Showing results by publisher "audible originals" in Short Stories

Emery Thompson hates Calvin Chamberlain. From the way he acts like he’s better than everyone to the way he moves through the world thinking his podcast is the cream of the crop, every little thing about the man gets to him. Even that dashing, oh-so-confident smile. He’d rather be caught dead than be around the man any longer than necessary—or admit that last part out loud.

From the master of crime fiction comes an unexpectedly whimsical short story about this San Diego surfer whose life plan is working perfectly until he meets a wealthy woman at an art gallery opening (the hors d’oeuvres), falls in love, and then has to masquerade as an upstanding member of society.

New Yorkers Paul and Darren have planned a winter holiday in Venice. But when their five-year marriage suddenly unravels, Paul endeavors to make the trip alone, despite his heartbreak and anxiety. Far outside his comfort zone, Paul has a mission: to see if he can be adventurous, fearless, free. In short, to become someone new. Soon after arriving in Italy, he notices a small, scruffy, self-assured dog trotting alongside a canal with the confidence he so desperately wants for himself. This street dog and his instincts for survival lend Paul’s trip a singular purpose.

Andre Monroe is ready to move on from heartbreak, and the first step is bringing home his rescue pup. He’d bonded instantly with the playful Zeus and was already planning their first adventures. But one thing he definitely hadn’t daydreamed about was Zeus accidentally being promised to someone else - or that he might go home empty-handed and brokenhearted all over again.

A sportscaster and a kindergarten teacher vie for the last copy of a bestselling dessert cookbook. To prove how badly they want it, each tries to outdo the other with meme-like, dessert-inspired lines.

Fifteen-year-old Bren doesn’t scare easily, especially since her father left, making her head of the house. So when a group of kids dare each other to pass through a tunnel rumored to be haunted by a train that steals people away to "the Nevermore," Bren steps up. But when she reaches the other end of the tunnel, more than she bargained for awaits. For fans of “kids on bikes” ‘80s-style horror.

Acclaimed author of The Adults Alison Espach’s short story "In-Depth Market Research Interviews with Dead People" is an at-once hilarious and heart-breaking portrait of a dead woman’s marriage and the Volvo that stood in the middle of it all.

Tino has known true love…and lost it. To find love again, he turns to a dating app that spans the multiverse. What could go wrong? In this off-beat speculative fiction tale, Tino navigates not just bad dates but also bad timelines, all in the search for Ms. Right.

In this riveting tale of looming apocalypse, Pup is living off the grid for the summer with her parents on an island off the coast of Maine, when all three of them face the hardest decisions of their lives. Across the water one night they can see homes burning and hear gunfire. Pup and her parents, with their goat and chickens and garden and their dog, Opey, have no contact with the mainland, except for boat runs into town.

In this short, funny, sci-fi tale, every human being on Earth suddenly receives a specific superpower. Everyone, that is, except Dale. But instead of moping around, Dale fools a world of superheroes into believing he was blessed with the power of making a perfect cappuccino. His business takes off beyond his wildest dreams—at least, until he meets Brenda, his personal supervillain, the only person on the planet with a perfect superpalate.

In this charming and heartwarming retelling of the classic It’s a Wonderful Life, Camille Pagán introduces us to Bailey, a dutiful yet sharp-witted 30-something who finds herself on the verge of a nervous breakdown as Christmas Eve approaches. As if it wasn’t enough that Bailey’s husband just cheated on her, the family business she’s been running since her parents died, which employs most of her small town, is about to go under. But even as she’s questioning whether her life has any meaning, Bailey bumps into a handsome stranger who claims to know her.

Hal Beekman is exhausted. With all of his energy devoted to his real estate developments, he doesn’t have the bandwidth to figure out why his wife is sad. As for Stacey Beekman, a transplanted Midwesterner with divorce-whisperer friends, the only solution for a husband who doesn’t desire her is to find a second husband who does. But with Stacey left alone in a new house to parent her tech-addicted children and Hank isolated in a Greenwich McMansion that neither of them ever loved, COVID-19 has surprises in store for the Beekmans.

Meet the writers’ room of the kid’s show Rooty Root Vegetables, which struggles to find humor in carbon emissions and climate change. Then things get punny.

More than a hundred years into the future, as the US approaches its 400th anniversary, Tomas, a young graduate student, searches for the real identity of one of the cyborgs that maintained American homes. He has been haunted for years by an audio clip of a cyborg named Felipe and is intent on writing Felipe’s biography. In the clip, Felipe can only recite that he was made in America, but Tomas must find out: Where was the Self-made Man really from?

County Sheriff Brody Hayes is in the midst of a missing person's call - for a five-month-old baby. Deep in the mountains of his hometown, Bowie, Wyoming, Brody's desperate search for the helpless child through a worsening snowstorm leads him on an even greater journey - one through his memories of his childhood, his brother, his son, and a life for himself that he thought was lost.

Three offbeat stories of crime and conundrum, set in the present moment, from the New York Times best-selling, Edgar Award-winning author of Underground Airlines and The Last Policeman.

With her husband stranded in a war-torn country halfway around the world, a university professor – on whom the burden of managing their small family has suddenly fallen – tries to maintain order at home. Her young daughter seems not to mind, or even really notice, the father’s absence. But as the weeks go on, mounting pressure on the narrator to balance family and work begins to take a toll.

A ghost decides to help the shy young woman living in her former house. Kyra dreams of becoming an artist, and she flourishes under the guidance of her ghostly mentor. This short, supernatural tale will appeal to fans of friendly ghost stories and family reconciliation.

A saga of love, loss and seasons of hope, Signs of Life is a vivid and evocative record of life in the times of pandemic. With uncertainty and unrest gripping the world, Kunti finds solace in translating the Mahabharata, cobbling together bits and pieces. As time and space stand suspended, she finds that stories repeat and renew themselves.

A lonely terraforming AI is delighted when a spacecraft unexpectedly makes an emergency landing on his planet. Hoping that the mysterious woman aboard might want to stay, he strives to be the best host in the universe.