Dark Comedy Short Stories

Olivia Kraevitz may be known as the nosy neighbor, but she prides herself on her ability to gather information. When her eccentric neighbor, Vivian Johnson, stops retrieving her mail, it seems she and her son have vanished. Determined to uncover the truth, Olivia enlists her friends to explore Vivian's house. Brandy Looking, Vivian’s enigmatic caregiver, is an oddball in a neighborhood of eccentrics. Her pale makeup highlights blue dot tattoos on her forehead, connected by an arc between her brows. Brandy despises Olivia’s prying eyes, and soon, Olivia finds herself marked with blue ...

For sheer unpredictable brilliance, Gogol may come to mind, but no author alive today takes a listener as far as Helen DeWitt into the funniest, most yonder dimensions of possibility. Her jumping-off points might be statistics, romance, the art world’s piranha tank, games of chance and games of skill, the travails of publishing, or success.

This is a collection of the fourth six short stories in the Caverns and Creatures series.

Ever wondered what it's like to be born into a family of assassins? Gin Bombay knows, and now she's sharing her family's deepest, darkest secrets. The Bombay Family Bedtime Stories continue with My Heroes Have Always Been Hitmen! Four more family stories have been released from the vault, including Rio Bombay, wanna-be cowboy and wild west gunslinger; Caspian, the first Bombay to have to take out another Bombay; Aberdeen, the hoop-skirted Antebellum Assassin; and Dublin Bombay, the Scottish Viking Slayer! History is at its most hilarious as this darkly funny family tells all.

ROMANTIC LIES (BOOK 2) Five years after coming to New York for her cousin Emma's funeral, Abby has it all: the man of her dreams, a well-paying job, and a luxury apartment that she shares with her billionaire boyfriend. Little does she know that Liam has been keeping a secret from her...one that could ruin things forever. When he suddenly ends their relationship without any explanation, Abby's beautiful world comes crashing down. Her best friend, Isabella, gives her a clue that might explain everything, and Abby sets out on a journey to solve the mystery of why Liam left. What she discovers...

There's no one like Etgar Keret. His stories take place at the crossroads of the fantastical, searing, and hilarious. His characters grapple with parenthood and family, war and games, marijuana and cake, memory and love. These stories never go to the expected place, but always surprise, entertain, and move.... In "Arctic Lizard", a young boy narrates a post-apocalyptic version of the world where a youth army wages an unending war, rewarded by collecting prizes. A father tries to shield his son from the inevitable in "Fly Already".

From the award-winning author of Occupational Hazards come nine more tales of blue-collar fiction, including The Destroyer (sequel to Jar Baby) and the author's autobiographical Memoir of a Murderer, narrated by an all-star cast of performers. There's horror, there's humor, there's horrific humor. It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries. Treat yourself. You deserve it.

This is a collection of the third six short stories in the Caverns and Creatures series.

Nobody likes getting bullied, and Donny has had enough. Deciding to take matters into his own hands, he solicits the help of the old Asian man at the end of his street to teach him Karate. During a grueling two days of training, Donny earns belt after belt, until he finally becomes a Karate Master.

In this darkly comic and surreal collection from celebrated author Alissa Nutting, misfit women scramble for agency in a series of uncanny circumstances. Throughout these breathtakingly creative 17 stories spread across time, space, and differing planes of reality, we encounter a host of women and girls in a wide range of unusual jobs. A space cargo deliverywoman enlists the help of her cybersex partner to release her mother from cryogenic prison.

It’s just another morning on the fifth of July. The country is another year older; Gus is a touch hungover, the coffee in his office is stale, and all Gus wants to do is go home and start over again on July sixth. Unfortunately Father Xavier visits the sheriff’s office and he’s brought along a gift. He has a green jacket that should have been put in the church’s lost and found. The father suspects it belongs to a missing girl named Erica Torres which is odd given the jacket is marked as belonging to E. Rossi. Erica went to school one day and never came home. She was picked up by a ...

