Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Short Stories

Sexy Alabama redneck Big Matt Carter is back home two years after hightailing it out of Possum Hollow on his Harley. Nothing seems to have changed. Well, nothing except for the preacher's daughter, Catie Ann Mason. Sweet Catie Ann has gone from little girl to all woman, and she is on a mission to make Big Matt hers. He isn't sure how to deal with the sexy new Catie Ann but finds himself wanting more, wanting forever.

Young Victor Carl is a fool for love and money, but he's not a blind fool. When Victor is propositioned by the woman of his dreams, he knows it's too good to be true. She offers him the perfect job, a prosperous future, and, best of all, when her tongue is in his mouth, she tastes like strawberries. But it isn't long before Victor realizes that to keep these prizes, he must keep his client - currently in the clink for murder - from spilling the truth about what really happened the night of the killing.

In this superb collection of short stories, Elizabeth Berg takes us into pivotal moments in the lives of women, when memories and events come together to create a sense of coherence, understanding, and change. In “Ordinary Life,” Mavis McPherson locks herself in the bathroom for a week, shutting out her husband and the realities of their life together — and, no, she isn’t contemplating a divorce. She just needs some time to think, to take stock of her life, and to arrive, finally, at a surprising conclusion.

If someone had told Noah Donovan he was going to be stuck in an elevator with a very beautiful, slightly odd bartender and her fluffy packrat, he never would have believed it. Fortunately, the quirky brunette leaves the very cuddly rodent behind. Unfortunately, she’s married. In Lexi Allison’s job, she’s accustomed to warding off unwanted advances with a fake wedding ring. So when she meets a tatted-up hunk in an elevator, she’s quick to revert to her default tall tale. This guy certainly knows how to push her buttons, but the thing is, they’re the right buttons.

If there's a naughty list, Izzy Sassafras is on it - but she's ready to make a new start this Christmas. Especially after leaving her lying, cheating, no-good husband and fleeing to her old hometown of Matrimony, Georgia. Izzy's made herself a promise: No more men. All she wants to do is get her wedding business up and running - and mend fences with her estranged sisters. But Izzy knows she's in trouble when her very first client, a smooth-talking Texan, makes her light up like a Christmas tree.

Each story explores a different twist of madness, murder, and melancholy, from the horror of being buried alive in "The Fall of the House of Usher" to the desperate case of two gruesome killings in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." The heartbeat of paranoia in "The Tell-Tale Heart," the razor-sharp claustrophobia in "The Pit and the Pendulum," and a mourner's torment in "The Raven" reveal - and revel in - life's creepiest and craziest. These tales are not for the faint of heart or the thin of skin.

A civil rights activist and key figure in African American literary history, Alice Dunbar-Nelson made her mark during the emerging Harlem Renaissance. Violets and Other Tales is her debut (included here in full, save for three stories later updated in The Goodness of St. Rocque). The collection includes poetry, short stories, and essays offering a varied examination of class differences, racial identity, oppression, intolerance, and women’s societal roles. The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories assembles 14 of Dunbar’s short works of fiction.

On the storm-swollen Aisne in northeastern France, an alcoholic actor combats both his demons and nature’s tempests. Along the Main and Rhine in Germany, a kindhearted logger has but one wish: to travel with the lumber from his small Franconian hometown to the end of the river in the Netherlands, where it feeds into the majestic North Sea. In a bucolic vale in the French region of Brittany, two families, divided by religion and an unnamed stream, sustain a centuries-old feud, their resolve no match for the constantly shifting flow of water.

With disparate settings such as a Massachusetts farmhouse and the strange volcanic clime of the Enchanted Isles, this six-story anthology features some of Herman Melville’s most exceptional works. Included here is “Bartleby,” the dark tale of a Wall Street clerk who possesses a confounding and disarmingly passive insubordination; and “Benito Cereno,” in which the captain of a whaler boards a tattered Spanish slave ship in South America only to be drawn into an intricately plotted mutiny.

