Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Suspense

A brilliant short story demonstrating how a truly balanced set of dilemmas can allow a reader to conclude two different endings. In this case a young man is faced with two doors. One holds a door with a ferocious tiger. The other? A beautiful lady whom he would immediately marry. The struggle comes not so much in defining a choice, but the reasons that brought the young man to the choice, and who helps him make the choice.

Commander Scott McNabb and the remaining crew of the ill-fated Hermes survey ship, journey to Earth to an area formally known as death valley, now an irradiated wasteland. Their mission is to connect the quantum intelligence, Athena, into the pan-solar communications network, enabling the QIs to rollback control of Earth by the seven and their AI servants. But their shuttle is damaged as it enters Earth’s atmosphere and it lands far from their intended location.

Hugo Ross is perfect for the job as irascible inventor Ambrose Minstrel’s new secretary: young, completely inexperienced, and with an occasional stutter that makes him seem somewhat dim—a mug, in fact. But from his first day, odd things begin to happen. A stranger offers him an absurd amount for an ordinary pair of field glasses; soon, the written offer is stolen from his room. A lovely girl he runs into in the dark one night outside his new employer’s house warns him not to take the job.

As a mute, burly German peasant is helping British soldiers move a fallen tree, he's struck on the head. When he regains consciousness he calls out to the astonished Major Manning, using his nickname "Monkey"—in perfect English.

The Beetle tells the tale of an evil, ancient Egyptian spirit seeking revenge on an up-and-coming British politician, Paul Lessingham. The shape-shifting creature that pursues Lessingham is possessed of hypnotic powers and takes different forms, both male and female, as well as morphing into a beetle - a figure that induces terror in its victims.

Amabel Grey, a widow with a modest income, needs money. Fast. Her spoiled daughter Daphne has an opportunity to go with friends on holiday, and she's convinced it will end with a lucrative marriage proposal. But where to find 200 pounds? She overhears a client requesting the lawyer find someone to live in his Dower House for six months. The stipend is 200 pounds! And she knows the house, having visited 20 years before. The catch? Previous tenants have been driven away by strange happenings, and the village is convinced the place is haunted. The owner wants the rumors to stop.

In this classic Hawthorne short story set in the late 18th century, the ambitious young scientist Aylmer cannot bear the fact that his otherwise flawlessly beautiful wife Georgiana bears a tiny birthmark on her cheek, an imperfection that he believes his scientific methods can cure. Devoted wholeheartedly to her husband, Georgiana allows Aylmer to work his scientific wonders upon her, so that the blemish no may no longer torment him. But tampering with nature can prove a fearful business....

An errant encounter with a passing star has flung Earth away from its old Solar System into the dark and cold of deep space. With the entire atmosphere frozen as chemical snow dozens of feet deep, one last family struggles to survive. But what are they to think when they see figures moving in the city ruins? Are Earth's dead coming back to life?

Sir John Waveney has inherited Waveney Hall. A veteran of the Great War himself, his inheritance has come because of the deaths in action of his two distant cousins, leaving him as the next male heir. He hopes to make the acquaintance of his two remaining cousins, Lady Jenifer Marr and Anne Belinda. But Lady Marr proves very vague about her twin sister's whereabouts. Is she traveling with a friend or (as has been intimated) has she been incarcerated in a mental institution? No one seems to actually know, and several people seem bent on frustrating John's attempts to find her.

The survivors of the shipwrecked 18th century vessel Glen Carrig fight for their lives amidst a vast continent of weeds. Mysterious wrecks, horrific monsters, and swashbuckling adventure!

Thirty years ago, a progressive rock band called The Yellow Kings began recording what would become their first and final album. Titled The Final Reconciliation, the album was expected to usher in a new renaissance of heavy metal, but it was shelved following a tragic concert that left all but one dead.

It is a black Chinese cabinet decorated with figures that once ignited little Chloe Dane's imagination. It was in the drawing-room of her family home, Danesborough. Later, it held secrets that shamed and sickened her. Poor but honest Chloe hasn't been to Danesborough for years and believed she was the last of her family. So when a distant cousin introduces himself and declares that she will be his heir, she finds herself in the huge house again. And she wants none of it.

A man is found dead in the study of his New York City house and Detective Gryce is called upon to deduce the how and why of his murder - if it is indeed a murder. With the assistance of Miss Amelia Butterworth, Gryce must investigate the meaning of the meager clues, including the cries of a talking bird, in order to uncover what happened to the victim. Solving this crime will involve several generations of two families. Author Anna Katharine Green was often referred to as "the mother of the detective novel" and was an early influence on Agatha Christie.

The Trial by Franz Kafka, narrated by award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti, begins like a nightmare - only K is awake, and he is being arrested and indicted on charges he never learns. He is caught up in a legal system that will destroy his life. This is a text that often is used in English classes because it is so deep. Kafka attacks the norms of society, religion, and the legal system.

Elizabeth Bell runs a quiet household, with no family and no more than the usual number of servants. She passes her time thinking about crime and working on her biography of a relative. When a young cousin comes to stay, life in the house becomes uncharacteristically lively. First, cousin Judy burns a hole in Miss Bell's desk. Next, they spy a burglar on the staircase—a shadowy figure who vanishes without a trace. And finally, Sarah, the nurse, takes the dogs for a walk and never returns. She is found savagely murdered, and she will not be the last to die.

This classic collection of macabre tales, one of 10 such anthologies by Algernon Blackwood, was first published in 1916. It includes, "The Empty House", "A Haunted Island", "A Case of Eavesdropping", "Keeping His Promise", "With Intent to Steal", "The Wood of the Dead", "Smith: An Episode in a Lodging-House", "A Suspicious Gift", "The Strange Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York", and "Skeleton Lake: An Episode in Camp".

Twelve years on from the events of The Three Hostages, Sir Richard Hannay begins to fear that his idyllic existence with his family in their Cotswolds home is a little too comfortable, merely the placid acceptance of encroaching old age. But then echoes of a past adventure during his days in Africa, and an old oath to protect the son of the man whom he saved then, draw him—along with son Peter John and old friend Sandy Clanroyden—into new danger, and a showdown on the remote Island of Sheep....

Rachel Innes, a middle-aged spinster, has barely settled in at the country house she has rented for the summer when a series of bizarre and violent events threaten to perturb her normally unflappable nature. A strange figure appears briefly in the twilight outside a window. At night, a rattling, metallic sound reverberates through dark halls, and - most disconcerting of all - the body of a strange man is found lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of a circular staircase.

Two children savagely stoned to death in the California desert. Top employees of a US defense contractor dying at an alarming rate. A cryptic message sent by a strange, secretive source warns the contractor’s products have been corrupted and could be used against the US Armed Forces. They all seem to be connected. But how? Only two men on earth are capable of putting it all together; those men are Jack Wilder and Jeff Bradshaw, two of the greatest special-operations forces soldiers who have ever lived.

Two children savagely stoned to death in the California desert. Top employees of a US defense contractor dying at an alarming rate. A cryptic message sent by a strange, secretive source warns the contractor’s products have been corrupted and could be used against the US Armed Forces.