Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Short Stories

>In this beautifully imaginative collection, young people attempt to negotiate the often surreal terrain of childhood and adolescence where family, friends, clergy, and teachers often pose a threat instead of providing safe harbor. At the heart of the collection is the relationship between the meek narrator, his best friend alpha-male Clip, and the near-feral Roger - but there are also agoraphobic mothers, gorgeous babysitters from New Zealand, paranoid stoned veterans, and deeply sad older sisters.

Incendiary Girls explores our baser instincts with vivid imagination and humor. In these stories, our bodies become strange and unfamiliar terrain, a medium for transformation. In "Fundamental Laws of Nature", a doctor considers her legacy, both good and bad, when she discovers that her mother has been reincarnated as a thoroughbred mare. In the title story, a mischievous angel chronicles the remarkable life of a girl just beyond death’s reach.

Okano, a convenience store employee with a troubled past, is but one of the many unforgettable characters found in this collection of four stories. Among the others are three boys facing a frightening lesson in mortality, a woman using garbage to fill a hole in her heart, and a nurse struggling to cope with the oft-brutal cycle of birth, life, and death. Remaining constant even as it fades in and out of view is the great Mount Fuji, one of Japan’s Three Holy Mountains. It serves as the anchor for these characters’ lives, and for Randy Taguchi’s Fujisan, an exploration of redemption, discovery, loss, and remembrance.

In this stunning debut, Shawn Vestal transports us to the afterlife, the rugged Northwest, and the early days of Mormonism. From “The First Several Hundred Years Following My Death”, an absurd, profound vision of a hellish heaven, to “Winter Elders”, in which missionaries calmly and relentlessly pursue a man who has left the fold, these nine stories illuminate the articles of faith that make us human.

"The Big Guys" - Flash fiction, winner of the Derringer Award. "A Fistful of Cozy" - A satire of the mystery cozy genre. "Cleansing" - An ancient crime of biblical proportions. "Lying Eyes" - Solve it yourself, given the clues."Perfect Plan" - Another solve it yourself. Don't you remember One Minute Mysteries and Encyclopedia Brown? "Piece of Cake" - Another solve it yourself, originally featured in Woman's World.

Oksana Zabuzhko, Ukraine's leading public intellectual, is called upon to make sense of the unthinkable reality of our times. In this breathtaking short story collection, she turns the concept of truth over in her hands like a beautifully crafted pair of gloves. From the triumph of the Orange Revolution, which marked the start of the twenty-first century, to domestic victories in matchmaking, sibling rivalry, and even tennis, Zabuzhko - manages to shock the listener by juxtaposing things as they are.

After the success of This Side of Paradise, it was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s popular short fiction that helped maintain the luxury and celebrity to which he and his wife, Zelda, had grown accustomed. Reflections of that blithe and glittering lifestyle, these eleven stories reveal a man both beguiled by and critical of the American postwar generation he defined. Fitzgerald’s tales capture the inauguration of the age in all its hysteria, revelry, and tragedy - the same world he would later revisit in his renowned The Great Gatsby.

A civil rights activist and key figure in African American literary history, Alice Dunbar-Nelson made her mark during the emerging Harlem Renaissance. Violets and Other Tales is her debut (included here in full, save for three stories later updated in The Goodness of St. Rocque). The collection includes poetry, short stories, and essays offering a varied examination of class differences, racial identity, oppression, intolerance, and women’s societal roles. The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories assembles 14 of Dunbar’s short works of fiction.

Lola McInnis has hit rock bottom after catching her fiancé cheating with his personal trainer. In a desperate attempt to make a fresh start, she sinks the last of her savings into renovating two houses in an up-and-coming Atlanta neighborhood, but the project hits the skids when her contractor bails.

Junior exec Ben thought working for a prestigious bank in Hong Kong would be a career-building adventure and an exotic change from his staid Long Island upbringing. In the complex splendor of Hong Kong, he finds himself in a position of extreme privilege - a position in which everything is seen as a commodity. When he and his colleagues take an outing on the South China Sea to escape the city smog, a sordid secret is revealed.

Phineas Troutt doesn't have much time left, but a terminal cancer diagnosis won't stop this freelance assassin from getting the job done. First step: tracking down teen runaway Jasmine. After questioning dozens of hookers, pimps, and junkies, impersonating a cop, and calling in a favor from his longtime pal, Lieutenant Jack Daniels, Phineas finds Jasmine and collects his reward. But does Phin have a secret agenda? Gritty, hardboiled, and with real heart, this is one of Konrath's most memorable tales.

A young man fleeing heartbreak back home meets a mysterious expat at a café in Paris. What begins as a friendly conversation between two outsiders soon transforms into a heart-pounding confession that threatens to shake both men to their cores. In this darkly funny, Sopranos-meets-Sebald page-turner by acclaimed mystery writer David Gordon, people aren’t always what they seem, and digging for the truth could have fatal consequences.

With bravura storytelling, daring imagination, and fierce narrative control, this dazzling debut introduces that rare writer who finds humanity in our most unconventional behavior, and the humor beneath our darkest impulses. In these strange, funny, and unnerving stories, animals become the litmus test of our deepest fears and longings