Great Short Short Stories: Quick Reads by Great Writers offers that opportunity. An outstanding collection of 30 brilliant short stories, each just six or fewer pages in length, it provides the chance to absorb an entire story (or two or three) in just one sitting.Well-known tales from masters of the short-story genre include: Mark Twain, "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"; Franz Kafka, "A Country Doctor"; Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado"; Guy de Maupassant, "A Piece of String"; Stephen Crane, "The Veteran"; Kate Chopin, "A Pair of Silk Stockings"; plus works by Dickens, O. Henry, Chekhov, Wilde, and many others. Includes 2 selections from the Common Core State Standards Initiative: "A White Heron" and "Cask of Amontillado."The egg / Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941, American)An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge / Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?, American)The enchanted bluff / Willa Cather (1873-1947, American)A malefactor / Anton Chekhov (1860-1904, Russian)A pair of silk stockings / Kate Chopin (1851-1904, American)The veteran / Stephen Crane (1871-1900, American)The apparition of Mrs. Veal / Daniel Defoe (1660-1731, English)Nobody's story / Charles Dickens (1812-1870, English)If I were a man / Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935, American)Squire Petrick's lady / Thomas Hardy (1840-1928, English)The luck of Roaring Camp / Bret Harte (1836-1902, American)Dr. Heidegger's experiment / Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864, American)A ghost story / Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927, English)A white heron / Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909, American)A country doctor / Franz Kafka (1883-1924, Czech)Wee Willie Winkie / Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936, English)Sanctuary / Nella Larsen (1891-1964, American)Second best / D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930, English)The white silence / Jack London (1876-1916, American)Germans at meat / Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923, English)A piece of string / Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893, French)The open window / H.H. Munro, or Saki (1870-1916, English)The furnished room / O. Henry (1962-1910, American)With other eyes / Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936, Italian)The cask of Amontillado / Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849, American)The coffin-maker / Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837, Russian)The three hermits / Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910, Russian)The notorious jumping frog of Calaveras County / Mark Twain (1835-1910, American)The remarkable case of Davidson's eyes / H.G. Wells (1866-1946, English)The sphinx without a secret / Oscar Wilde (1854-1900, Irish)

    With best friends, boyfriends and bosses in the mix, there's more than enough sexy fun to go around. But what Kimora doesn't count on is what happens when she plays romance Russian roulette.'Round Midnight by Donna HillRelationship expert Summer Lane is so busy helping lovelorn callers on her late-night radio talk show that she finds herself in her own romance slump. As New Year's Eve approaches, she decides to follow her own advice—and speak straight from the heart—to keep the handsome program director from slipping away when the clock strikes twelve.Blind Faith by Kayla PerrinTrapped for days in her car when it careens off an isolated stretch of road outside of Buffalo, New York, Andrea Dawson has already said her prayers and given up hope of ever being rescued. But then she suddenly sees a blinding light—not from the great beyond, but rather a flashlight held by her sexy savior, Mark Potter. With both of them looking for something to believe in, has fate brought them together for a reason?

    In The Harder She Comes, we meet girls salivating at the sight of well-filled and packed jeans and bois dreaming of having a beautiful girl’s red lipstick smeared across their mouths. D. L. King has curated a singular set of stories filled with sexy sirens luring unsuspecting butches to their demise on the rocky shores of love and hot, confident women in silk and lace during the day who will do anything to serve their daddies' needs at night. The Harder She Comes is great writing with characters that will stay with the reader for a long, long time — sometimes sweet, always sexy, often romantic, and more than a little dangerous.

    From the beach towns of Normandy to the streets of New Orleans, these thirteen vignettes introduce us to a covetous French painter, a sleepless wanderer of the night, a guitar-playing gypsy, and a host of others who yearn for and dive into the turbulent depths of romantic experience.

