Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Anthologies & Short Stories

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.

After the violent, shadowy events surrounding his father's disappearance and his siblings' disbandment, Martín flees Mexico City with his wife, newborn son, and dog. Isolated and homesick in Madrid, Martín awakes one sticky, hot morning, quietly overwhelmed by the circumstances - his growing aversion to his son, the dog's sudden illness, and the vague unresolved danger from his abandoned homeland.

Thirty years hasn't changed Las Vegas - the desert just got dirtier. The biggest game in town centers on a massive, deadly roller coaster that winds its way through the Strip's most famous attractions. On the first Saturday of every month, twenty-four desperate passengers get strapped into the notorious ride and gamble with their lives in a twisted game of chance, to the thrill of webcast audiences worldwide. One of them will win, and one will die, but the other twenty-two will escape with nothing but their lives.

Anna Reuben intends to get out of Summer Breeze - the quaint seaside resort where she's just inherited a house - and back to the city as quickly as possible. The last thing she wants to do is stick around and dredge up old emotions about the mother who abandoned her as a child. But her plans are foiled by an encounter with Scott Murray, a sexy single dad and a neighbor and close friend of Anna's late mother.

Miss Prudence Canton loves her quiet life in the country, caring for her ailing father and their beloved horses. She's become adept at fending off the advances of gentlemen until a bold stranger named Lord Woodleigh makes a visit to the stables. For a brief moment lust takes over, but Prudence's father, and his gun, find them before things get out of hand. Now, in order to pay for those stolen kisses, Lord Woodleigh is forced to find a husband for the woman whose reputation he himself nearly ruined.

Not every crime is committed with intent, but each has one thing in common: The guilty party was asking for trouble. In "Making Ends Meet", Richard can’t stand the idea of supporting his deadbeat in-laws anymore, so he decides to remove them from his life - permanently. Matt is ready to reform his brawling ways, but the group he joins doesn’t turn out to be a typical 12-step program, in "The Taskmasters". "Protecting the Innocent" features Nick, who fails to heed the warnings of his girlfriend’s possessive brother....

Listen to a collection of classic stories by the world's most beloved writers. Here are the complete stories, unabridged, for you and your family to enjoy together this Christmas and for many Christmases to come. Family favorites and remembered treasures are in this collection, as well as a few light-hearted surprises.

In number-one New York Times best-selling author Charlaine Harris’s "Dahlia Underground,” venerable vampire Dahlia Lynley-Chivers survives an attack by an anti-vampire terrorist group, only to show them they tried to blow up the wrong bloodsucker. Bailey Ruth Raeburn, a ghost assigned to assist humans in trouble, steps into the middle of a marital dispute with surprising twists in Carolyn Hart’s “Riding High”....

In the seedy world of cockfighting, blade-enhanced winners slash their way to temporary victory while the losers end up in barrels to be fried and eaten. Nate's usual hard luck changes when "Graken" comes along. Graken is a strange creature who thrives on the fighting and never, ever loses. Now Nate and his new partner Jerry travel the cockfight circuit with the unbeatable beast, happy to let Graken show them the good times. But good times always have to end, and... Graken's gotta eat.

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.

When Mr. Rock, a professional assassin, is diagnosed with a rare disease that slowly turns his flesh to bone, he's forced into early retirement. Before he hangs it up, he takes on one last hit. But his stiffened trigger finger causes him to botch the job, landing him in the sadistic hands of his intended victim - the head doctor at the Cosgrove Extended Care Facility. Here the patients aren't kept alive so much as they're kept undead.

Now available in audio, originally published in the Boston Globe Magazine, a short story featuring award-winning author Linda Barnes’ feisty, redheaded, cab-driving, ex-cop private investigator, Carlotta Carlyle. On a great day to take in a ball game at Fenway, a seemingly harmless run-in with a familiar petty thief throws Carlotta into a wild chase through the park that turns up something far more interesting than the final score.

In a remote northern village, a close-knit community survives at the edge of the known world. On the far bank of the river that no one crosses lies an unnaturally straight road. Nothing ever grows on the road, and the curious heat emanating from its surface keeps it uncannily clear of snow and ice. Along this road, Aaron and his companions must travel. It is rumored that at the end of the road lies an object - the work of the devil - which is responsible for the untimely deaths of the villagers. The small band of men have volunteered to destroy this thing, whatever it is, at whatever cost.

In these funny, surprising, and touching stories, Gordon gets at the big stuff - art and religion, literature and madness, the supernatural, and the dark fringes of sexuality - in his own unique style, described by novelist Rivka Galchen as "Dashiell Hammett divided by Don DeLillo, to the power of Dostoyevsky - yet still pure David Gordon."

This previously rare, out-of-print collection is being republished with a new prefatory meditation by the author. Featuring Fowler's characteristic imagination, sly wit, and penetrating insight, Black Glass will be a welcome treat for fans new and old.

In this captivating collection from the Shaanxi region, considered the cradle of Chinese civilization, twenty disparate and unique voices come together to show a China caught between new-world advancements and old-world traditions. From the homeland of China’s first dynasty and the world-famous terra-cotta warriors, these tales show rugged rural life colliding with fast-paced city life; hollow arranged marriages juxtaposed with torrid forbidden love affairs; and the vanity of newly minted millionaires clashing with the desperation of the poor.

Nothing is what it used to be for our salesman narrator: not his family, not his commissions, not even the commuter jets that carry him from client to client. Having lost his top-of-the-heap status in his profession, he reflects on his new reality with a darkly comic perspective that resonates deeply with each of us who has desperately needed a new direction in life.

Sexy Alabama redneck Big Matt Carter is back home two years after hightailing it out of Possum Hollow on his Harley. Nothing seems to have changed. Well, nothing except for the preacher's daughter, Catie Ann Mason. Sweet Catie Ann has gone from little girl to all woman, and she is on a mission to make Big Matt hers. He isn't sure how to deal with the sexy new Catie Ann but finds himself wanting more, wanting forever.

When timber baron Reuben Burke finds himself at the seaside Hotel del Coronado - a forced vacation arranged by his siblings - he discovers he's forgotten how to relax. For the last ten years, he's been too caught up in raising his younger brother and sister and building up the family business in Seattle to have time for himself, much less romantic attachments. But a chance encounter on the beach with a young widow from San Diego puts his life on a new course.

Kate and Michael, twenty-something housemates working at the same Trader Joe’s supermarket, are thoroughly screwed when people start turning into zombies at their house party in the Oakland hills. The zombie plague is a sexually transmitted disease, turning its victims into shambling, horny, voracious killers.