Literature Short Stories

FBI special agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder go hunting in the shadows for dangerous truths in this new collection of original, never-before-published tales of The X-Files. Edited by New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry, Secret Agendas features heart-stopping stories by some of today's hottest writers of mystery, thrillers, science fiction, and horror.

Arthur Conan Doyle was the greatest genre writer Britain has ever produced. Throughout a long writing career, he drew on his own medical background, his travels, and his increasing interest in spiritualism and the occult to produce a spectacular array of Gothic tales. Many of Doyle's writings are recognized as the very greatest tales of terror. They range from hauntings in the polar wasteland to evil surgeons and malevolent jungle landscapes. This collection brings together over 30 of Conan Doyle's best Gothic tales

It’s Christmas, and Jenny Checkland is beset with problems. The vicar, who really should know better, has asked to borrow Marilyn the donkey for the nativity play, thereby unleashing chaos on the already chaos-laden Frogmorton Farm. Will Marilyn survive her bath? Will anyone survive Marilyn’s bath? Robbed of her role as the Virgin Mary, what revenge is the angel Gabriel plotting? Why is that sheep so fat? Will Charlie ever get to say his one line? Can Marilyn be prevented from eating the baby Jesus?

Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where "Fun is Guaranteed!" But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. Photos soon emerge online of heads on spikes outside of rides and viscera and human bones littering the gift shops, breaking records for hits, views, likes, clicks, and shares.

Echo of Silence: In a deep-sea station, Tazia Nerif has found her life's work as an engineer, keeping things running smoothly. But she wants nothing more than to break down the barrier of silence between her and her telekinetic Psy station commander. Dorian: A changeling who can never shift lives a life of quiet frustration - until he learns how to let his leopard come out and play.

When Jules first meets the handsome artist Kirin, she’s still mourning her husband’s death, but a fairytale romance soon sweeps her off her feet. Now she and her daughter Scout are moving out of the city and into Kirin’s once-lonely mansion. He’s thoughtfully updated and adapted the home to match their personalities. But Scout is determined to keep her father’s memory alive by rejecting the new life her mother and Kirin have spun for her.

Welcome to Newford: to the music clubs, the waterfront, and the alleyways where ancient myths and magic spill into the modern world. Gemmins live in abandoned cars and skells traverse the tunnels below, while mermaids swim in the gray harbor waters and fill the cold night with their song. Come meet Jilly, painting wonders in the rough city streets; and Geordie, playing fiddle while he dreams of a ghost; and the Angel of Grasso Street gathering the fey and the wild and the poor and the lost.

A collection of classic works by Edgar Allan Poe, American author, poet, editor, and literary critic. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

This collection of 18 campfire stories include funny stories about farts and summer camp. There are spooky tales of graveyards, blood-red rivers, and stories about Bigfoot. There are true stories about being lost in Yellowstone National Park and an inspiring Native American legend of Tsali. There are scary tales to make your hair stand on end. The book also includes some urban legends which have been passed down from generation to generation. There are some tales that might make you jump out of your skin.

There’s never a dull moment with silly jokes just for kids! Forget being bored. That should never be a thing! Keep the fun and laughter going whether at home, on the go, or quite honestly…wherever! This book is overflowing with rounds of children friendly jokes!

From Hawaii at the turn of the twentieth century to the post - Civil War frontier, from smoggy Los Angeles to the woods of Idaho, these gripping stories trace the perils and occasional triumphs of lawmen and women who put themselves in harm's way to face down the bad guys.

Geralt the Witcher battles monsters, demons and prejudices alike in Sword of Destiny, the second collection of adventures in Andrzej Sapkowski’s groundbreaking epic fantasy series that inspired the Netflix show and the hit video games. Geralt is a Witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless hunter. Yet he is no ordinary killer: His targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent.

Whether the story is about a quick encounter of the erotic kind or it's just a fast and furious read, here is a pulse-pounding 25-story anthology, promising to take you on a headlong express to ecstasy. Join Selena Kitt on a swift, delightful ride, from stories of heart-racing sex in elevators or across office desks or in dressing rooms, to the impatience and excitement of the first time experience - you're sure to have a blissful ride on the these racing rapids of erotica!

A Selection of Short Stories by Leo Tolstoy read by Bart Wolffe.

Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change-the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens-while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy. In the amazing and much-lauded title story (the basis for the 2016 movie Arrival), a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her knowledge of alien languages and non-linear memory recollection.

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.

In these tales, Lord John vows to avenge a murder, investigates a terrifying "night-hag" on the battlefields of Europe, and discovers treason in His Majesty's ranks.

From Eliza Clark, the author of the brilliant novels Boy Parts and Penance and one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, comes a fierce, visionary and darkly comic story collection. A woman welcomes a parasite into her body. A teenager longs for perfect skin. A scientist tends to fragile alien flora. A young man takes the night into his own hands. Unsettling, revelatory, and laced with her signature dark humor, Eliza Clark’s debut short story collection plumbs the depths of that most basic human feeling: hunger.

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more - a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

Herman Melville’s tale of corporate discontent, Bartleby, the Scrivener, tells the story of a quiet, hardworking legal copyist who works in an office in the Wall Street area of New York City. The business where he works handles the official financial paperwork of wealthy men. One day, Bartleby’s employer requests he proofread one of the documents he has copied. Bartleby declines the assignment with the inscrutable “I would prefer not,” the first of what will become many refusals.