    These dark, often disturbing tales expand the boundaries of the horror genre; the sexuality of the protagonists is a point of reference for the "horror" of otherness that defines and, at times, divides us.Cover painting: Detail from The Ambassador of Obloquy by James HuctwithContains the following stories:"The Nightguard" C. Mark Umland"Piercing Men" Douglas Clegg"The Siege" Michael Marano"Bear Shirt" Gemma Files"Little Holocausts" Brian Hodge"The Sound of Weeping" Thomas S. Roche"Hey Fairy" Edo Van Belkom"The Spark" William J. Mann"Spindleshanks (New Orleans, 1956)" Caitlin R. Kiernan"The Perpetual" David Quinn"Genius Loci" Becky N. Southwell"Goodbye" Michael Thomas Ford"Tabula Rasa" Robert Boyczuk"You Can't Always Get What You Want" T.L. Bryers"The Bird Feeders" David Nickle"No Silent Scream" Nancy Kilpatrick"Second Shadow" Joseph O'Brien

    McCauleySPILL SITE by Matthew C. FunkA CLEAN WHITE SUN by Mike WilkersonLUCK by Johnny ShawPLUS: an exclusive first look at Tyrus Books upcoming novel from Todd Robinson, THE HARD BOUNCE

    The result: "The most creative, generous, and democratic of any of the annual volumes" (Rick Moody).Among its numerous awards, the Pushcart Prize has been chosen for the Poets Writers / Barnes Noble "Writers for Writers" Award and the National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement recognition.

    Keith Hartman's "Sex, Guns and Baptists" gives a disturbing view of how the world could become if the Christian fundamentalists continue gaining political ground; Ralph Sperry's delightful aliens in "On Vacation" are refreshingly similar to us: shy workaholics, exasperated lovers, good with machines; Ellen Klages takes a '90s dyke back forty years to 1950s San Francisco where she discovers her modern sensibilities are utterly alien to the lesbians of the time. These stories explore physical, emotional, and moral landscapes vastly different from the familiar -- where nothing is as it seems.This group of talented newcomers and award-winning genre veterans includes Jim Grimsley, Mark W. Tiedemann, Charles Sheffield, Carrie Richerson, Keith Hartman, Nancy Kress, Richard Bamburg, L. Timmel Duchamp, Charles Sheffield, Don Bassingthwaite, and many others.

    Leland isn’t just his boss, though. He’s the son of the company’s CEO. And Brian has fallen in love. Hurt by too many stolen kisses and nooners at seedy hotels, Brian finally broke off their secret affair two weeks ago. Leland isn’t ready to let Brian go and he isn’t above seducing Brian — again — to give them both what they really want for Christmas: each other.This free short story was originally written for the Goodreads M/M Romance Group's 2010 holiday event and appears in the event's Stuff My Stocking: M/M Romance Stories that are Nice and… Naughty anthology.

    Evocative. Romantic. Enter the sensual world of modern day fairy tales with three novellas by USA Today bestselling author Sierra Simone.Music Box GirlA Twelve Dancing Princesses StoryEvery night they dance. Every night he follows.Ex-soldier private investigator Cal Dugan has been hired to follow Tamsin and her ballerinas to find out where they go at night. He didn’t count on Tamsin’s courage or her passion. He didn’t count on the way she twists him up inside.He solves the riddle of their disappearing act, but he’ll never reveal Tamsin’s secrets, no matter the cost.American WitchA Princess and the Pea StoryMorgan wants to start fresh, but a mystery man at the masked ball lights her up from the inside. His hands, his touch, his scent--they're all too familiar, all too real. He’s always been her weakness, but can she deny him when every part of her is on fire for him and only him?Red & WhiteA Snow-White and Rose-Red StoryAll that art student Scarlett wants to do is wait out a howling snowstorm and kiss her best friend senseless, but all her careful plans fall apart the minute a near-frozen bear stumbles through the door.Except he's not a bear—he's very much a man—and there's only one way to warm him up from the cold...

