Showing results for "Amazon" in Anthologies & Short Stories

It looks like just another gray March morning in the tough urban district nicknamed Nowhere when seven lives converge. Any one of them could have a dark motive. Any one of them could be walking into a trap. When the fog lifts, it will all be much clearer - that a single, shattering act of violence has marked each of them forever.

In this explosive short story, international bestselling author Jeffery Deaver brings listeners a classic tale of star-crossed lovers who defy the boundaries of enemy territory. When an underworld kingpin gets taken out, his prime turf is up for grabs. For Irish crime lord Brendon Nagle and archrival John Yung, head of a forty-man tong, it’s war. For Nagle’s son, Andrew, and Yung’s daughter, Loi, it’s love at first sight. But others are watching as their secret love unfolds.

Swan is a tattoo artist new to a community in the California desert when a mourning desert dweller named Kurt requests a tribute tattoo to his dead wife. Swan agrees, but the locals warn her: don’t indulge Kurt in his tragic memories. No wonder. As Kurt returns for more tattoos, the truth about his wife’s death begins to emerge in the ink. And it isn’t pretty.

After years of traditional treatments and therapies, Derrick still suffers from pain ineluctable enough that it has become his identity. Then he hears of an exclusive, very private New York clinic that promises relief. It comes highly recommended by a friend. The multisession remedy unfolds as a sensorial wonder that’s so illuminating it’s enough to bring tears to Derrick’s eyes. It’s all working so well. So unexpectedly well.

Thirty-four years ago, on October 31, poor Hannah Talbott took part in a scavenger hunt gone violently wrong. The mean girls made sure of it. To this day, for a haunted local mother, the most unsettling Halloween costume of all is an urban legend they call Hannah-Beast. It’s a reminder of the past she can’t forget. Especially tonight when it’s come back, so close to home.

While renovating her Victorian home, Ana Clementine finds an ornate door buried under forty years of earth. Once she restores it to the attic, she starts hearing whispers, her loving husband has become a stranger, and her baby daughter learns a chilling new word. Maybe Ana has unlocked the house’s secrets. Or maybe she’s becoming just a little unhinged herself.

It’s bad enough that its venom-dripping chelicerae can slice through flesh like warm butter. Worse? It’s right there under the bunk. It’s a fact now. To make it through the night, the children must obey the rules: don’t get out of bed, stay out of the shadows, and don’t wake the beast. But as the threats multiply, so do the rules of survival. And with the safety of dawn still hours away, the fun is just beginning.

Poison-tongued film critic Reginald Wright is known for his creative insults and intolerance for the garbage culture, insufferable rudeness, and thoughtless racism of predictably common people. Now, against his better judgment, and with a marriage in crisis, he’s attempting a getaway in the Poconos that quickly fulfills his every low expectation. In fact, it’s becoming a nightmare. And that’s just what Reginald needs to wake up.

It’s the hottest winter on record, but Raymond’s demanding, bedridden mother doesn’t mind. She likes it warm. Lately, however, control over the thermostat has become a nasty struggle. And each morning that she’s still alive is a suffocating new challenge for Raymond. How high can the mercury climb before he boils over?

Their captivity was traumatizing. And draining. But revenge is in the blood for a group of brave survivors in this chilling short story of conspiracies and youthful pleasures gone awry.