Christmas Short Stories Anthology

Charles Dickens created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognized him as a literary genius. After the success of A Christmas Carol in 1843 Dickens continued the series throughout the 1840s, maintaining what he called "the Carol philosophy" to "strike a sledgehammer blow" for the poor, uneducated, and repressed.

From an impoverished student riding the rails home to be with the love of his life for Christmas to a family donating their Christmas to help a struggling neighbor, this is a book of 16 stories on the power of the spirit of Christmas. We must recognize that the world is but a looking glass, reflecting back on us the kindness and charity we show one another.

It's Christmas Eve - a time of wonder, magic, anticipation....And terror. A father who will go to any lengths to feed his hungry children. An unsuspecting woman who inherits a house with a deadly secret. A murderous widow who shares a train carriage with Jack the Ripper. Two burglars who bite off more than they can chew, during a late-night raid. These, and many more bedtime stories, come hideously to life, in Mark L'Estrange's 19 tales of terror - each set on the most festive night of the year.

After the death of his brother, Robert not only becomes Viscount Landers but also gives up his army career and agrees to marry his brother's beautiful fiancé to ensure the succession. When he's snowed in for Christmas with his shrewish betrothed and her attractive but practical cousin, Eleanor Carlisle, Robert realizes he's engaged to the wrong woman. As the temperature plunges, the heat is on Viscount Landers to untangle the ties of duty and the wishes of the heart.

Single mom Meghan Shaunessy and her four-year-old autistic son Liam move to Heaven, Pa., for a temporary post as a special education teacher. Her parents were killed in a tragic car accident, and she wanted to be close to her sister; her only remaining family. Playboy bartender at Nick's Bar & Bistro, Byron Watts hides a deep pain from the casual hookups in his life. Grieving over the loss of his toddler son, he keeps things as fluid as the drinks he serves. Nobody will get close again. Byron lives above her in her new apartment and Meghan tags him immediately as a man like her ex.

Christmas, the happiest time of year. Plum puddings, candy canes, carols by the fireside. But outside, the mist lies deep and still. Frost gnaws at your fingertips. Shadowy forms lurk in the evergreens. It’s the season for ghost stories.

The beloved Victorian Christmas ghost storytelling tradition continues to thrive in modern day, and this multi-genre anthology of short stories is proof. Cuddle up next to a crackling fire with some holiday music playing softly in the background, and lose yourself in eight amazing Christmas stories by a gang of super-talented, cross-genre authors. Not only are they heartwarming, but they incorporate mystery, science fiction, romance and ghosts!

How can you enjoy Christmas when you are solely responsible for keeping everyone happy, including the neurotic budgerigar; when you are all alone, and likely to be so for the rest of your life; or when you are four years old, your mother is whisked off in an ambulance, and you're left with some very odd neighbours? Can opinions set in stone be melted by cosy knitwear? Does scrambled egg have aphrodisiac properties? Should angels have good grammar? What would Silas Marner the miser be like if he lived now? And where did Noel Streatfeild get her inspiration for all those footwear stories?

She's not the biggest fan of Christmas–which is akin to a major sin in the little town of Snowflake Hollow. And with a name like Holly White, it's fitting that she owns the only B&B in town. The whole season is a huge deal, and the people coming to stay at the B&B are paying a premium to get the ultimate festive experience. She's trying to keep the guests busy, but Hank the Handyman just broke his leg trying to hang the lights. Now she has to figure out how to make the holiday festivities happen all by herself.

Sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim. A Christmas Carol has never been out of print and has been adapted to film, opera, and other media.

CHRISTMAS IN SEATTLE It’s Christmas Eve, and jet-setting Ariella and her husband are in Seattle for an elegant party. After a steamy encounter on top of the Space Needle, Ariella enters the ballroom to discover that a menacing stranger has revealed a secret from her past to everyone in the room. Although Ariella puts on a brave face, her character is called into question by the very person she trusts most in the world: her sexy millionaire husband. When she finds herself out on the dark, rainy streets of Seattle on Christmas Eve, she is confronted with the possibility that her happily-...

A down-hearted woman gets a magical candy bar from a sidewalk Santa that transports her into an alternate reality in this enchanting tale of lost love and second chances from author Sandra Edwards.

In this collection are found stories of gay romantic love, the love between a father and his gay son, and old lovers returning from the beyond. There are stories within this book about a magical Christmas tree that appears of its own accord every year, angels, ghosts, and a century-old hotel that miraculously reappears during the holiday season. Most of the stories are written for gay listeners, but some are just cozy Christmas tales. There are stories in this volume for all true lovers of Christmas.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! And D.P. Conway has written four enthralling stories to warm your hearts and homes. In the spirit of Dickens, Conway brings notably his two best works, Twelve Days and The Ghost of Christmas to Come. Following with equal luster, and rounding out the Christmas Collection, are Starry Night and Nava. Start with any of the four, and you will find yourself quickly wanting to listen to them all.

Rumpole and the Health Farm Murder finds the corpulent barrister spending a most untypical Christmas at a health spa, where he is gloomily trying to survive on a not-so-festive diet of yak's milk and steamed spinach. He is soon enlivened, however, when a murder is committed and he is asked to represent the chief suspect. Bill Wallis reads this special seasonal story starring Horace Rumpole, scourge of all QCs and friend of the criminal classes.

Truman Capote makes whisky-soaked fruitcake in Alabama; Laurie Lee slides across a frozen pond in Gloucestershire; and Shirley Jackson is outwitted by a wily Santa Claus at the bank. Ghosts haunt the Christmases of Muriel Spark and Elizabeth Bowen, while Dostoyevsky, Daphne du Maurier and Italo Calvino take a cynical view of the season and Selma Lagerlof and Angela Carter celebrate its miracles. Ranging from Cork to Lagos to the Wild West, and from Paris to San Paolo to outer space, this is Christmas as imagined by some of the greatest short-story writers of all time.

At Christmas time department stores overflow with color and festivity, their halls bedecked with the trimmings of the season. In these 7 charming, memorable, and even magical Christmas tales retiree Tom Cavanaugh wanders the aisles of just such a store. Tom has made a tradition out of observing the marvels the Christmas spirit brings to each department and the people in them, from a jolly old maintenance man to testy last-minute shoppers to an exhausted salesclerk.

Nothing puts a damper on the Christmas spirit more than a fluffy white rooster named Sweetie. Reginald and his flock plot to serve the big bully a helping of humble pie with the aid of their fellow farm animals and some creative storytelling. Will they end up on Santa's naughty list? Or Martha's stewpot? And can they teach a humbug how to get along?

A vicar nailed to a tree in Yorkshire. The theft of a priceless artefact during a fire. A detective forced to tell the truth for 24 hours. A body hidden in a basement. From the restless streets of London to the wilds of the Lake District, displaying all his trademark humour, playfulness and clever plotting, this landmark collection brings together the very best of Reginald Hill’s short stories for the first time, complete with a foreword from Val McDermid.

Four dark tales of the holiday spirit. In "Christmas Eve Gift", Old Bill sets out on her annual Christmas Eve journey to her niece's house and encounters an unexpected darkness along the way. In "A Dark Christmas", Alice, a dark daughter of the vampire, Elizabet, turns the table on a family of hunters. In "On the 7th Day of Christmas", Sunny finally gets to throw a party, only a monster shows up and twists a small kink into her New Year's Eve festivities. In "Twelfth Night", A 13-year-old encounters the Woman with No Face for the first time.