    There's a greater emphasis than usual on Golden Age writers (just the way it came together) -- but we have one original story as well, a posthumous collaboration with H.B. Fyfe, finishing a really terrific but not-quite-done tale he had been working on before his death. It's a bit reminiscent of James Tiptree, Jr.'s best work -- but predates Tiptree by a couple of decades. And we have novels by Robert Silverberg, Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth, Murray Leinster, E. Everett Evans, and Donald Wollheim...not to mention part 2 of our serialization of Tony Rothman's mammoth 2013 novel, Firebird. And a ton of great short stories. 36 works in all, more than 1900 pages of great reading!ANGELS IN THE JETS, by Jerome BixbyA CODE FOR SAM, by Lester del ReySTAR SHIP, by Poul AndersonTHE WELL-OILED MACHINE, by H.B. FyfeJACK OF NO TRADES, by Evelyn E. SmithTHE GRAVITY BUSINESS, by James E. GunnDOOMSDAY EVE, by Robert Moore WilliamsMASTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, by Robert SilverbergFALCONS OF NARABEDLA, by Marion Zimmer BradleyNEW LAMPS, by Robert Moore WilliamsTHE PIRATES OF ZAN, by Murray LeinsterOUT OF THE IRON WOMB!, by Poul AndersonLATER THAN YOU THINK, by Fritz LeiberTHE PLANET MAPPERS, by E. Everett EvansAFTERGLOW, by H.B. Fyfe and John Gregory BetancourtSHIPPING CLERK, by William MorrisonCONTAGION, by Katherine MacLeanTHE LIGHT ON PRECIPICE PEAK, by Stephen TallTHE LUCKIEST MAN IN DENV, by Simon EisnerON THE FOURTH PLANET, by J.F. BoneBIMMIE SAYS, by Sydney Van ScyocSWEET TOOTH, by Robert F. YoungSEARCH THE SKY, by Frederik Pohl and C. M. KornbluthSTAR, BRIGHT, by Mark CliftonHOT PLANET, by Hal ClementTWO WEEKS IN AUGUST, by Frank M. RobinsonTHE ALIEN, by Raymond F. JonesBODYGUARD, by Christopher GrimmJAYWALKER, by Ross RocklynneSECOND CHILDHOOD, by Clifford D. SimakOF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS, by William TennPOLLONY UNDIVERTED, by Sydney Van ScyocDELAY IN TRANSIT, by F. L. WallaceA GIFT FROM EARTH, by Manly BanisterONE AGAINST THE MOON, by Donald A. WollheimSpecial Feature: FIREBIRD, by Tony Rothman [Part 2 of 3]If you enjoy this volume of classic stories, don't forget to search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Press Megapack" to see the 270+ other entries in this series, including science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, adventure, horror, westerns -- and much, much more!

    She never expected her longtime friend Bram to lure her into a love affair so hot.Cooper’s Fall by Lora LeighFormer ranger turned bar owner Ethan Cooper never expected to get an eyeful of prim Miss Sarah Fox from his attic window one hot summer afternoon. But now his blood is on fire for the delicious little minx.The Edge of Sin by Cheyenne McCrayZane Steele lives a life of extraordinary danger as a government agent and has never let anyone get too close. Then he sees the one woman who changes his life forever.Wanted: A Real Man by Heidi BettsClaire left her high school sweetheart Linc, in search of a better life. Ten years later she needs his help as a U.S. Marshal to find her missing daughter…Linc's daughter. Reeling with the knowledge of a daughter he’s never known, Linc sets out to claim what’s his.

    Witt comes the re-release of three hot contemporary novellas -- Getting off the Ground, Infinity Pools, and On The List.After being stood up at the altar, compulsive over-planner Elliott Chandler decides to turn his honeymoon on Oahu into a vacation for one. Fate puts a hitch in his plans, however, when the airport is snowed in and his flight is delayed.In the terminal, the jilted groom catches the eye of another stranded traveler: the laidback and very sexy Derek Windsor. Derek breaks the ice and strikes up a conversation, and as the temperature drops outside, the heat between them rises. Pity they’re both going to different islands, but if their flight doesn’t get off the ground fast, Mr. Calm-and-Cool may just tempt Mr. Play-It-Safe into doing something reckless.And that plane isn’t going anywhere any time soon…

    The first collection of fifteen short stories by the popular tri-media personality.

    Seven couples. A Christmas they’ll never forget.Jingle Bell Rock features seven couples from across the Ella and Brooke universe, all coming together in one story to bring you joy, happiness, and a little Christmas cheer.Featuring:Logan & Tate (Temptation Series)Ace & Dylan (Preslocke Series)Viper & Halo (Fallen Angel Series)Robbie, Julien, & Priest (Confessions Series)Panther & Solo (Elite Series)Shaw & Trent (South Haven Series)Paige & Dawson w/Ryleigh (LA Liaisons Series)