This is a collection of short stories in the Caverns and Creatures series. It includes the following titles: "They Fight Three Giants", "From the Bowels of Hell Hounds", "Tossing the Salaad", "The Fuccubus", "Fistin' the Furious", and "Pixie Dicks".

"Stranger's Thing" by Robert Bevan: Four friends get more than they bargained for when they break into a seemingly abandoned research lab. "The Shingling" by Steve Wetherell: Johnny Terry, a recovering meth addict, is excited to start his new life as the caretaker at the Underpass Motel. Unfortunately, the Underpass is haunted by the ghosts of dead porn stars. "The Haunting of Whore House" by Robert Bevan: Lucy and her brother, Junkie, find out that moving was only the beginning of their troubles when they encounter the ghost of a little boy in the woods. Plus three more!

Alicia Erian's characters are brave, disarming, affectionate, and deeply flawed. They inhabit the not-so-very-wide space between a good intention and a bad outcome. The Brutal Language of Love challenges traditional notions of right and wrong with what has become Erian's signature—an achingly stylish humor and a deep understanding of the brutal truth about human nature. These surprising, provocative, and deeply resonant stories marked the emergence of a major talent.

ROMANCE QUICKIES Discounted Boxed Set, Encounters 7-12 WHO WILL WIN? Seven friends living in New York City. One unusual competition. Who can have the most intimate encounters in a month? Ten thousand dollars is on the line... Quickies are bite-sized steamy stories that follow a group of women living in New York City who compete to see who can have the most casual hookups in a month. Which woman will sleep with the most men to win the bet? Will any of them fall in love with their conquests along the way? These sizzling-hot books can be read as stand-alones or as part of the Quickies series. ...

In these wonderfully funny and poignant stories, Willett’s eccentric, complex characters think and do the unconventional. Soft, euphonic women gradually grow old; weak, unhappy men confront love and their own mortality; and abominable children desperately try to grow up with grace. With a unique voice and dry humor, Willett gives us a new insight into human existence, showing us those specific moments in relationships when life suddenly becomes visible. Critically acclaimed when it was first published, Jenny and the Jaws of Life is being brought back due to popular demand.

Rachel Klein never meant to kiss her creative writing professor, but with his long eyelashes, his silky hair, and the sad, beautiful life he laid bare on Twitter, she does, and the kiss is very nice. Zahid Azzam never planned to become a houseguest in his student's sprawling Connecticut home, but with the sparkling swimming pool, the endless supply of Whole Foods strawberries, and Rachel's beautiful mother, he does, and the home is very nice.

Tales from the Beach House is a satiric work of fiction that sharply captures the "man-bites-dog" world of contemporary South Florida. The Beach House, a crumbling old motel, is home to a collection of eccentric residents. Amongst their ranks: a tennis pro at the end of his game, a mortuary scientist whose love life has flat-lined, a paparazzo photographer searching for scoops, and more. Each member of this cohort is in search of something - fast money, an easy hustle, fleeting romance, enduring love, fame, power, dignity, happiness...a place they can call home.

Gus has traveled out of state and up to the city of Seattle to visit his daughter. She’s sharing an apartment with two criminology majors. Naturally their thoughts turn toward talking about crime and they ask Gus to talk about one of his cases. Since he doesn’t want to discuss anything too recent or else his daughter might know the people involved, he digs down deep into his memory banks for the perfect case from his first year as a sheriff. It also just so happens to be the first case he crossed path with Father Xavier. As he remembers it, Gus was called in to investigate an apparent ...

When God descends to earth as a Dinka woman from Sudan and subsequently dies in the Darfur desert, the result is a world bizarrely new yet eerily familiar. In Ron Currie's provocative, wise, and emotionally resonant novel we meet God himself; the Dinka woman whose mortality He must suffer when He inhabits her body; people all over the world coping with the devastating news of God's demise.