Showing titles in Short Stories

A man gets into a car that can take him anywhere he can imagine—including the past, into the worst mistake of his life, a memory he does not want to relive, cannot escape, and is even more afraid to alter. A seemingly harmless, forgettable film about “alien hand syndrome” inspires a wave of self-harm among viewers—and even stranger things among those who become obsessed with it.

I love my job as a wilderness guide, even when an adorable guy sends me splashing into a river. I messed around with some guys while in college, but I haven’t been attracted to a man since. Until I meet Onno, a sweet Dutch man visiting Forestville. We’re the same age, and he’s so easy to talk to. Plus, I love his sense of humor. He would be so easy to fall for… The problem? He’s going back home to the Netherlands in three weeks. But not if I can help it.

This could be the most important mission of Nameless’s life. Because it’s putting him on a collision course with his own past and the nation’s future. The target: a fortified redoubt in the golden hills of California, the hub of a new world order that’s unthinkably close at hand. The time has come for Nameless to face its designer: the nihilist mastermind behind the One Solution. It’s also time for Nameless to discover who he is and was, and what brought him to this fateful endgame. But will the truth be a breaking point? Or a turning point?

Innovative, startlingly perceptive and aglow with colour, these 15 stories were written towards the end of Katherine Mansfield's tragically short life. Many are set in the author's native New Zealand, others in England and the French Riviera. All are revelations of the unspoken, half-understood emotions that make up everyday experience - from the blackly comic 'The Daughters of the Late Colonel' and the short, sharp sketch 'Miss Brill', in which a lonely woman's precarious sense of self is brutally destroyed, to the vivid impressionistic evocation of family life in 'At the Bay'.

Nothing says romance more than a wedding at Christmas. Marrying the love of your life, surrounded by your nearest and dearest at the most festive time of the year? What could be more perfect? For Brayden Riley and Addison Ridge, it’s their dream wedding. 'Tis the season. Love and peace reign. Right? A waylaid maid of honor, a mischievous family member, and a father having trouble letting go are all typical blips in an otherwise ordinary wedding.

Suicide? Murder? Or maybe a political assassination? When Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead in his Argentina apartment mere hours before his testimony before Congress about linkages between the Argentinean President and the Islamic Republic of Iran, his death was initially ruled a suicide. But as facts emerged in the days after Nisman’s death, the public outcry for justice grew into a roar.

In the title story, set five minutes in the future where you not only have a credit score but also a dating score, a woman who’s been banished from all dating apps attends a weekly help group with others who have been “banned for life,” and finds herself falling in love. In “Backwards,” a twist on Benjamin Button, a woman reconnects with her estranged father as he de-ages ten years each day they spend together. In “Welcome to Oxhead,” all the parents in a gated community “shut off” when the power goes out.

Brian Carr believes in fairy tales — princes, castles, once upon a times, happily ever afters. He's been that way since we were kids, and no matter how many times it all goes wrong, Brian's never given up hope of finding his one true love. It's beautiful. Adorable. Charming. It's also annoying as hell, because I've spent decades standing on the sidelines while guy after guy crushed my best friend's heart, leaving me to pick up his pieces. The truth is, for as long as Brian has dreamed of fairy tales...I have dreamed of Brian.

In his debut collection of short stories, Robert Sheehan disappears into characters, challenging the complacencies of everyday experience, often from entirely unexpected angles. Informed by the author’s peripatetic life, Disappearing Act reflects on the absurdity of human behaviour. Sheehan delves deep into his characters’ streams of self-talk and self-imposed delusions, exploring the dark impulses that lurk below the shiny surfaces of many outwardly normal lives.

Steven Jones, an entertainment producer from Chicago, journeys to London in search of new acts. There, he discovers the strange and disturbing wax museum of Rodgers and his inscrutable associate Orabona. Is the mad artist able to conjure up the world's most horrifying waxen effigies through his occult inspirations, or is there a darker secret lurking behind the wax and paint?

Ivan Turgenev was an outstanding writer of the 19th century, a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of Russian language and literature. He was the author of philosophical and psychological poems, short stories, short novels, and novellas. Throughout his work, he delves into the themes of Russian intelligentsia and peasant life, showcasing mastery in creating psychological portraits.

In A Few Quick Ones, P. G. Wodehouse brings together some of his oldest friends for a party. Jeeves and Wooster are there, so is Mr Mulliner and the Oldest Member.

This collection shows a vibrant young writer with a wide-ranging imagination, ferocious creative energy, devastating wit, and an eye for the wonderful and terrifying and tragic. Among the gems are "All the Sounds of Fear", "The Sky Is Burning", "The Very Last Day of a Good Woman", and "In Lonely Lands". Though they stand tall on their own merits, they also point the way to the sublime stories that followed soon after and continue to come even now, more than 50 years later.

Nate Temple and his pal, Alucard, just want a little peace and quiet after the events of Tiny Gods, but it just isn't in the cards for them. Tory leaves town and asks them to watch over the rebellious Reds. But they have other plans. When love is in the air, there is nothing a teenager wouldn't do. And there is nothing a dad wouldn't do to keep them safe. Even if it involves a Johnson Beaver concert, a magical djinn, and a herd of centaurs.

Roger Ferris is one of the CIA's soldiers in the war on terrorism. He has come out of Iraq with a shattered leg and an intense mission: to penetrate the network of a master terrorist known only as "Suleiman". Ferris' plan for getting inside Suleiman's tent is inspired by a masterpiece of British intelligence during World War II: he prepares a body of lies, literally the corpse of an imaginary CIA officer who appears to have accomplished the impossible by recruiting an agent within the enemy's ranks.

In this compendium of delightful short stories, David Michie draws us into the extraordinary experiences of everyday people as they encounter those tell-tale cracks exposing reality as not quite what it seems. Through intriguing story-lines and revelations, Michie offers life-enhancing insights. How better to gently unwind at the end of the day - and to prepare for the infinite possibilities we may encounter in the realms of our dreams?

From the New York Times bestselling author of Hounded—“a superb urban fantasy debut” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)—comes an Iron Druid Chronicles short story in the captivating Carniepunk anthology. The ancient Druid Atticus O’Sullivan gets more than greasy corn dogs and flat...

‘Brilliantly funny, emotional and uplifting’ Miranda Dickinson A funny and heartwarming debut for fans of Celia Imrie and Dawn French. Evie Gallagher is regretting her hasty move into a care home. She may be seventy-five and recently widowed, but she’s absolutely not dead yet. And so, one...

Enjoy 15 scintillating tales in this eclectic collection where characters seek honor, truth, retribution, and in one case, a place to sell 300-year-old Lavian brandy.

Thirteen tales are unspun from the deeply familiar and woven anew into a collection of fairy tales that wind back through time. Emma Donoghue reveals heroines young and old in unexpected alliances--sometimes treacherous, sometimes erotic, but always courageous. Told with luminous voices that shimmer with sensuality and truth, these age-old characters shed their antiquated cloaks to travel a seductive new landscape, radiantly transformed.