Short Stories

This is your friendly purveyor of smut, Rayna. I’m so glad to be back with another anthology of the best erotic stories of the year. I received so much generous feedback from last year’s anthology, and I’ve integrated a lot of your thoughts into this new volume.

Engaging and Uplifting Short Stories for Seniors is more than just a book—it’s a heartwarming time capsule designed to transport Baby Boomers and seniors back to cherished decades. Each story is long enough to immerse you in the lives of its characters while remaining short enough to listen in one sitting.

Kitty Norville is everybody's favorite werewolf DJ and out-of-the-closet supernatural creature. Over the course of eight books, she's fought evil vampires, were-creatures, and some serious black magic. She's done it all with a sharp wit and the help of a memorable cast of werewolf hunters, psychics, and if-not-good-then-neutral vampires by her side. Kitty's Greatest Hits not only gives listeners some of Kitty's further adventures, it offers longtime fans a window into the origins of some of their favorite characters.

Havana, 1939: It’s opening night at the famed Tropicana nightclub. Cuban American college student Natalie Trainer, on vacation from Miami, is watching from the sidelines—as usual. Then comes an invitation to dance from a handsome stranger named Antonio. Normally cautious and reserved, Natalie somehow finds herself saying yes. A tiny thrill of rebellion, of taking a chance, and Natalie’s in heaven. Will her first step into this unfamiliar realm set a new course for her life, or only tonight?

Thrilling short stories featuring fan favorite characters from the beloved High Republic series each written by a New York Times bestselling author.

Join best-selling authors Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, and Peggy Ehrhart for a collection of the coziest Christmas capers! Everyone dreams of a picture-perfect small-town Christmas, but when murder is in the cards, some holiday greetings are addressed to kill....

Even a city that boasts three hundred days of sunshine a year has its sudden, often violent storms—and writers have long taken advantage of that metaphor. Renowned authors Katherine Anne Porter, Jack Kerouac, Stephen King, Rex Burns, Robert Greer, Michael Connelly, and Kali Fajardo-Anstine—among many others—have brilliantly portrayed this picturesque but often merciless city. Today, Denver is home to a thriving literary scene, with writers of all stripes finding inspiration in its people and streets. The authors and stories featured in Denver Noir are no exception....

The Akashic Noir series’ forensic study of Southern California sharpens its focus on one of Los Angeles’ most recognized neighborhoods.

Ever since Alana Diaz adopted her cat Furrari, she has found herself in a feud with her infuriating neighbor, whom she knows only by the name on the passive aggressive notes he leaves on her door - R. Jones. Alana works hard all day, and the last thing she needs when she finally relaxes on her balcony with a glass of wine and her new furry roommate is her neighbor’s dog barking his head off.

Learning Portuguese is a tough challenge, no doubt about it. The rich vocabulary and complex grammar can be discouraging when you are taking your first steps into the learning process. The goal of this book is to teach Portuguese in the most effective way possible. This audiobook adopts a semi-communicative method: the storytelling approach. Telling stories is an effective educational tool because learners become engaged with the narrative and, therefore, remember the story and vocabulary associated with it, effortlessly, as well as making it easier to recognize sentence patterns.

Brian was a book lover, always seeking the solace of dusty bookstores and the scent of well-worn pages. His tastes veered towards contemporary fiction, but he couldn't resist the allure of antiquated shops filled with stories from ages past. Fate intervened on one such visit when a seemingly ordinary book tumbled from a shelf and struck him, becoming slightly damaged in the process.

Jane Austen wrote Love and Friendship (originally spelled Love and Freindship [ sic]) when she was just 14 years old. The three notebooks that contain her early works, including this story, are currently on display at the Bodleian Library and the British Museum. Taking the form as letters written by the heroine to the daughter of her friend, this story resembles a fairy tale that lampoons the conventions of romantic stories at the time.

Margaret Atwood has established herself as one of the most visionary and canonical authors in the world. This collection of fifteen extraordinary stories—some of which have appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine—explore the full warp and weft of experience, speaking to our unique times with Atwood’s characteristic insight, wit and intellect.

We are being watched. That this statement no longer shocks is itself shocking. Post-Snowden, we know that the government - everywhere - has been reading our emails, listening to our phone calls, and watching whatever we do on the Internet. The only thing concealed is the nature of our watchers. In Watchlist, some of today's most prominent and promising fiction writers from around the globe respond to, reflect on, and mine for inspiration the surveillance culture in which we live.

Myrtles Plantation is actually a bed and breakfast, and you would not be surprised to know that it is haunted. Reports say that it is the scene of at least 10 murders, and a lot of paranormal activities are occurring since it's establishment - and why not? It has been built on a burial site. Perhaps the most notorious item, for the guests that is, is the mirror. Guests relate that they often see figures there...lurking. At times they report that child hand prints suddenly become visible. People believe that those figures were of Sara Woodruff and her children.

Edgar-award winning author Dana Stabenow is best known for her Kate Shugak novels, but the unifying protagonist of almost all her writing - be it crime, fantasy, horror, or science fiction - is Alaska. This genre-spanning collection of 16 short stories features familiar characters like Kate and Jim, Liam and Wy, and Bill and Moses, but also ranges farther afield than many listeners will expect.

In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humor, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression.

From sorcerous bridges that link worlds to the simple traditions of country folk; from the mysterious natures of twins to the dangerous powers of obligation and contract. Laden with perils for both the adventurous and the unsuspecting, magic is ultimately a contradiction: endlessly powerful but never without consequence, and rigidly defined by rules of its own making. Award-winning Jonathan Strahan brings together some of the most exciting and popular writers working in fantasy today to dig into that contradiction.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by “the seminal and venerated mystery pulp magazine” ( Booklist).

Before he was the Nowhere Man, Evan Smoak was a highly trained government operative known to a few as Orphan X. But he now lives by hiding in plain sight, keeping his head down and his eyes clear. So when a local summer intern for a tabloid news site finds herself trailing an aggressive reporter into a crime zone, things go terribly awry. The only person who can help her is a man with the background and the skills of the Nowhere Man.