Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Short Stories

Outshone by a gregarious stepsister and overbearing stepmother, Lady Athena Cummins is used to fading into the shadows. Beloved only by her youngest sister, Persephone, Athena has accepted her destiny as a spinster. But Persephone has a different scheme in mind, and conspires to send Athena out for one night of fun at Lord Finchley’s masquerade Christmas Ball. The masked beauty catches the Lord’s eye but, determined to avoid the wrath of her stepsister, Athena leads Lord Finchley on a wild chase to discover her true identity.

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.

Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters is a collection of 23 stories focused around the theme of strange creatures in the vein of Pacific Rim, Godzilla, Cloverfield, and more. The anthology opens with a foreword by Jeremy Robinson, author of Project Nemesis, the highest selling Kaiju novel in the United States since the old Godzilla books - and perhaps even more than those. Then, from New York Times best sellers to indie darlings Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters features authors that are perfectly suited for writing larger-than-life stories.

A classic tale featuring two of the most-memorable characters in sword and sorcery, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Over a span of 50 years, the late Fritz Leiber wrote dozens of adventures, set in the fictional city of Lankhmar, featuring the seven-foot-tall barbarian and the diminuitive thief. The stories were recognized with both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

The Cottage on the Hill is a horror story, but it’s a J. Robert Lennon horror story, in which the characters’ loneliness - their disconnectedness, their inability, at times, even to speak or listen to one another - is more chilling than any of the supernatural elements.

Alison Tyler is a pioneer of a kind of erotica that's at once arousing and sophisticated, playful and explicit. A prolific author and editor in the field, with 15 novels, 20 anthologies, and more than 400 short stories to her credit, Tyler here assembles her very best short fiction. In Exposed, she spotlights women exploring their most vulnerable erotic moods and moments, often filigreed with humor and a BDSM slant. These stories cover the span of her career, from her first published effort ("Untouched") to her latest ("Well-Trained").

Sawyer Beckett is at it again! That baby, whose Mama gave him all that drama? Well, she's all grown up and ready to date! And Sawyer is not happy about it. So he's written another guide, full of "helpful advice", for all the horny lil' punks that think they stand a chance of getting near his angel Presley.

"...I managed to open the door and get up inside the cab. It had a soft leather seat and the seat felt so good that I knew if I didn't fight it I would soon be asleep." A brutal personal treatise on the need for work, even the most menial - and the need for dignity.

Bukowski goes off the rails as the best man at a wealthy Hollywood "zen wedding" with his singular viewpoint and sharp insights. He's the only one to bring a gift, and the only one to demand the Zen Master's ears in return. "The rich understand; they just don't do anything about it."

A short story from The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories. "In 1955, at the age of 35, Bukowski was rushed to the charity ward of the Los Angeles County hospital, hemorrhaging at the bright red climax to a 10-year drinking bout." ( Pop Matters) Upon his survival and recovery, Bukowski began a writing career that would change American poetry and prose as we know it. This is the story of the moment when his life hung by a thread, but spun something else quite unexpected.

Since chocolate couldn't cure her broken heart, creating the finest macarons and croissants this side of Paris would have to do. Who needed love anyway? Opening up Sweet Treats could have been the answer to all her problems - except all the problems she'd run away from in Paris followed her, via a first-class ticket and wearing rugged jeans. It didn't help that he made the best chocolates she'd ever tasted, either.

Knowing what she wants and how to get it is Kerrie's specialty. She is, after all, a lawyer. But the game plan changes when it comes to men. Losing control is never an option, so when her blind date disregards her long list of "wooing" requirements and does what he pleases, she discovers it's not only exactly what she's always desired, but also what she's always needed.

NoHo is about living in the shadows of the famous. Meet Charlie and his would-be-star sister, Cassie, in Hollywood. Discover the Wisdom Tree and family #5. NoHo reveals the devotion of mothers and sons who overcome monsters.

Vancouver is the story Paul would tell if he were living in plague times - a story that comforts, a story that wards of evil. His story is about the giant that influenced his life, it's about the day the world changed, and it's about what happens when our giants come tumbling down.

Brought together at the start of the London social season, Lady Georgina and Lord Vane are immediately at odds. The Lord’s cool countenance annoys Georgina to no end, while Lord Vane has no desire for his orderly routine to be upended by the passionate Lady Georgina. Forced together while under quarantine, will they overcome their mutual dislike? Are they destined to be at each other’s throats…or lips?

Buk's vignette, based on conversations between a drug dealer and his young daughter, follows unquestionable childhood logic about family, love, and making ends meet on the other side of the law.

Every once in a while, it's time to put yourself first...right? Except in her family she always comes last. Lauren Summers is the stable sister, the one who runs the family company while her sisters take off and travel the world. One weekend a year she hides herself away and mourns a love she lost six years ago. That weekend is now, except she's being whisked away to a mysterious island despite her protests.

When Eden Carver, Iowa farm girl turned NY actress, decides to seduce the sexy cop next door, she begins to wonder if she's bitten off more than she can chew. The last thing Officer Jay Bennett wants is to cross a line with the sweet and innocent country girl - no matter how much he'd like to help himself to a nibble. Not only are they in the friendship zone, a nave girl like Eden doesn't belong in his dangerous world.

Nicholas Dowling's mail-order bride is not what he'd hoped for - she's too young, too delicate, and far too superstitious for a pragmatic man like himself. But not even Brianna's untamable spirit can't cast a shadow over her luminous beauty, and before long the blaze of their attraction grows into something neither one of them was expecting.

Nitya, a single child ignored by her parents, makes an unlikely friend - a boy with a strange power who has mysteriously manifested in her room. Nikhil creates a replacement for his dead mother - a clay doll that has her likeness. Things take a bizarre turn when his clay mother starts communicating with him. Nihar, a teenage orphan, has walked a long way to seek shelter in an orphanage he has heard a lot about, unaware that it is the house of a terrifying secret.