The US mail is rarely a matter of life and death. And the Postal Police sit on the lowest rung of the law enforcement ladder. Real cops make fun of them. Cases generally amount to little more than crimes against mailboxes and bungled counterfeit attempts. But when an investigation leads partners Marcie and Schottsie to the post office's dead letter section - the deadest beat of all - what they discover propels them into a very live world of drug cartels, smuggling, and shoot-outs. Finally they face real action. Can they handle it?

After losing her father to whiskey and her mother to cancer, all Prudence has left is skiing. She hitchhikes to a remote ski area in New Mexico - someplace no one would look for her, if they were looking. She manages to land a job with the ski patrol. Their gruff kindness, and the fact that she has nobody else, strengthens her resolve to prove herself on the mountain. So when a blizzard descends as fierce and blinding as God, she refuses to show her fear or be left behind.

Caught in a violent storm, pop star Rebecca West and her pilot, Tyler Knox, crash land on an uninhabited atoll in the Virgin Islands. Before the crash, attempting to maintain a professional distance, Rebecca and Tyler had suppressed their secret desire for one another. Now, alone on the deserted island, they find comfort in one another's arms and finally unleash their passion.

When timber baron Reuben Burke finds himself at the seaside Hotel del Coronado - a forced vacation arranged by his siblings - he discovers he's forgotten how to relax. For the last ten years, he's been too caught up in raising his younger brother and sister and building up the family business in Seattle to have time for himself, much less romantic attachments. But a chance encounter on the beach with a young widow from San Diego puts his life on a new course.

After a year at the Mountain Vista Assisted Living Complex, Joyce Webster has yet to really settle in. Mountain Vista is just like high school with its cliques and gossip, not to mention its mind-numbing activities. Life gets a little more interesting, though, when one of Joyce's least favorite fellow residents - an old windbag with a big ego and a knack for making enemies - dies in a suspicious fall. Joyce and her friends try to puzzle out the whodunit but are at a loss until Benny the dog turns up a telling clue.

Even before zombies annihilated three-quarters of the population, Gaz and Andy were the best of friends. Now they're all each other has. But since Andy lost his girlfriend, he's become so numb he's stopped trying to protect himself from the ever-present threat of the walking dead. Good thing Gaz is there with his cricket bat, ready to protect him from the rogue zombies that breach the inner London barriers at night.

When Mr. Rock, a professional assassin, is diagnosed with a rare disease that slowly turns his flesh to bone, he's forced into early retirement. Before he hangs it up, he takes on one last hit. But his stiffened trigger finger causes him to botch the job, landing him in the sadistic hands of his intended victim - the head doctor at the Cosgrove Extended Care Facility. Here the patients aren't kept alive so much as they're kept undead.

Leo Dershowitz gave up hope of artistic glory long ago. A mediocre painter at best, he relies on the generosity of women to pay the bills. One day, Leo stumbles across a grisly means of inspiration and - in a flash - his fate changes forever. Before long, nothing can stop Leo from creating masterpieces, but at what cost?

She will never forget that summer - when the bones began to surface. The decomposing skull of a dog, then that of a cat. Later, birds. Her parents even made a game of digging them up while the children played and kept the tiny trophies on display in their home. And then her cousin was implicated in a grisly murder. Did that strange find really mark the creation of a monster in their midst? From the acclaimed author of Monster comes this chilling story of a long-buried childhood memory and a family bent on denial.

In the seedy world of cockfighting, blade-enhanced winners slash their way to temporary victory while the losers end up in barrels to be fried and eaten. Nate's usual hard luck changes when "Graken" comes along. Graken is a strange creature who thrives on the fighting and never, ever loses. Now Nate and his new partner Jerry travel the cockfight circuit with the unbeatable beast, happy to let Graken show them the good times. But good times always have to end, and... Graken's gotta eat.

From award-winning author James M. Tabor come these two dark tales about the power of loss and the cost of greed. In "Antiques", a father haunted by guilt over his son's suicide is drawn toward another world.