Dark Comedy Short Stories

Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and...no qualms about a little murder. Ever since her darling father's untimely death when she was only 18, Maud has lived in the family's spacious apartment in downtown Gothenburg rent-free, thanks to a minor clause in a hastily negotiated contract. That was how Maud learned that good things can come from tragedy. Now in her late 80s, Maud contents herself with traveling the world and surfing the net from the comfort of her father's ancient armchair. It's a solitary existence, and she likes it that way.

After a failed petition to change his career, Bill, the local pottery maker and town drunk, is coerced by his neighbors and king to join an expedition to hunt down and slay a mighty dragon that plagues their village.

Swords. Sorcery. Dick Jokes. Truly do the gods smile upon you, dear listener, for the first four books in the hilarious Caverns and Creatures series are now available in one audiobook set. Join Tim, Dave, Julian, and Cooper as they are thrown into a hostile fantasy world filled with magic and monsters, and ruled over by a cruel and sadistic game master who taunts and harasses them while he sits back and eats their fried chicken.

BINGE-READ THIS SWEET-AND-DARK COLLEGE ROMANCE SERIES. THIS IS COLLEGE INSTA-LOVE . . . ANNABELLE WINTERS STYLE! THIS BOX SET CONTAINS: THE JOCK AND THE GENIUS (118 pages) THE ROCKSTAR AND THE RECLUSE (115 pages) THE DROPOUT AND THE DEBUTANTE (120 pages) THE PLAYER AND THE PRINCESS (107 pages) THE FRATBOY AND THE FEMINIST (110 pages) AND EACH BOOKS CONTAINS: Sweetness. Darkness. Steam. This is College Insta-love. Annabelle Winters Style. HERE'S WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE CURVY IN COLLEGE SERIES: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was my first read by Annabelle Winters and I am ...

H.H. Munro (Saki) is one of the undisputed masters of the short story. In this complete compendium, the full gamut of his subjects and themes is experienced. His stories are imbued with humorous satire, biting irony, and often the macabre, all of which have one target: the stupidities and hypocrisies of Edwardian upper-class society.

With these 13 transfixing, ingenious stories, Ben Marcus gives us timely dystopian visions of alienation in a modern world - cosmically and comically apt. Never has existential catastrophe been so much fun.

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.

A little girl has gone missing and paranormal P.I. Tempest Michaels already knows the police are not going to find her. They can’t. It’s beyond their ability to comprehend the nature of the creature that took her. Only he knows how to save poor little Becky’s life. Only he has the skills … the magic required to bring her back safely. But Tempest knows there is something very wrong with his world. Reality seems to have tilted on its axis. When did he acquire magical powers? Pushing that worrying question to tickle away at the back of his head, he sets out into the night. A little ...

In this unforgettable work of fiction, Donald Ray Pollock peers into the soul of a tough Midwestern American town to reveal the sad, stunted, but resilient lives of its residents. Spanning a period from the mid-'60s to the late '90s, the linked stories that comprise Knockemstiff feature a cast of recurring characters who are woebegone, baffled, and depraved - but irresistibly, undeniably real. Rendered in the American vernacular with vivid imagery and a wry, dark sense of humor, these thwarted and sometimes violent lives jump at the listener with inexorable force.

Just when things have finally cooled down for 88-year-old Maud after the disturbing discovery of a dead body in her apartment in Gothenburg, a couple of detectives return to her doorstep. Though Maud dodges their questions with the skill of an Olympic gymnast a fifth of her age, she wonders if suspicion has fallen on her, little old lady that she is. The truth is, ever since Maud was a girl, death has seemed to follow her....

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel made up of stories: 23 of them, to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you'll ever encounter, sometimes all at once. They are told by people who have answered an ad headlined "Writers' Retreat: Abandon Your Life for Three Months", and who are led to believe that here they will leave behind all the distractions of "real life" that are keeping them from creating the masterpiece that is in them.

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 ...

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 the first six short stories in the Caverns and Creatures series. It includes "Cave of the Kobolds"; "Zombie Attack"; "Orcs, Bears, and Assholes"; "Shipfaced"; "Dungeon Crawl"; and "The Creep on the Borderlands".

After a near-fatal adventure in another world—a world of dragons, no less—Samantha Moon is ready for her first real vacation in nearly a decade. With a little money in her pocket from the sale of a mansion left to her by her vampire sire, Sam sets her sights on a whirlwind European tour. First stop: Ireland. When a dark shadow races across her hotel suite, followed by something evil watching her son from a suit of armor, Samantha Moon is about to discover that her trip to the Emerald Isle is going to be anything but relaxing... it's going to get deadly. After all, something wicked has ...

This is a collection of the eighth six short stories in the Caverns & Creatures series. It includes the following titles: This Poo Shall Pass, Hung Ogre, Fortune Favors the Kobold, Asses to Asses, Love on the Rocs, and The Winds of Cooper. If you've already purchased all of these books, there is nothing new for you here. If you haven't yet purchased any, you can save a few bucks by buying this collection. If you've only purchased some of these already, you'll have to do some math.

For centuries, the woods have been a pivotal part of the wonder and danger of fairy tales, for once you enter anything can happen. Elves, druids, fairies - who knows what you will find once you dare step into the forest?

And now, New York Times best-selling author Kim Harrison ventures into these mysterious, hidden lands of magic and mystery in her first short-story collection. Into the Woods brings together an enchanting mix of brand-new, never-before-published stories and tales from Harrison's beloved, best-selling Hollows series.

This series of short, fictional vignettes explores our day-to-day interactions with an ever-elusive and arbitrary God. It's the Book of Common Prayer as seen through a looking glass - a powerfully vivid collection of seemingly random life moments. The figures that haunt these stories range from Kafka (talking to a fish) to the Aztecs, Tolstoy to Abraham and Sarah, O. J. Simpson to a pack of wolves. Most of Williams' characters, however, are like the rest of us.

Diane Williams, an American master of the short story who will "rewire your brain" (NPR), is back with a collection in which she once again expands the possibilities of fiction. These stories depict ordinary moments - a visit to the doctor's office or a married couple's hundredth dance together - but within the quotidian, Williams delivers a lifetime of insecurities, lusts, rejections, and revelations, making her work equally discomfiting and amusing.

This is a collection of the sixth six short stories in the Caverns and Creatures series...Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to 6d6 and experience the compelling world of dark humor and fantasy.