Short Days

While some are nestled cozy in their traditions, others are lost in darkness. An unkindness of ravens lurk like a warning above them while they try to escape their inner demons and fight the dragons they've been trying to avoid. There's no enjoying fatal amounts of pie because their minds are slipping, slipping into a twisted delusion. They are the murderers, the disturbed, the unfortunate, and the misunderstood. These outliers are imprisoned by their circumstances until they slowly fade into the icy landscape, smothered by the forged façade of a perfect Christmas.

"When I was a young boy, I asked my grandfather how he proposed to his wife. He said that he showed my grandmother a magical moment." This is a fictionalized set of stories, loosely based on the memories of my father and the romance shared by his paternal grandparents.

Ambjorn and his wife, Jofrid, face death eye-to-eye when the peace of their home village is shattered. Thrown into a game where every move carries high consequence, every choice could be their last. But is it possible to win when playing against forces beyond your own comprehension?

"A Day at the Beach" is a story written by novelist Alfred C. Martino about a man overwhelmed by the stress of his job who reluctantly takes a day off to sit at the beach. There he meets a little boy who changes the man's perspective about enjoying the simpler moments of life.

Most Americans celebrate Halloween as entertainment. They go to haunted houses, put on by mortals to scare them, and trick or treat in their neighborhoods. They even have Halloween parties in their homes, but Count Drac Von Stoller's family celebrates Halloween like mortals do on Christmas day.

Brianna, still in Lottawattah, Oklahoma, is now being pestered by the ghostly ex-girlfriend of main squeeze Detective Cooper Jackson. The apparition won't move away from Cooper and towards the light until Brianna figures out who killed her. Volume 2 of the series, a novella, finds Brianna selling lake lots for a new resort, attending her boyfriend's high school class reunion where the guests aren't all of this world, and tracking down a killer (or two).

There is wreckage in the rearview. Jody Grafton's world is crumbling around him. To get away from it all, Jody moves from his native Ohio to Brooklyn to sort through the rubble of his self-indulgent 20s. His marriage is over. His new girlfriend is pregnant. And his career as a pseudo-famous singer-songwriter has fallen apart: gone is his record deal, his money, his fame - even his desire to create new music. While he stares at the ruins of his musical career, his mother becomes ill, and Jody starts drinking heavily.

Fifth story in a collection of interlinked tales of crime and retribution laced with dark humour, set around the festive season. There is never a good time to look upon the face of a dead loved one. But Mr Unwin has dedicated his life to helping the bereaved. While helping himself at the same time….

The final story in a collection of interlinked tales of crime and retribution laced with dark humour, set around the festive season. It’s Christmas Eve, but the criminals never stop working, so neither do the police. The raid is on... but things don’t go entirely to plan.

A charming story recounting the day of a little girl who goes on a shopping trip with her mum with some degree of reluctance!

A man in an insane asylum believes his handlers are lizard-people wearing human skin.

When Kris visited that psychic, she thought it would be fun. She thought the woman would tell her things that she wanted to hear: that there was true love in her future, that there was fortune, fame...but what she got was a dire warning. "The woman you kill will come back to you, asking for forgiveness. You must give it to her." But Kris would never kill anyone....

A woman gets a cursed tattoo on her hand. A crow. If she does something against "the rules" it pecks at her. At first the rules are easy. Don't eat this food. Can't use that color lighter.... But they've gotten worse. So has the pain from the bites.

Zoe and her best friends make a pact to wear a Christmas mistletoe headband until a man kisses them. It worked for Kara, and Zoe's next in line. Now it's Saint Patrick's Day. Zoe's met handsome Irish businessman, Carrick Kelly, but can she lay her heart on the line for someone who may be gone in a few days. Her job depends on Carrick signing a contract with her advertising agency, but he doesn't think much of her boss's ideas.

Welcome to the busy, industrial port city of Steamkettle Bay, the second-largest city in all of Industralia. It's filled with manufacturing factories, airship docks, inventors, artists, and lots and lots of streetwise, clever kids. It's a warm Saturday in the summer of 1872, and somewhere in Steamkettle Bay, bad things are happening. Can Paisley Pockets and Christopher Cogan stop a crime in progress? They may be just a couple of kids, but where there's a will, and some smarts, there just might be a way.

This delightful short story was the first work of Jules Verne to be translated into English by Anne T. Wilbur in 1852. Just as the balloon starts rising, a stranger jumps in with the intention of taking it as high as possible without regard to his own safety or that of the pilot. During the long journey, this mysterious passenger relates the historical background of the quest for lighter-than-air travel.

It was Mother's Day and Robert Allman tried to prepare for the occasion. Tradition held that when worshippers attended church on Mother's Day, those whose mothers were alive wore red roses. Those whose mothers were passed, like Robert's, would wear a white rose. However, after he could only find a red rose to wear, he never dreamed, not in a million years, what was in store for him.

Papa was a great storyteller, and his daughter wouldn’t settle for recycled tales. While Papa was not interested in telling stories he was badgered enough to come up with a whopper. Prepare to smile, and to wonder what it would really be like if it were Christmas every day - at least the way we often celebrate it.

This is a story from the Bliss & Other Stories collection.

A selection of short stories. 456 - Will the hunter become the hunted? A man pays the price for his arrogance Human Nature - An animal victim is given a voice in this tragic tale of animal cruelty Susan - A chilling tale of suffocating "love"; just when does devotion become obsession? Jarls of the Ocean - Will a warrior be judged as a hero? A fighter faces an epic adversary.