Urban Short Stories

From the biggest names in urban fiction comes a collection of unforgettable stories of urban love and its consequences.

Perfect for fans of George Saunders, Karen Russell, Neil Gaiman, and Aimee Bender, Magic for Beginners is an exquisite, dreamlike dispatch from a virtuoso storyteller who can do seemingly anything. Kelly Link reconstructs modern life through an intoxicating prism, conjuring up unforgettable worlds with humor and humanity. These stories are at once ingenious and deeply moving. They leave the listener astonished and exhilarated.

A collection of Smith's apace adventure stories featuring Captain Volmar, including the never before published novella, "Red World of Polaris."

Featuring A Prelude to War, an Iron Druid novella. After an old friend is murdered in retaliation for his mercenary strikes against the oldest vampires in the world, Atticus O'Sullivan must solicit the aid of another old friend in Ethiopia if he's going to have a chance of finishing a war he never wanted. Meanwhile Granuaile MacTiernan starts a private war of her own against Loki, the lord of lies, and if it brings Ragnarok early - so be it.

William James is a man with a lot on his plate. Three years after a messy divorce, he’s renovating the dilapidated old house his wife let him have, working for a construction technology firm, and playing music in bars. But when he moves into a new apartment, he discovers a supernatural ability—he can see ghosts and raise the dead. With his ghostly roommate and two girlfriends, William embarks on a journey to explore the unseen world, build a new family, and learn to control his powers.

A fresh-faced newcomer arrives in an isolated, gang-run town and soon finds herself taking a job nobody else wants: bodyguard to a ghoul. Not just your average mindless, half-rotted shuffler, though. Lucille is a dancer who can still put on her own lipstick and whose shows are half burlesque, half gladiator match. But the stranger is no stranger to this particular ghoul. Both women are undercover in their own way. And both have something to lose if their connection comes to light.

The ancient Druid Atticus O’Sullivan gets more than greasy corn dogs and flat soda when he visits a carnival in Kansas to which his apprentice, Granuaile, drags him. He runs across a barker with a strange power over the crowd: attractive women leave their men and disappear into an unmarked tent, never to be seen again, and the men wander away, forgetting that they ever had girlfriends or wives. When Granuaile falls under the barker’s influence and enters the tent, Atticus isn’t about to forget it and move on.

From the world's number one best-selling writer - three pulse-pounding novels in one audiobook! This collection includes The Family Lawyer, Night Sniper, and The Good Sister.

One night in Lagos, two former friends reunite. Obinna is a dutiful and unsophisticated stay-at-home husband and father married to a powerful businesswoman. Eze is single, a cautious rebel from his university days whose arrival soon upsets the balance in Obinna’s life. In a world where men are constantly under surveillance and subject to the whims of powerful women, more than Obinna’s ordered and accustomed routine might be on the line.

These stories present electric messiahs, identity constructs, the Beatles, and even a nuclear Armageddon, which serve as comic foils for Lain's everyman characters. Here is an America where packets of Sea Monkeys arrive in the mail containing secret messages, and the girl next door can breathe underwater. With Last Week's Apocalypse, Douglas Lain arrives with a punch line and a warning.

What newly married couple doesn't dream of a romantic retreat where they can escape the world for a while - but what happens when supernatural forces intrude on their wedded bliss? Nine of today's hottest paranormal authors answer that question in this all-star collection of supernatural stories.

With characters arranged alphabetically - from the Ancient Pythoness to Bethany Zanelli - best-selling author Charlaine Harris takes fans into the future of their favorite residents of Bon Temps and environs. You’ll learn how Michele and Jason’s marriage fared, what happened to Sookie’s cousin Hunter, and whether Tara and JB’s twins grew up to be solid citizens. This coda provides the answers to your lingering questions - including details of Sookie’s own happily-ever-after…

A terrifying, thrilling collection of must-listen horror stories chock-full of nightmarish supernatural beings and the murderously disturbed that are sure to keep you up all night long.

With the same unforgettable and distinctive prose on display in his other books, Airtight Willie & Me is further evidence that Iceberg Slim was an expert at capturing the language of the streets. Always compelling, sometimes funny, and often bleak, Slim gives us six slices of city life that will leave you thirsting for more.

Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea is one of the most anticipated science fiction and fantasy collections of recent years. Pinsker has shot like a star across the firmament with stories multiply nominated for awards as well as Sturgeon and Nebula Award wins. In the baker's dozen stories gathered here, listeners travel to the past and future, and explore the weirder points of the present.

From best-selling authors Ilona Andrews, Yasmine Galenorn, Allyson James, and Jeanne C. Stein comes an anthology of four all-new novellas featuring powerful women who know how to handle a hex or two. In "Double Hexed" from Allyson James, a novella of the Stormwalker series, Janet and her friends find themselves locked in her hotel, victims of a hex cast by a very powerful sorcerer.

Anne Bishop's "darkly fascinating"* (SF Site) Black Jewel novels have enthralled readers and critics alike with their mixture of fantasy, intrigue, and romance. Now in Twilight's Dawn, Bishop returns to the Blood realm with four all-new captivating novellas.

For Unique, life is good until her dope-dealing boyfriend, Took, is arrested and winds up in jail. Now she's broke as a joke, trying to put every petty hustle into play to chase hard times away from the door. With an empty refrigerator, a stack of bills piling up, a tenth-grade education, a big butt and a smile, it doesn't take long for her to learn to pull the wool over the eyes of any fool who's blinded by her good looks.

When things go bump in the night, there's only one federal agency that stands between the supernatural and humankind...CERBERUS. C.E.R.B.E.R.U.S. stands for “Clandestine Enforcement and Reconnaissance Bureau, Extranormal Rampart Division of the United States”—the American law enforcement unit that was created to deal with all things magical and unexplained. Follow along as Deputy Marshal Tony Mendoza is inducted into the supernatural underworld by the shadowy agency and its enigmatic leader, Director Strickland.

My career as a realtor bored me, except for when I got to test my handyman skills. So, when I finally saved enough, I purchased the most rundown manor I could find. The problem? A few guests rest within its walls. Repairing the mansion is the challenge I craved, but a string of vandalisms keeps us on edge. Someone, or something, doesn’t want us living here. It turns out Sunnyside won’t be as peaceful as I expected.