Short Fiction Anthology

Tony Black is the hottest surfer on the planet. He travels the world throughout the year and spends his summers on Cape Cod with his friends, at the Seaside cottages in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. He's got his choice of women, but Amy Maples is the one he wants. Fourteen years ago she was his for an entire summer, until a devastating accident changed everything, and what they had seemed like it had never existed - at least for her.

From over 3,000 considered stories published in the past year, this anthology contains the twenty best, selected by #1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham under the auspices of New York City's legendary crime fiction specialty store The Mysterious Bookshop. Included are tales of suspense, detection, and puzzlement that illuminate the diversity of styles contained under the "mystery" umbrella and highlight some of the greatest practitioners of the short form working today, with a blend of household names and lesser known writers no less worthy of your attention.

Last year, Night Shade Books unleashed The Book of Cthulhu onto an unsuspecting world. Critically acclaimed as the ultimate Cthulhu anthology” and a must read’ for fans of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos,” The Book of Cthulhu went where no collection of mythos tales had gone before: to the very edge of madness and beyond. For nearly a century, H. P. Lovecraft’s tales of malevolent Great Old Ones existing beyond the dimensions of this world, beyond the borders of sanity, have captured and held the imaginations of writers and aficionados of the dark, the macabre, the fantastic, and the horrible. Now, because you demanded more, anthologist Ross E. Lockhart has risked all to dive back into the Cthulhu canon, combing through mind-shattering manuscripts and moldering tomes to bring you The Book of Cthulhu 2, with even more tales of tentacles, terror, and madness.

Twenty-one tales ranging from horror to crime thriller, to science fiction, contemporary fiction to fantasy, and more. From stories a few days ago, to ones over 30 years old. All Hell Breaks Loose is the second book in a series collecting all of Armand Rosamilia's short fiction.

Family and babies abound during this fun-filled evening of love, laughter, and happily ever afters! Spend the evening catching up with our loving and loyal Bradens in this holiday celebration and fall in love all over again with each of the Bradens at Weston, and their children. A Very Braden Christmas is a novelette and part of the Love in Bloom big-family romance collection.

A hero without peer or scruples, Sam Gunn has a nose for trouble, money, and women, though not necessarily in that order. A man with the ego (and stature) of a Napoleon, the business acumen of a P. T. Barnum, and the raging hormones of a teenage boy, Sam is the finest astronaut NASA ever trained and dumped. But more than money, more than women, Sam Gunn loves justice—and he really does love money and women.

Louis L'Amour (1908-1988) is a world-renowned novelist and short-story writer noted primarily for his stories of the Western frontier. L'Amour was born in Jamestown, North Dakota, and led an active, world-roaming life as, among other things, a seaman, longshoreman, rancher, miner, lumberjack, and boxer before focusing on writing after World War II. L'Amour was awarded both the Congressional Gold Medal and the Medal of Freedom and is one of America's best-selling fiction authors.

Vitus Adamson is falling apart. As a pre-deceased private investigator, he takes the prescription Atroxipine hourly to keep his undead body upright and functioning. Whenever he is injured, he seeks Niko, a bombshell mortician with bedroom eyes and a way with corpses, to piece him back together. Decomposition, however, is the least of his worries when two clients posing his most dangerous job yet appear at his door looking for their lost son.

As a child, Henry Cadmus lived on Catalina Island, a scenic vacationland off the Southern California coast. But Henry's experiences were far from idyllic. Today, even though Henry has seen firsthand the horrors of war, the ghastly images that haunt his dreams are ones he associates with his childhood... and the island: a snarling pig-man holding a cleaver; a jackal-headed woman on a high balcony, dripping blood; strange occult rituals... and worse. If it was up to Henry, he would avoid the island entirely.

The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here. Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.

A tea shoppe along the coast of Maine is connected to a year's worth of mysterious deaths. Starting one winter day, Georgina finds the mayor poisoned by a plate of petite fours. That spring, Evie's favorite customer and recipe tester is killed. While out delivering scones for her summer job, Ashley discovers a crime scene to practice her student training in forensics. Against a backdrop of vibrant fall foliage, Ladessa discovers a corpse at table number four. How can one small shoppe's employees be connected to so many deaths, and will the business ever recover?

Moon, Jade, and other favorites from the Indigo Cloud Court return with two new novellas from Martha Wells, who continues to enthusiastically ignore genre conventions in her exploration of the fascinating world of the Raksura. Her novellas and short stories contain all the elements fans have come to love from the Raksura books: courtly intrigue and politics, unfolding mysteries that reveal an increasingly strange wider world, and threats both mundane and magical.

Actress Trish Ryder takes her job seriously, and has no time for those who don't. When she's awarded a major role in a new movie featuring America's hottest rock star, Boone Stryker, she's beyond excited. The six-two, tattooed hunk of burning desire, is known for his dedication to his craft - but when he ditches their first meeting, she begins to wonder if he's just another rocker with a great PR team.

Follow a core group of characters known as the Trailblazers as they use alien technology and knowledge discovered in Antarctic ruins to obtain limited immortality and lead Humanity out into the galaxy, encountering, befriending, and fighting hundreds of alien races, all the while desperately trying to prepare Earth for the unbeatable threat at the core of the Milky Way that is destined to return and reclaim their lost colony...and their former Human slaves.

As the early years of detective fiction gave way to two separate golden ages - of hard-boiled tales in America and intricately-plotted, so-called “cozy” murders in Britain - the legacy of Sherlock Holmes, with his fierce devotion to science and logic, gave way to street smarts on the one hand and social insight on the other, but even though these new sub-genres went their own ways, their detectives still required intelligence and clear-sightedness as characterized the earliest works of detective fiction: the trademarks of Sherlock Holmes, and of all the detectives featured here.

Here are all four novellas in Darcy Rose’s thrilling paranormal romance series: Eden, Mate, Bond, and Home.

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.

Dr. Heath Wild and Allyson Jenner only wanted a simple tryst. But Heath couldn't live with just one night, just one taste, of Ally - and Ally couldn't escape the memory of his hands on her skin, the way he looked at her like she was his obsession, or his seduction, which had pushed her to the edge and had made her want to do things she never had before.

This audiobook, read by Audie award-winning narrators, includes unabridged recordings of all Fyodor Dostoyevky's greatest works: 15 novels and novellas, 18 short stories, a short study of Dostoyevsky by Virginia Woolf, and two books of non-fiction - his Letters and European travel journal.

This engaging collection of short, heartwarming stories helps children recognize big feelings, manage tantrums, and discover positive ways to express themselves—all while winding down for a good night’s sleep. Through fun tales of dragons, monkeys, and other characters, kids learn simple emotional regulation tools they can actually use. Each story is designed to model coping skills like deep breathing, staying calm under pressure, and choosing kind responses instead of explosive ones.