Showing titles in Short Stories

Quiver is 12 interlinked short stories the explore lust and human sexuality in all their sensual manifestations. In her first collection of erotic writing Tobsha Learner transports us into a world of love, power and obsession, often blurring the line between reality and fantasy, bringing us face-to-face with delicately observed passion and pain. Experience the angry fearlessness of youth, the pleasure of the new, sexual friction at its most primal, and the lingering fingers of a past that refuses to let go.

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.

In the first of the four cases in Trouble is My Business, Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is offered a job that leaves a bad taste in the mouth: smearing a girl who's 'got her hooks into a rich man's pup'. Before too long Marlowe's up to his neck in corpses and cops and he's taken pity on the girl. There's nothing like making trouble out of your business.

Raymond Carver called Anton Chekhov "the greatest short story writer who has ever lived". This unequivocal verdict on Chekhov's genius has been echoed many times by writers as diverse as Katherine Mansfield, Somerset Maugham, John Cheever, and Tobias Wolf. While his popularity as a playwright has sometimes overshadowed his achievements in prose, the importance of Chekhov's stories is now recognized by readers as well as by fellow authors. Their themes - alienation, the absurdity and tragedy of human existence - have as much relevance today as when they were written.

Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts. Fiona was always destined to leave, her effortless beauty burnished by fierce ambition—qualities that Jane admired and feared in equal measure. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California.

In her inimitable style, Oates takes the listener on journeys through small American towns and the biggest urban sprawls. Tales of loss, grief, and violent ends; murder or the slow decay of time; failed relationships between children and parents, lovers or spouses. Characters face dark secrets or their own consciences; Oates takes the listener between the courtroom, the hospital, and the wilderness of upstate New York with deft skill as she presents this tantalising collection of the macabre and mysterious, the suspenseful and the sublime.

I’ve sworn off men. Or I guess I should say that I’ve vowed to never get tangled up with a man. I’ve seen the way that they can hurt the women that they claim to love, and I want no part of it. I’ve never been tempted to break that vow. Until Ransom moves to town. When I give in to my feelings for him, it’s only supposed to be for one night. Everything is going according to plan. Until I get the surprise of my life and find out that I’m pregnant.

Wie kann es sein, dass wir in jeder kurzen Pause, die uns der Tag bietet, sofort auf unser Handy schauen und uns ablenken? Sind wir vielleicht einfach zu faul zum Nichtstun geworden? Horst Evers geht dieser Frage nach – in kurzen, sehr lustigen Geschichten aus dem Hier und Jetzt. Dort begegnet er Katzen, die seine Pakete entgegennehmen, und Toastern, die unsere Zukunft planen, sowie Nonnen, die ihm die Künstliche Intelligenz erklären. Er erzählt von seiner Zeit als Band-Bassist, seiner Begegnung mit Steven Spielberg und der lautesten Verkehrsberuhigung der Welt.

"கண்ணன் கதைகள்" என்ற இந்நூல், கண்ணன் தொடர்பான 26 கதைகளைத் தன்னகத்தே தாங்கியுள்ளது. கிருஷ்ண பக்தி என்பது ஒரு பெரிய கடல். இந்நூலைப் படிப்பவர்கள் அந்தக் கடலின் சில நீர்த்திவலைகள் தங்கள் மேல் பட்டதாக உணர்ந்தால் அதுவே இந்நூலின் வெற்றி.

We are the Merciless Few MC, an outlaw club hell-bent on saving those good souls tormented and abused using any means necessary. When you ride with the men of the Merciless Few, loyalty and respect are earned.

When art therapist Cam gets set up on a blind date with a man named Josh, he doesn't realize it's Joshua Lede, the famous television reporter, or that Josh is a lower-leg amputee. As they spend the day on the National Mall, Cam learns that Josh is more than the hard-hitting political analyst he is on television, and Josh learns that he may have finally found a funny, sweet man to share his life with.

Roy Court and his crew are taking the trip of a lifetime—several lifetimes in fact—duplicated and dispatched across the galaxies searching for Earthlike planets. Many possibilities for the future. Yet for Roy, no matter how many of him there are, there’s still just one painful, unchangeable past. In what world can a broken relationship be reborn? The universe is so vast, there’s always room for hope.

A place of myths, rumours and secrets, The Hotel looms over the dark Fens, tall and grey in its Gothic splendour. Built on cursed land, a history of violent death suffuses its very foundations - yet it has a magnetism that is impossible to ignore. Here are the stories of The Hotel: stories of children, mothers, monsters, cult film-makers, thrill-seekers and workers on the night shift, all with their own tales of its strange power, of the horrors of Room 63, and of desperate but failed attempts to escape its seductive pull.

The rather disgruntled pair is sequestered in the Grand Adlington Hotel having made a pig’s ear out of their latest case. But, whilst sipping mournful cocktails, with Tommy oddly dressed as a Parson, they are gleefully accosted by their old acquaintance Mr. Bulger who has London’s most beautiful stage actress, Gilda Glen, in tow. Whilst Tommy and Tuppence mull over the note, in storms a man, an old flame of Gilda’s claiming he wants to ring someone’s neck.

Rumer Godden is well known for her acclaimed novels for adults and children. She wrote over 60 works in her lifetime, nine of which were made into films. Included here are dramatisations of three of her classic tales, as well as a fascinating interview with the renowned author.

Erin tends bar at the last dive left in gentrified Red Hook, Brooklyn, where old-timers spin tales of the bar’s legacy and the waterfront’s crime-ridden past. Her boss, Jimmy, a real estate magnate responsible for much of the neighborhood’s shiny transformation, also has a story to share. Back when he was a struggling beat cop, two neglected boys introduced him to an ancient creature that made Jimmy’s dreams come true. Nightmares too. Erin doesn’t believe a word. The bar is her life. But this bar at the end of the world is also home to a deadly stowaway. And it’s looking for a new host.

A dismembered body in the park.... Grand Rapids Detective Bill DeYoung is an old-timer riding it out until retirement. A ravaged body in the park and a drunken witness are about to change his plans; so is the end of the world. The events happen concurrently with the first novel, End Time, but it can be heard at any point in the series to get exciting additional content on the origin of a main character.

“Careful there, Robbie.” My sweater obscured part of my sight, and my fogged-up glasses managed to take care of the rest of it, but I’d recognize that voice anywhere, even after eight long years. It was deeper now, a bit more gravelly, but it most definitely belonged to the guy I’d spent most of my early teenage years pining after. My first - and unrequited - love. “Troy?” I exclaimed, blinking my confusion as he helped pull my sweater the rest of the way off. Troy Jacobs' gorgeous lips twitched in amusement. “You remember me. Didn’t know if you would."

Award-winning Author Candace Nola's debut collection, Demons in my Bloodstream, is a fiendishly woven tapestry of short fiction. These nightmarish tales include a mobster's bucket list, a neighborhood gardening competition gone wrong, a serial killer patiently waiting for one last kill, and a colorblind man that finally cures what ails him. Six blood-soaked tales of terror for your own demon to feast upon.

You will find yourself set down in a modern Garden of Eden with a disgraced Adam seeking his Eve; sharing the fears of a small boy in a coastal classroom as a tsunami approaches; in an English jail cell with an Australian surfer on drug charges; watching an American film scout confront his masculinity on a Pacific island; and witnessing a middle-aged farmer contemplating murdering the hippie who stole his wife.