Modern Short Stories

Three mountain men with one goal in mind: finding a wife! Includes The Mountain Man’s Muse, The Mountain Man’s Cure, and The Mountain Man’s North Star.

These three short works show Austen experimenting with a variety of different literary styles, from melodrama to satire, and exploring a range of social classes and settings. The early epistolary novel Lady Susan depicts an unscrupulous coquette toying with the affections of several men. In contrast, The Watsons is a delightful fragment whose spirited heroine, Emma Watson, finds her marriage opportunities limited by poverty and pride....

Deep within the cold, primordial forest and the Algonquin people's consciousness lives the Wendigo: a towering, emaciated being with translucent skin draped over its skeletal frame like a veil of mortality. Its hollow eyes gleam like fiery coals, emanating a malevolent crimson glow that mirrors its unquenchable craving for human flesh. An extraterrestrial shifter, stranded on our planet millennia ago, assumes the forms of not only humans but also hideous creatures in order to survive. The story of the Wendigo spans millennia, entwining native folklore with modern-day mysteries.

A road trip that redefines passion. I thought I had it all—the open road, beautiful company, and endless exploration. Then Ava swept in, a free-spirited artist who turned our road trip into a journey of self-discovery. In her gallery our desires transformed into vivid art. Through a sensual art session we grew closer, returning as a family bound by passion and spontaneity. Ava's bohemian energy contrasted with Claire and Sophia's elegance, creating an exhilarating dynamic. My education in desire had never been so vibrant, and the canvas of our lives was just beginning to take shape.

Tom Hallman Jr. has won every national feature writing award in the business, including the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. A master storyteller, he is an elegant writer with a deeply perceptive heart. Tom has the uncanny ability to see the profound in the everyday. He will make you see it, too, in ways that will remind you of what’s really important in life. This is the second collection of Hallman’s stories from The Oregonian. The first, Dispatches From 1320, was published in 2015

The happiest day of Beatrice Norton's life was when she answered an ad for a mail order bride and soon after married her husband, Niels Willmar. Everything was going along so perfectly...that is until he brought her to her new home...and she met the most disapproving mother-in-law a girl could ever imagine. Nothing she did was right, from her cooking or cleaning, to taking care of her new husband! Nothing she did would ever measure up to the standards of Mrs. Willmar! Thank heavens for her neighbor, Abigail. If she hadn't been able to cry on her shoulder, she was sure she would have gone ...

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.

Mark is coming off a bad breakup, and he's just moved across the country. Dating is the last thing on his mind...at least, for a while. But it's lonely in a new city, and Mark starts thinking about finding someone. It's his lucky day, as he finds an auspicious flyer for a strange matchmaking service calling themselves Bird and Stone. Making his way through a grueling screening process, Mark finds himself set up on a date with two women, Emily and Sandra. A mistake, surely, he thinks. But no. Bird and Stone arranges harems, and Mark is about to jump into a world he's never even considered. ...

A Slumber Party Like No Other. My world exploded with possibilities I'd never imagined as I juggled the affections of four incredible women. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw them: Sophia's fierce intensity, Claire's knowing smirk, Jenny's shy lances and Lisa's playfull grin. But doubt gnawed at my gut--could they really be happy sharing me? Claire, being Claire, had the perfect solution. "A sleepover at my place," she'd suggested, her eyes gleaming with that look that meant trouble--the good kind. One night under her roof turned into a revelation, as boundaries melted away and desire took...

The Forgotten Warnings: Lessons We Ignored A Myth-Inspired Horror Anthology They told us not to stray from the path. Not to speak certain names. Not to touch what was buried. We didn’t listen. In this haunting collection of first-person horror stories, The Forgotten Warnings reimagines ancient myths, folklore, and cautionary tales through the eyes of those who ignored them—and suffered the consequences. Each story is a confession from the edge of madness: a streamer haunted by his own reflection, a researcher seduced by sentient code, a wanderer who finds forbidden fruit beneath the ...

Do you enter Flash Fiction competitions? Would you like a peak at your competition? Then this collection of winning and longlisted flash fiction from the Farnham Flash Fiction competition is for you. Read and benchmark your work against your peers. Understand what makes a competition winning story. Be inspired and take your writing to the next level.This is a collection of short fiction from the Farnham Flash Fiction competition 2021. The Farnham Flash Festival was held from January 2021 to June 2021, and these 25 flash fiction stories were the very best of the 152 entries. With entries ...

An exploited child worker in the silver mines of Bolivia finds an ally – but at what cost? A young woman's affair has terrifying repercussions when her lover's wife dies. A sailor's wife takes her communion with Nature a little too far…From a hungry young woman who is not what she seems, to a boy who has taken his mother's advice a little too seriously; from disfigured girls willing to pay any price to fit in, to an immigrant who cannot escape his tormentor; from a new home with a sinister secret, this collection plumbs the depths of the psyche and dredges up some very modern horrors.

With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story and instantly became both the recognized master of the form and one of our best-loved fiction writers. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.

Fantasy fans rejoice! Seven years after writer and editor Robert Silverberg made publishing history with Legends, the acclaimed anthology of original short novels by some of the greatest writers in fantasy fiction, the long-awaited second volume is here.

On a trip to visit his parents and siblings, Joe discovers a stash of drugs hidden in his younger brother’s room. He is forced to make a hard decision and hope that he chose correctly.

The time is the early '80s. The characters go to the same schools and eat at the same restaurants. Their voices enfold us as seamlessly as those of DJs heard over a car radio. They have sex with the same boys and girls and buy from the same dealers. In short, they are connected in the only way people can be in that city.

Clean Christian Romance - Wedding Ring Blues a Clean Contemporary Romance Family secrets threaten her life, love, and marriage! Maintaining family honor meant sacrificing any hope of happiness for sweet, young Lauren Valcour. Expected to marry her social equal, a man ten years older, whom she hates, feels like a death sentence. Wishing for a normal life Lauren befriends an ordinary working man, Danny Richardson, who just so happens to know the Valcour’s deepest, darkest secret. Will Lauren accept her fate and agree to the arranged marriage or be defiant for the first time in her life? Is ...

More than 24 hours of Druids, dragons, demigods, and danger fill this modern Arthurian epic omnibus set! Legacies are forged through sacrifice.

What if the real horror isn’t what you see—but what you remember? From debut author Scott Oscar comes Neural Static, a collection of six unsettling stories that dig deep into the fault lines of memory, perception, and the creeping sense that something isn’t quite right. These aren’t your typical ghosts. These are the echoes that follow you home, the whispers caught in broken recordings, the distortions that grow louder the more you try to ignore them. In these chilling tales: A grieving son is drawn into a decades-old list of haunted mirrors with deadly, shifting reflections. A ...

As an author and lover of stories, I embarked on a unique creative journey this July. Each morning, I sat down with an AI chatbot as my writing companion, ready to craft a new tale. My goal was simple - to experience something novel, wild, and fun every day through the power of collaborative storytelling. Together, the AI and I explored a vast array of subjects. We ventured into outer space, witnessing humanity's first steps on Europa. We delved into the realms of fantasy, following a brave squirrel's daring pizza heist. We explored profound themes like memory loss and starting a family, ...