Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Short Stories

In the midst of a raging blizzard, lightning struck on the night Laura Shane was born. And a mysterious blond-haired stranger showed up just in time to save her from dying. Years later, in the wake of another storm, Laura will be saved again. For someone is watching over her. Is he the guardian angel he seems? The devil in disguise? Or the master of a haunting destiny beyond all time and space?

Raised off the grid by survivalists, Mercy Kilpatrick believed in no greater safeguard than the backwoods of Oregon. Unforgiven by her father for abandoning the fold for the FBI, Mercy still holds to her past convictions. They’re in her blood. They’re her secrets—as guarded as her private survival retreat hidden away in the foothills. In a cabin near her hideaway, Mercy encounters a young girl whose grandmother is dying from multiple knife wounds.

Anton Chekhov is now justly celebrated as one of Russia’s greatest writers, but this reputation was hard won in his time. His work consistently challenged expectations, and his insights were not always easy to see. The continued relevance of his stories, however, has shown that Chekhov was ahead of his time, and the nine short stories collected here showcase his very best writing.

In "Strange Highways," a floundering alcoholic gets a mysterious second chance to relive the night his life began its downward spiral 20 years ago. But on this dark journey, he’ll be supremely tested by conflict with his successful, charismatic older brother, his loss of faith, and the clash between good and the ultimate evil. Sink into this binge-worthy collection of beloved Koontz short stories, featuring denizens of hell, vengeful children, and eerily human-like robots that will send shivers down your spine.

Available to listeners for the first time, Sucker’s Portfolio showcases a collection of seven never-before-published works from Kurt Vonnegut, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Short, sardonic, and dark, these six brief fiction stories and one non-fiction piece are consummate Vonnegut with piercing satire and an eye for life’s obscene inanity. Also available for the first time is an unfinished science-fiction short story, included in the appendix.

Quitting her job as a high school science teacher to join the Seattle Police Department was an easy decision for Tracy Crosswhite. Years earlier, what should have been one of the happiest days of her life instead became her worst nightmare when her younger sister, Sarah, disappeared. After the murder trial, while her family disintegrated, Tracy turned her heartbreak and her lingering questions into a passion for justice.

All her life, Sashi’s mother warned her not to get involved with werewolf problems. But Sashi, a witch who uses magic to heal sick and injured bodies, has never made a habit of ignoring trauma. When she meets an abused shapeshifter that no one else seems willing to help, Sashi will risk everything - including a budding romance with a human, Will - to save a woman who can’t save herself.

In the interlocking Tales of the Dying Earth Vance explores the world at the end of time when sun is guttering. Light itself is different and Vance’s landscapes —described in language that is lyrical, seductive, and partly self-invented —are wild and surreal, full of opportunity and danger. On the Dying Earth, the rules of physics as we know them have been amended and replaced by magic. The laws of evolution have spun out creatures that are humanoid, hybrid, and often terrifying.

Two dozen tales of future shock and twisted history from an undisputed king of cyberpunk science fiction, including Nebula Award finalists “Sunken Garden” and “Dori Bangs.”

When a dead body turns up in the hot tub at a high-end resort on the rugged Oregon Coast, forensic investigator Lacey Campbell and her fiancé, Jack Harper, realize their vacation is over.

For most couples, a quiet dinner for two at Auberge de la Reine Blanche on the Ile Saint Louis would be just the thing to smooth out the complications in a romance. But for gorgeous Mossad operative Delilah and trying-to-retire contract killer John Rain, nothing is ever easy, and when Rain sees a crew of hard-looking men setting up outside the restaurant, he realizes someone has been bringing her work home with her. Is it a hit - or something even worse?

Valentine Welburn has grown accustomed to her freedom in Calcutta. So when she reaches the gray shores of England to debut in her first London Season, she is irked by the conventions of high society. With her irrepressible spirit, unusual beauty, and a large fortune, the stage is set for gossip. Scandal and intrigue ensue when two men - the distinguished Lord Marbeck and the dashing, dangerous Sir Richard Brindley - appear on the scene.

After the success of This Side of Paradise, it was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s popular short fiction that helped maintain the luxury and celebrity to which he and his wife, Zelda, had grown accustomed. Reflections of that blithe and glittering lifestyle, these eleven stories reveal a man both beguiled by and critical of the American postwar generation he defined. Fitzgerald’s tales capture the inauguration of the age in all its hysteria, revelry, and tragedy - the same world he would later revisit in his renowned The Great Gatsby.

What made Sherlock Holmes a household name and cultural icon? This very first collection of stories featuring the astute sleuth and his loyal assistant, Dr. Watson. In these twelve ingenious mysteries, Holmes is embroiled in betrayal, abduction, thievery, deception, and murder. Relying on logic, driven by instinct, and employing his uncanny powers of observation, Holmes cracks the cases that elude Scotland Yard. This Baker Street dozen by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is all the evidence listeners will need to understand why Sherlock Holmes is an enduring legend in detective fiction.

With rich, pure prose Hoffman charts the progress of Gretel Samuelson from the time she is a young girl already acquainted with betrayal and grief, until she finally leaves home. Gretel's sly, funny, knowing perspective is at the heart of this collection, as she navigates through loyalty and loss with the help of an unforgettable trio of women: her best friend, Jill, her romance-addled cousin Margot, and her mother, Franny, whose spiritual journey affects them all.

What is the terrible secret at the heart of The King in Yellow? The forbidden play’s second act is said to drive all those who read it mad. And the sinister text casts its shadow of dread over Robert W. Chambers’s collection of weird, supernatural stories of the same name. Threaded with elements of fantasy, science fiction, the supernatural, and gothic horror, this cult classic continues to inspire the imagination of artists - from H. P. Lovecraft to the writers of HBO’s True Detective - and delight connoisseurs of the macabre.

Former Soviet surgeon Roman Ivanescu honors his Hippocratic Oath never to do harm by working at a blood bank in Manhattan. Quenching his violent thirst without killing a soul, Roman resists his natural urges and dances on the edge of sanity. Entranced by his first taste of her, Roman hunts down prima ballerina Maiko Himura, who awakens in him a passion he thought long dead. But when Roman finds out his new love has just a few weeks left on earth, he must make a terrible choice. And for every gift, there is a price.

Before he was the engaging professor who brought mythology into people’s living rooms through his conversations with Bill Moyers, before he became known as the thinker whose ideas influenced Star Wars, and before his now-beloved phrase “follow your bliss” entered the popular lexicon, Joseph Campbell was a young man who tried his hand at writing fiction. After years of Depression-era unemployment, when he lived off money he had earned playing saxophone and read the world’s great literature in a syllabus of his own design, Campbell published his first short story.

When security expert Sean Wilson takes his wife, Amanda, along on a business trip to an isolated bed and breakfast, he's hoping to combine work and pleasure. But when four armed men storm the inn and take the staff and his wife hostage, the romantic getaway is over. A former army Ranger, Sean will do anything to save his wife, and when he finds the seven-year-old granddaughter of the innkeeper in the snowy woods, the situation becomes more dire.

"The Big Guys" - Flash fiction, winner of the Derringer Award. "A Fistful of Cozy" - A satire of the mystery cozy genre. "Cleansing" - An ancient crime of biblical proportions. "Lying Eyes" - Solve it yourself, given the clues."Perfect Plan" - Another solve it yourself. Don't you remember One Minute Mysteries and Encyclopedia Brown? "Piece of Cake" - Another solve it yourself, originally featured in Woman's World.