Short Stories

A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer and series editor Heidi Pitlor.

The iconic duo find themselves swiftly drawn into a series of puzzling and sinister events: an otherworldly stone whose touch inflicts fatal bleeding; a hellish potion to unlock a person’s devilish psyche; a fiendishly clever, almost undetectable method of revenge and many more—including a brand-new Cthulhu Casebooks story.

From the Civil War-era south, to 1950's New York, to the present day's gritty cities and seemingly innocuous suburbs, the 18 stories in this anthology edited by the award-winning mystery writer Harlan Coben chart the complications - always surprising, sometimes deadly - that arise between lovers, dear friends, and even complete strangers coming together for a single, shocking encounter.

There's a body in a trunk; a dead girl's reflection is caught in a mirror; and one corpse is back from the grave, while another is envisioned in the recurring nightmare of a terrified eccentric. What's behind such ghastly misdeeds? Try money, revenge, passion, and pleasure. With multiple motives, multiple victims, and multiple suspects, it's going to take a multitude of talent to solve these clever crimes. In this inviting collection, Agatha Christie enlists the services of her finest - Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Parker Pyne.

This collection of 40 fairy tales contains well-known favorites from authors like the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Oscar Wilde, Charles Perrault, Madame de Beaumont, and Joseph Jacobs.

Louis L'Amour was the most decorated author in the history of American letters and a recipient of the Medal of Freedom. Now collected here in a single book are several of Louis L'Amour's finest Western stories the way Mr. L'Amour wrote them. At the time Louis L'Amour was writing, it was common practice for editors to rewrite the manuscript to fit certain publishing criteria. The text of The Strong Land has been restored, and the stories within it appear as Mr. L'Amour intended.

2057. Humanity has raised exploiting the solar system to an art form. Bella Lind and the crew of her nuclear-powered ship, the Rockhopper, push ice. They mine comets. And they're good at it. The Rockhopper is nearing the end of its current mission cycle, and everyone is desperate for some much-needed R & R, when startling news arrives from Saturn: Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, has inexplicably left its natural orbit and is now heading out of the solar system at high speed.

RJ Spencer is a lucky 12-year-old. He lives in the big city and his parents are landlords of the high-rise apartment building that is his home. The many tenants in the building, along with the endless possibilities of adventures in the city itself, are the perfect setting for the young detective as he sets out to solve every case he can get his hands on.

Trying to Save Piggy Sneed contains a dozen short works by John Irving, beginning with three memoirs, including an account of Mr. Irving’s dinner with President Ronald Reagan at the White House. The longest of the memoirs, The Imaginary Girlfriend,” is the core of this collection.

In "Airport Heaven" a lesbian couple enjoy role-play, while "Hen Party" involves two women who make their own entertainment when they get stuck on a dull weekend away. In "The Train Ride", two women are drawn to each other on a long journey, and "Backstory" explores what happens when a woman asks her boyfriend to get it on with another man. Finally, in "Office Politics", a feisty office worker gets more than a telling off when she's called to her female boss' office.

Though she cannot entirely discount the effects of the head injuries they were both suffering at the time, Mary Russell is delighted by Sherlock Holmes' proposal of marriage. After all, they have become partners in crime, and she has recently come into her inheritance: What remains but to confirm the union with her mentor-turned-partner with the piece of paper?

A thrilling horror short collection by Washington-based, emerging author Clay Vermulm. This collection of supernatural, paranormal, and cryptid tales will intrude upon your waking thoughts and disturb your sleep.

Anthony Horowitz selects and introduces the best mystery stories from the past year, under the auspices of the world's oldest mystery fiction specialty bookshop.

By all accounts, Lucy’s handled her divorce well. She’s finally in the cozy, plant-filled house of her dreams. And although she doesn’t fit in with the other divorcées—all busy looking for their next ex—she’s excited to get down to earth and savor the small joys of life. When Lucy meets Elle, a hip younger woman who shares her same passions, their connection is instant. Taking a chance on kismet, Lucy forges a friendship that fills her days with meaning. She and Elle are inseparable, from sunup to sundown, enjoying the immediate ease and familiarity of each other’s company.

This volume is the definitive collection of the best science fiction novellas published between 1929 and 1964, containing 11 great classics. No anthology better captures the birth of science fiction as a literary field. Published in 1973 to honor stories that had appeared before the institution of the Nebula Awards, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame introduced tens of thousands to the wonders of science fiction and was a favorite of libraries across the country.

A spiky, edgy collection of five wickedly funny stories spotlighting clear-eyed and “difficult” women who are navigating their identities as workers and women in contemporary Japan—a feminist, anti-capitalist modern classic published outside Asia and in English for the first time. The Dilemmas of Working Women is Fumio Yamamoto’s darkly witty look at modern Japanese women who are ambivalent about their lives and jobs

With 15 new and original stories, this first-of-its-kind anthology is inspired by the events of the original Aliens vs. Predators movies, graphic novels, and novels. Includes a new story written by Jonathan Maberry and Louis Ozawa (“Hanzo” from the movie Predators) as Hanzo’s brother faces the eternal threats of both the Yautja and the Xenomorphs.

This 1911 collection of thirty-three stories, selected and revised by the author from amongst his huge output of short fiction, includes tales of comedy, horror, monsters, and strange worlds. In his Introduction, Wells writes that the book brings together, “All the short stories by me that I care for any one to read again,” and that, “No short story of mine of the slightest merit is excluded from this volume.”

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?

Gathering four stories from four best-selling author friends, Invitation is the first collection in the ongoing Harbingers series. In "The Call" by Bill Myers, four strangers are drawn together to help a student at the mysterious Institute for Advanced Psychic Studies. His gifts are supposedly being honed to assist world leaders...but there are some very disturbing strings attached.