Short Fiction Collection

Hey, did you hear the one about the man who dropped a lit cigarette into the toilet with some gasoline-soaked rags? Of course you did, it happened to your gym teacher's cousin. Or was it your cousin's gym teacher?

This superb collection of larger-than-life folk heroes aptly represents America’s robust early days, perfectly capturing the vitality of the men and women who carved a new country out of the North American wilderness. Author Mary Pope Osborne supplies a fascinating introduction to each tale and then gives her own original twist to the telling of it. Scott Snivley takes the listener on a wild ride from sea to shining sea in this classic collection, which includes Davy Crocket, Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind, Johnny Appleseed, Stormalong, Mose, Febold Feboldson, Pecos Bill, John Henry, and Paul Bunyan.

Nebula Hearts Mates Chronicles is filled with sexy alien men who long to do everything for their woman, loving them in a way that would come from it. The women are strong, knowing it is possible what might come from it, and they are trying to do everything in their power to win their man over. Filled with lust, desires, and sex, everything falls perfectly into place. Each story in this series is standalone and can be listened to in any order.

#1 New York Times best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anthony Doerr brings his“stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) to selecting The Best American Short Stories 2019. Doerr and the series editor, Heidi Pitlor, winnow down twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

The Fogg River Seminary, a girls’ school in a small Illinois town, is supposed to be just another stop on Maryse and Vasyl’s endless travels. They’ve made lucrative use of Maryse’s “foreign” looks in their melodramatic séance act—and an act is all it is. Then, during their performance, a blizzard sweeps in and cuts them off from town completely. In the freezing halls, there’s a voice speaking the secrets of the dead, and Maryse has no choice but to listen…because this time, the voice is real.

Lust. Revenge. Greed. Hunger. Desire doesn’t care if you’re at the bottom of the ladder or the top of your game. Six masters of psychological suspense craft tales about people crossing moral lines in pursuit of their deepest desires. In these short stories, even the most mild-mannered characters can spin out of control when passion is at play. Hold on tight—there’s no turning back.

Eventually, all wallflowers will have their chance at love...this is where it begins. Lottie Hughes likes people, as long as they aren't too close. Does it bother her that no one asks her to dance? Yes, but she's not sure how to drum up dance partners when she has almost no dowry and no title, and freezes up when anyone tries to talk to her. Ellen might be beautiful and considered a diamond of the first water by Society, but she is so very tired of the pressure to marry a titled gentleman. Charlotte Winters is destined to spinsterhood until she turns down an unwanted proposal.

Many years ago, the storytellers say, the great King Arthur brought justice to England with the help of his gallant Knights of the Round Table. Sir Lancelot the Great: Of these worthy knights, there was never one so fearless, so chivalrous, so honorable, so…shiny as the dashing Sir Lancelot. Sir Givret the Short: Poor Givret: His size makes him so easy to overlook. But there’s more to knighthood than height. Sir Gawain the True The knights didn’t always act quite as gallantly as a true knight should. Even King Arthur’s nephew....

The Baker’s Creek Billionaire Brothers series is a romantic comedy saga packed with the perfect mix of angst, tears, and laughs. If you like strong heroines and alpha males, steamy romances, and witty love stories, this series is for you!

BD Anklevich brings you the second volume of his finest short stories. It's a collection filled with frightening, interesting, and engaging tales from the horror, science fiction, and fantasy genres. Stories like "The Battle of Ideas," where a writer's story ideas are embodied in his dreams and threaten to flee for greener pastures if he doesn't get his act together and put pen to paper to give them life, then he wakes with a bloody nose and a screaming headache. If he doesn't do something, he may well not survive the process.

In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals, set among young creatives in the American Midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness.

In his introduction, guest editor S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is “a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.” The stories in this collection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong.

Smart and sassy human women find true love with their alien warrior mates in this exciting sci-fi romance collection! This two-book omnibus includes the following titles: Pursued and Possessed. This binge-ready collection contains two full-length stand-alone sci-fi romance stories, featuring bronze-skinned alien warriors who will make you swoon. Each book in this thrilling and steamy series has no cliff-hanger, no cheating, and a happily ever after guaranteed!

I used to be a sensible, responsible good girl who kept her nose buried in textbooks and worked hard to make her father’s dreams come true. Then Keane happened. He was a crude, rude, ruthless Southie bully who only cared about his hockey career and pucking his way through a string of girls. I hated him and I thought he hated me, but then one unexpected spring break kiss changed everything.

Anthony Horowitz selects and introduces the best mystery stories from the past year, under the auspices of the world's oldest mystery fiction specialty bookshop.

The Smurfs enter a portal and navigate a strange new world, a clumsy Smurf gains his confidence to become a hero, Gargamel puts on a magic show that everyone’s talking about, and more in this audio collection of stories featuring small blue characters with big personalities!

Giving up control to a lover and bending to his every erotic whim is the ultimate ecstasy for women who crave kink. The libidinous tales in Penthouse Variations on Submission explore the debauched desires of ladies who indulge their carnal appetites and reveal every delicious detail of their amorous adventures. Lifelong submissives and novice kinksters share their breathtaking tales of sensual surrender and passionate power plays.

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.

A collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction selected by #1 New York Times bestselling author and guest editor Jess Walter and series editor Steph Cha.

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together a selection of rare tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922. At a time when crime and thriller writing has once again overtaken the sales of general and literary fiction, Bodies from the Library unearths lost stories from the Golden Age, that period between the World Wars when detective fiction captured the public’s imagination.