Short Stories

Hit the jackpot with stories from Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Walter Mosley, Alexander McCall Smith, and more superstars of mystery.

A brilliant collection of short stories by some of Russia's best writers.

The first three fun, fast-paced Roy Ballard mysteries, now in a single box set. This audiobook includes: Gone the Next, Get Busy Dying, and If I Had a Nickel.

More than any writer before or since, Louis L'Amour brought the American West to life. His action-packed stories deal with eternal themes: honor, deceit, passion, betrayal, loyalty, courage, love. His settings are historically accurate, his prose riveting, and his characters colorful: good guys, bad guys, toughs, roughs, sidekicks, and saints.

Some of the world's finest short fiction has originated in and continues to flow from the cities, villages, rivers, forests and plains of Bengal. This selection features 21 of the very best stories from the region.

Learn French with Short Stories is your passport to mastering French while enjoying the adventures of Clara. This book is not just a language guide; it's a gateway to experiencing the vibrancy of French culture and language through enthralling narratives.

The internationally acclaimed author of The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury is a magician at the height of his powers, displaying his sorcerer's skill with 21 remarkable stories that run the gamut from total reality to light fantastic, from high noon to long after midnight.

Acclaimed author of The Adults Alison Espach’s short story "In-Depth Market Research Interviews with Dead People" is an at-once hilarious and heart-breaking portrait of a dead woman’s marriage and the Volvo that stood in the middle of it all.

Havana, 1939: It’s opening night at the famed Tropicana nightclub. Cuban American college student Natalie Trainer, on vacation from Miami, is watching from the sidelines—as usual. Then comes an invitation to dance from a handsome stranger named Antonio. Normally cautious and reserved, Natalie somehow finds herself saying yes. A tiny thrill of rebellion, of taking a chance, and Natalie’s in heaven. Will her first step into this unfamiliar realm set a new course for her life, or only tonight?

He believed shadow casters were extinct. Now he’s sworn to protect them. Cylos dreams of the old days from his father’s stories, when the legendary shadow casters defended the world. But it’s been over twenty-five years since the Purge, and he’s convinced casters are little more than fairy tales… and without their protection, Malgar is descending into chaos. But after he strikes an unlikely friendship with an old hermit in the mountains above his village, Cylos makes a shocking discovery: shadow casters are still alive.

In Kharkiv, mysterious eyes sprout from the walls of buildings as the Russian invasion of Ukraine intensifies. A cynical spacefarer on a paradox-chasing mission confronts an ancient star—and the limits of human understanding—while his sentient navigator may know more than it’s letting on. A man mistakenly receives a letter meant for another drawing him into the world of a lost tribe who believe writing itself is a sin against God. In Raghast, a civilization of rats grinds to a standstill every three months as the breeding instinct throws them into chaos.

Did you ever wish you could tell a story that leaves others spellbound? Storytelling teacher and champion Margot Leitman will show you how! With a fun, irreverent, and infographic approach, this guide breaks a story into concrete components with ways to improve content, structure, emotional impact, and delivery through personal anecdotes, relatable examples, and practical exercises.

Heaven and hell are at war, with Earth as their battleground. For time immemorial, humans have been their playthings. But not anymore. I was just a regular guy until I tapped into the primordial power of humanity known as the Archon System. Now, I have powers humans were always meant to have.

After more than a decade, the handsome amateur detective Xavier Kilgarvan has returned to Winterthurn just in time to see the fifth young woman’s body carried from Devil’s Half Acre. A brutal fiend has left her mutilated body in this desolate plot of land filled with hulking boulders, quicksand, and twisted trees. Can detective Kilgarvan discover the forces motivating the mysterious “Gentleman Suitor” who has lured five innocent women to their deaths?

After 25 years serving as the human Monitor of the Interstellar Ark, Hermes, Orion is scheduled to be placed back into hibernation with the other crewmembers. Knowing he'll die there and be replaced before the ship's voyage is over, he decides that he won’t — can’t — accept that fate. Whatever it takes, Orion will escape Hermes and see what's beyond, even if it means defying the regulations of his only friend — the ship-wide artificial intelligence known as Dan.

The Classic Anne of Green Gables Collection: 6 of the 8 Books in the Beloved "Anne Shirley" Series + 2 Avonlea Short Story Collections, contains: Book 1: Anne of Green Gables, Book 2: Anne of Avonlea, Book 3: Anne of the Island, Book 4: Anne's House of Dreams, Book 5: Rainbow Valley, Book 6: Rilla of Ingleside, Book 7: Chronicles of Avonlea, Book 8: In Further Chronicles of Avonlea.

The Festival is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft written in October 1923 and published in the January 1925 issue of Weird Tales. The story was inspired by Lovecraft's first trip to Marblehead, Massachusetts, in December 1922. Lovecraft later called that visit "the most powerful single emotional climax experienced during my nearly forty years of existence."

Explore the brilliant and captivating mysteries of Lord Peter Wimsey, one of literature's most iconic detectives, in this collection of Dorothy L. Sayers' first five novels. With wit, intellect, and a flair for solving crimes, Wimsey navigates through high society and dark secrets in these classic tales.

In this series we listen to short stories that are NOT by perhaps the most well-known author of this type. But the many other rich talents in the volume may have treated the subject matter a little differently, or were perhaps just overlooked in the stampede to applaud the winner, but these authors are of equal merit.

Improve your French skills and grow your vocabulary with these 10 entertaining French short stories!