Showing titles in Short Stories

Venture beyond the familiar and discover the fragile line between tranquility and turmoil in 12 gripping and unnerving short stories, masterfully crafted by Tove Jansson. From a professor stranded in a picturesque Spanish village to a holiday in Finland disrupted by an intrusive child, each tale unravels the unsettling facets of journeys that veer off course. Brilliantly evoking the shifting scenes and restlessness of summer, "Travelling Light" is guaranteed to surprise. Finnish-Swedish writer and artist Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is globally cherished for creating the Moomin universe.

In the enchanting world of hospitality, Drake, Adam, Talia, and Jason are some of the most influential in their profession. Success and luxury come with a price when deception is used as a stepping stone. How well does one really know their coworkers? Invited to attend a Friday meeting in the executive suite, the lights go out and the doors bolt shut. Trapped with no way to escape, the team has to encounter cryptic clues about their past indiscretions and darkest secrets. They either confess to their colleagues or pay the ultimate price.

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American Literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Siren's of Titan in 1959 and established him as ""a true artist""* with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared...

Few authors can claim to have marked a genre so thoroughly and personally that their words have leaked into every aspect of modern pop culture. Clive Barker is such an author, and the Books of Blood marked his debut - his coming out to the world - in brilliant, unforgettable fashion. Crossroad Press is proud to present Clive Barker's Books of Blood in digital for the first time.

A lowly government clerk, Akay Akakiyevich, must scrimp and save to purchase a new coat for the cold Russian winter in “The Overcoat”. But after one night of basking in the warmth of his new coat and the respect of his colleagues, Akaky’s one-of-a-kind overcoat is stolen. In his pursuit of justice, Akaky receives no help and is consumed by the loss of his prized possession. In “The Viy”, Gogol recounts a popular folk story in which a monstrous creature, known to Little Russia as the king of gnomes, helps a witch get revenge on a young student who escaped from her trap.

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.

The relationship between sleep and storytelling is an ancient one. For centuries sleep has provided writers with a magical ingredient, a passage of time during which great changes miraculously occur, an Orpheus-like voyage through the subconscious daubed with the fantastic. But over the last 10 years, our scientific understanding of sleep has been revolutionised. No longer is sleep viewed as a time of simple rest and recuperation. Instead it is proving to be an intensely dynamic period of brain activity.

Charles Dickens: The Short Stories Collection contains all of Charles Dickens' major published works of short fiction - written between 1836 and 1841. Narrated by award-winning readers David Timson, Nicholas Boulton, and Matt Addis, these stories take us from the hilarious to the heartbreaking, and give a deeper insight into Dickens' life and London in the mid-1800s.

Wedding Planner Ellie Moon is dreaming up the most beautiful bespoke wedding for Charlie and Daniel, owners of Cornwall’s favourite cream tea bus. Even though her own life has been turned upside down and she’s had to rent out her charming Cornish cottage with its climbing roses and lavender beds, Ellie is determined to give them a day to remember. Her new tenant, handsome Mechanic Jago, keeps popping up around the picture-postcard seaside village of Porthgolow.

In a remote part of 19th-century Afghanistan, two British adventurers pursue their ambition to rule an empire. Using betrayal, threats, and guns, they win the respect of a primitive tribe and become worshipped as gods until one day they draw blood, and the game is up. "The Man Who Would Be King" is an action-packed tale about the pitfalls of colonialism and the temptations and evils of power.

Benedict Cumberbatch reads five stories featuring the famous vegetarian railway detective, Thorpe Hazell, as heard on BBC Radio 4. In The Affair of the German Dispatch-Box, Hazell hatches a daring plan to retrieve a highly sensitive government document before it reaches the German Ambassador. In...

Ten short stories based on Lee Winter’s fierce and unforgettable ice queens and villains have been gathered into one anthology containing lesbian love, lust, friendship, and romance. Find out what happened after Lee’s stories ended, and in one case, before it began. Iconic characters revisited include Elena Bartell (The Brutal Truth), Elizabeth Thornton (Breaking Character), Monique Carson (Hotel Queens), Natalya Tsvetnenko (Requiem for Immortals), Catherine Ayers (The Red Files), and Cynthia Redwell (Under Your Skin).

Andrew Sachs reads these four classic stories of suspense - "The Signalman" by Charles Dickens, "The Haunted Doll's House" by M. R. James, "The Room in the Tower" by E. F. Benson, and "The Bus-Conductor" by E. F. Benson. These spine-tingling tales, from the golden age of the ghost story, are sure to leave you with a creeping sense of dread.

How much fear can your heart take? Your skin crawls. Something in the darkness growls. Paralyzed by fear, you can’t run, you can’t hide. All you can do is scream... Welcome to the terrifying world of Spine Chillers. This special collection brings together 15 delightfully dreadful tales of supernatural horror that are guaranteed to haunt your dreams and stalk your waking hours.

Traveling faster than light, the transport ship Redundancy is cut off from communication as effectively as an ancient ocean liner. The isolation suits crew member Ace Vance just fine—she’s got nowhere else to be. But when a wealthy passenger turns up dead during a routine voyage, Ace will have to connect with the passengers and crew to uncover the truth. Tragedy will strike again—it’s only a matter of time.

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter...

The Making of a Marchioness is Frances Hodgson Burnett’s delightful take on the Cinderella story. Born into an aristocratic family, Emily Fox-Seton is left penniless and must fend for herself after the death of her parents. Then one summer, everything changes. This audio edition is read by...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Andrew Scott, star of Sherlock, Fleabag and Black Mirror, also known for his on-stage roles in Present Laughter and Hamlet. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Terence Brown. Joyce's first major work, written when...

In this radical reinterpretation of six brilliant Arnold Bennett novels, it’s the 19th-century Midlands and over 10-and-a-half sweeping hours individuals rise and fall, they age, flourish, and try to keep up as the world around them changes into something unrecognisable, transformed by new technology. Fortunes are made and lost, hearts broken, empires built and deals made. These tales of aspiration and passion, damage and danger are told with Bennett's forensic, (journalist’s) eye for human psychology and a surprising degree of witty comedy.

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects more than 50 of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories - many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.