice to the glory of her imagination and the range of her talent. It is divided into distinct parts. The first comprises a group of stories inspired by America: Lizzie Borden visits a circus; a John Ford Western is spiced with the story of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore'; and there is a wonderful Gothic extravaganza set in Hollywood. The second section - Old World Wonders - draws on fairy tales.

We are being watched. That this statement no longer shocks is itself shocking. Post-Snowden, we know that the government - everywhere - has been reading our emails, listening to our phone calls, and watching whatever we do on the Internet. The only thing concealed is the nature of our watchers. In Watchlist, some of today's most prominent and promising fiction writers from around the globe respond to, reflect on, and mine for inspiration the surveillance culture in which we live.

Malgudi Ki Kahaniyan (Hindi) is a set of stories that are based in the fictional town of Malgudi. The town of Malgudi is a South Indian village created by the author and offers a valuable peek into the quality of rural life during the pre-independence era. The characters in these stories come from different walks of life, and each has a unique tale to tell. These stories have characters such as astrologers, postmen, doctors, beggars and priests.

In “The Pleasure of Her Company,” a lonely, single woman befriends the married couple next door, hoping to learn the secret of their happiness. In "Long Distance," a man finds himself relieved of the obligation to continue an affair that is no longer compelling to him, only to be waylaid by the guilt he feels at his easy escape. And in the incandescently wise and moving title novella, a dentist, aware that his wife has fallen in love with someone else, must comfort her when she is spurned....

Rachel Kramer Bussel ties her readers up in knots each year as they anticipate the very best BDSM stories of the year. And, she does not disappoint, defying the odds and occasionally gravity with tales of bondage at its best. These whip-smart tales of domination, submission, spanking, and other highly imaginative acts keep readers in a frenzy. Best Bondage Erotica 2014 features 21 hot bondage tales that titillate from the bedroom to the dungeon and beyond.

There are the fabled urban myths of lesbians who fill up a U-Haul on the second date and lead sweetly romantic lives of cocoa and comfy slippers. Safe and sound. A lot of cozy and not much crazy. These are NOT those stories- these are wild women with dirty minds, untamed tongues, and even the occasional cuff or clamp. A lotta crazy and no cozy slippers to be seen. These Wild Girls tell stories of their own Wild Nights (and days,) memories too hot to keep undercover.

Joyful, daring, and authentic, these 21 steamy stories revel in erotic adventure, from the sparks between strangers to the knowing caresses of long-time lovers. In "Penalty Fare", a Londoner rides train after train without a valid ticket, until, on an early morning journey to Bristol she finds the conductor who knows just how to punish her for trying to skip the fare. In "Winter Heat", a woman finds that each year, the winter's first snowfall reminds her of a cold night when she was 18, and the stranger who taught her that "passion can be found and shared in the most unusual of places."

What do women really want? To be sensually seduced or pressed up against the wall for a quickie? To be tantalized by a peep show or the chance to join the mile high club? Acclaimed erotica writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel knows: They want it all. They want to be worshiped, ordered around, sent blindly into ecstasy, and made hot in front of a mirror. They want strangers bearing ice cubes on a hot day and to be the party favor passed around among guests.

This is a mini-sequel to The Other Son, a little gift for all those listeners who have been begging to know what happens next. Alice has been lying to herself for years, holding fast to the belief that the needs of her family far outweigh her own. But her outwardly successful marriage hides dark secrets, and for much of her life, the children were the only reason she stuck around.

In Dark Property, a woman carries a dying baby across a desert waste, moving toward a fortress harboring a mysterious resurrection cult. Menaced by scavengers, she nevertheless begins to suspect that the reality within the fortress may be even more unsettling than the blasted environment outside. In Contagion and Other Stories, Evenson takes his audiences into a world that is at once apocalyptic, dark, observant, and grotesque without ever dipping into static genre conventions.

College is fun for Shanaya, but for this godforsaken assignment she is stuck with! Looking at her hot roommate, Latika, smoking up a weed joint, she curses her stars and her boyfriend, who is more interested in getting an orgasm than giving her a real one. As Latika starts giving Shanaya some tips to get pleasure from her boyfriend, she touches all the right spots and things get steamy and hot.

These are stories that explore the scarred outposts of desperation and desire, sickness and death, sex and decay. Within this audiobook, you will also find the acclaimed novella Nearly People (nominated for awards by the International Horror Guild and the British Fantasy Society), in which a woman's search for food in a nightmarish city brings her attention from an enigmatic man known as The Dancer, and a host of terrible epiphanies.

Shanaya is excited to go out and shop at the new lingerie store. When she meets Ella at the lingerie store, Shanaya finds the ground shifting beneath her feet. And things don’t always go exactly as planned. Faced with irresistible urges, Shanaya is flooded into a spiral of lust and heart melting passion. Will Shanaya resist or cave into her lustful desires? What happens when Shanaya is made to experience pleasures she has never even dreamed of?

Meri Priya Kahaniyaan contains the favourite stories by the fierce and celebrated poet Amrita Pritam, selected by her. Amrita Pritam, the first female Punjabi poet, novelist, and essayist, and the leading voice of 20th-century Indian literature, was awarded Jnanpith in the year 1982. She authored more than a hundred compositions and has left a special mark in the stories, just like her poems, which are about female sexuality, self-realisation and the pain of loss at a time when women mostly wrote on conservative themes.

It's winter, and a chill has settled over the area near New Orleans. Finding a stream of blood, a tourist follows it to a dead man, facedown in the bayou. The man has been done in by a vicious beating so violent that his skull has been crushed in. It's barely a day before a second victim is found...once again so badly thrashed that the water runs red. The city becomes riddled with fear. An old family friend comes to Danni Cafferty, telling her that he's terrified, he's certain that he's received a message from the Blood Bayou killer.

From the introduction by James Thompson: Finland, the myths and truths. Internationally, it has a reputation as perhaps the best place in the world to live. A great economy. A low crime rate. Good and nearly cost-free health care. The needy are provided for by the state and live in reasonable comfort. Finns: peaceful and quiet people, living in the perfect example of a social democracy functioning as it should. A tourist, or even a person who has lived here for a length of time, might well view Finland as such.