Showing titles in Anthologies & Short Stories

A tense and brilliantly dramatic short story from the best-selling author of The Throne of the Caesars Series. AD 238. Emperor Maximinus' reign is under threat as Gordian the Younger and Elder are proclaimed emperor. Julius Burdo, official of the empire, must accompany the knife-boy Castricius north to assassinate Maximinus. The order is from the new Augusti; death is a certain fate to both men whether they succeed or fail.

Jennet Preston was an ordinary woman with an extraordinary death. Pursued and vilified by her young lord and master, Thomas Lister, she was accused and tried - twice - for murder by witchcraft in 1612. This is the story of her second trial. A friend of the Device family of Malkin Tower, Jennet Preston’s story starts and ends in Yorkshire, yet is inextricably entwined with the most famous witch trial in British history - that of the Pendle Witches.

Dive into a world of laughter, nostalgia, and heartfelt connections with this delightful audiobook, crafted especially for seniors. Each story is brought to life through engaging narration, offering lighthearted yet meaningful tales that entertain, inspire, and uplift.

Over the past decade, Simon Van Booy has been listening to people’s stories. With these personal accounts as a starting point, he has crafted a powerful collection of short fiction that takes listeners into the innermost lives of everyday people. From a family saved from ruin by a mysterious benefactor to a downtrodden boxer who shows unexpected kindness to a mugger, these tales reveal not only the precarious balance maintained between grief and happiness in our lives but also how the echoes of personal tragedy can shape us for the better.

A genealogy test sparks a woman’s reflection on the two accounts of her life--the real one and the one she’s always told the world--in this poignant short story by Cheryl Strayed, the bestselling author of Wild. In 1964, teenage Geraldine Waters was sent away by her parents to an unwed mothers’ home, where she gave up her newborn for adoption. Ever since, she’s lived an alternative narrative. Decades later, it’s time for Geraldine to reconcile the telling of her life, to finally grieve, and to discover what happened to that part of her past that slipped away.

William Collins, from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, is a man upon whom the face of undeserved fortune has smiled. Despite his notable shortcomings of mind and character, he has secured for himself a comfortable living as the rector of Hunsford parish, and a humane and sensible wife. He also looks forward to the day when he shall inherit a tidy estate in Hertfordshire.

A young woman’s night-time escapade goes eerily wrong. A man is forced to relive the horrible accident that tore his family apart over and over again. An underground thrill through ancient catacombs proves disastrously horrific. A young boy is haunted by the scarecrow in the fields behind his home. And a woman is revisited by the ghost of a psychotic killer in the most dreadful of ways. Scare Street brings you some of the best short horror stories by authors Ron Ripley, David Longhorn, Eric Whittle, Sara Clancy, and A. I. Nasser, all in one book.

Through Time and Conflict - The Max Chronicles is an historical adventure that follows the extraordinary lineage of three generations of a courageous whippet named Max, whose loyalty and bravery shape pivotal moments in history.

Whatever happened to British protest? For a nation that brought the world Chartism, the Suffragettes, the Tolpuddle Martyrs and so many other grassroots social movements, Britain rarely celebrates its long, great tradition of people power. In this timely and evocative collection, 20 authors have assembled to reimagine key moments of British protest, from the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 to the anti-Iraq War demo of 2003.

What made Lincoln's hat stand up? Did Chairman Mao keep a Little Black Book? Lynda Schor's "Seduction" follows Warren Beatty on his tireless erotic journey, with characters like Joan Collins and Joyce Carol Oates chiming in on his legendary prowess. In "The Ballad of Scott and Zelda," Maxim Jakubowski traces the passion and the slow, bitter disconnection of those idols of the Jazz Age.

Lancashire, 1612: Fourteen-year-old Grace Sowerbutts is at a dangerous crossroads, caught between the righteous might of the local Pendle Protestants, the fury of their Catholic neighbours, and the insidious threat of witchcraft. Divided by Witchcraft is the second in a new series of historical fiction short stories examining the frenzy of witch hunting that swept the north of England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries - including the most famous, that of the Pendle Witches in 1612.

Thames Valley Tales is a light-hearted yet thought-provoking collection of nine stories by Tim Walker. These tales are based on the author's experience of living in Thames Valley towns, and combine contemporary themes with the rich history and legends associated with an area stretching from London to beyond Windsor and Oxford, and then into the heart of rural England.

A cop as well as an art historian, Marco Valoni leads a crack team of investigators in a race to solve a crime he's certain is about to shock the world: someone is planning to steal the Holy Shroud of Turin.

What if...the person who caught you in your most embarrassing moment is also the one your heart was meant to find? It was never supposed to happen. Elizabeth Bennet never planned to get trapped in a ridiculous situation, and she certainly never intended for the person who found her to be a dizzyingly handsome...tall...and odiously haughty man who seems to regret ever meeting her. The only thing to do, naturally, is to tease him about it, and try not to let him under her skin.

Lavinia Spencer is too poor to be anything but practical. But when her younger brother lands himself in trouble, she has no choice but to do the unthinkable. She accepts the help of the dishonorable man that she's always wanted, even knowing that it might mean her ruination.

Resurrecting buried scandals, audacious hoaxes and private tragedies, Emma Donoghue has written a sequence of short stories about peculiar moments in the history of the British Isles. Here artists mix with poisoners and countesses rub shoulders with cross-dressers, vicars and revolutionaries; the Second Coming is proclaimed in Scotland; and a miniature girl becomes a tiny skeleton in a London museum.

Culling the vastness of experience--from its bizarre fringes and breathtaking pinnacles to the mediocre and desperately below average--like an expert curator, Jim Shepard populates this collection with characters at once wildly diverse and wholly fascinating. A "black world" operative can't tell his wife a word about his daily activities, but doesn't resist sharing her confidences. A young Alpine researcher is smitten by the girlfriend of his dead brother, killed in an avalanche he believes he caused.

If you want to understand the daily life and psychology of the late Middle Ages, Ronald Ecker’s classic translation of The Canterbury Tales provides one of the very best means of doing so. Within its audio is to be found a broad range of society - high and low, male and female, rich and poor - who express their innermost beliefs and extravagant fantasies in a series of stories they tell as they make their way to Canterbury Cathedral.

Jack London relata la historia de Felipe Rivera, un joven mexicano consumido por el fervor revolucionario. En medio de la opresión y la lucha por la libertad de su país, Rivera encuentra su llamado en el boxeo, no por pasión deportiva sino como medio para financiar la causa revolucionaria. En Estados Unidos, enfrenta desafíos que ponen a prueba su determinación y sus habilidades en el ring. Con cada golpe, Rivera no solo busca ganar un combate, sino también apoyar la revolución para liberar a su pueblo.

The War is over, but for petty criminal Charlie his darkest days are only just beginning. Charlie Briggs is never off-duty, even when a botched job means he's forced to lay low in a sleepy Hampshire town for the holiday season. Always searching for his next unwitting victim, or a shiny trinket he can pilfer, he can't believe his luck when he happens upon a rare book so valuable it will set him up for life.