Dive into the second collection of Behind Dark Doors, filled with stories of suspense, horror, paranormal and supernatural, from the dark mind of short story award-winning author Susan May.SCENIC ROUTEWhen a young family stop overnight at a quaint country bed-and-breakfast what they don’t know is that something is wrong in Broken Springs, population 402.HIDE-AND-SEEKHenry doesn't like playing hide-and-seek because his siblings don’t play nicely. Until the day he discovers there are worse things than being found. Not being found.HARASSMENT DAYDammit, thinks Edwin, when he sees those people have followed him onto the train and they’ve even gotten off at his station. What can he do to be rid of them for good?THE MONSTER RULESWhen Harry’s best friend shares the Monster Rules he learns how to stay safe at night until he's awoken by strange, scratching noises. Luckily, he knows what to do.WHERE WE ONCE WERETamara dreamed of visiting her distant ancestors' 1897-time line for her PhD research paper. What she discovers is a family secret two hundred years in the making.DESPERATETwo agitated women run into freeway traffic. Both are horrifically injured and should be dead, but they’re determined to get to the other side. What awaits them there?⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Short stories at their best"⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "5.0 out of 5 stars It totally lived up to the hype!"⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "I absolutely loved this collection!"

    Then got out of bed and had a brisk rub down with the pumice stone. I opened the curtains and saw that the sun was shining brightly. (A suspicion is growing in my mind that the BBC is not to be trusted.)Margaret Hilda Roberts is a rather ambitious 14 � year old grocer's daughter from Grantham. She can't abide laziness, finds four hours of chemistry homework delightful and believes she is of royal birth - or at least destined for great things. But Margaret knows that good things never come to those who wait . . .These are the secret diary entries of a girl born into an ordinary life, yet who might just go on to become something really rather extraordinary, and she is brilliantly brought vividly to life by bestselling author Sue Townsend, Britain's favourite comic writer for over three decades.'Essential reading for Mole followers' Times Educational Supplement'Wonderfully funny and sharp as knives' Sunday TimesSue Townsend is Britain's favourite comic author. Her hugely successful novels include eight Adrian Mole books, The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (Aged 55�), Number Ten, Ghost Children, The Queen and I, Queen Camilla and The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year, all of which are highly acclaimed bestsellers. She has also written numerous well-received plays. She lives in Leicester, where she was born and grew up.

    Winston K. Marks (1915-1979) is one such unjustly forgotten author.Included here are 12 science fiction stories, published between 1953 and 1959, representing some of his best work:THE WATER EATER (1953)UNBEGOTTEN CHILD (1953)…SO THEY BAKED A CAKE (1954)BACKLASH (1954)TABBY (1954)BREEDER REACTION (1954)FORSYTE'S RETREAT (1954)MATE IN TWO MOVES (1954)THE TEST COLONY (1954)BROWN JOHN’S BODY (1955)THE MIND DIGGER (1958)THE DEADLY DAUGHTERS (1958)If you enjoy this book, search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Press Megapack" to see the more than 100 other entries in the series, covering science fiction, modern authors, mysteries, westerns, classics, adventure stories, and much, much more!

    A party girl’s addiction gives birth to a monster within. Man’s best friend must fend off a woman’s greatest nightmare…Scare Street is proud to present eleven chilling tales of the supernatural, in one monstrous volume. Horror authors Ron Ripley, David Longhorn, Sara Clancy, and many more unite to bring you a terrifying collection of short stories, each one guaranteed to haunt your dreams. And each one more chilling than the last.Once you start reading you won’t be able to stop. Because when these authors sink their teeth into you, it’s already too late.The only way to escape from these nightmares… is to wake up screaming.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Sort of. When Brad Williams is offered a lot of money to take on a case for sly banker Jonas Baxter, he is in no position to refuse. Jonas has been charged with the attempted murder of local prostitute Tina Jade, but it quickly becomes evident that it is not the reason why the prosecution wants Jonas behind bars. So why are they still pressing ahead with the charges? What is Jonas guilty of? This thrilling legal short story will take you for a ride through the courtroom and leave you with twists and turns that you didn’t see coming.

    A simple touch sending currents of electricity flowing through a body. The feeling of coming home. Friends become lovers. Strangers become soulmates. The chemistry ignited when two people are falling in love is undeniable. Over the course of five short stories, follow these couples on journeys of passion and discover what happens when they decide to let sparks fly…

    She never overcame her humble beginnings and when Willie Eubanks rescued her from the orphanage by marrying her, she ended up right back where she started. Living in the same cabin, she was born in twelve and a half years earlier. However, she grew to love Willie and was determined that she and Willie were not going to end up as her parents had. In addition, she wanted to make sure her children were not going to have to suffer through the same experiences she had.

    From the first page of each of the edgy and unrelentingly intense stories in this debut collection, the teenaged characters are headed for big trouble. The adult world has mostly failed them, and they find themselves entering into highly charged situations where they make their own rules, with misguided understanding of the consequences. The stories burn hot and fast, providing searing insights into their world of sex, drugs, drinking, violence, and accidental grace, played out in small, tough towns. Written with raw directness and understanding that makes these nine stories impossible to forget, The History of Vegas announces an exciting, fresh talent with the impact of Mary Gaitskill, Mary Karr, and Jayne Anne Phillips.

    Will their secrets destroy them or can they together find a solution?

    Her chilling new short story, An Arrangement of Light, is irrefutable evidence of Krauss’s gifts.Narrated by the personal secretary to a world-famous landscape architect, it’s a haunting tale about how survival of the fittest, whether for flora or fauna, beast or man, is often a guarantee of treachery, and how our loyalties can become as trapping as any prison.Set in an unnamed country as familiar as it is otherworldly, the story begins with a young horticulturist’s admiration for the work of a great man and his hope to help build a new public park in the capital. He ends up securing far more than that: a complicity with the park’s celebrated designer he could never have imagined or indeed wished for. And when a military coup ushers capricious generals into power and they arrive in their black sedans with dark plans for the new park, the personal secretary discovers that dreams risk running headlong into nightmares. Ultimately he must reckon with the fact that nature, for all its beauty, is cruel and conniving, and that a good gardener cannot tame it, only bend its neck.

    The day after the renowned festival's closing ceremony, Genevieve is invited to visit the newly-refurbished Hotel Paradise. Genevieve knows the hotel well – in fact, her past life there has haunted her for over a decade... Twelve years earlier, two travellers have met in Paris. Genevieve dreams of becoming a famous songwriter, while Paul is determined to be a professional photographer. Full of optimism, they hitch south to the Riviera where they answer an advertisement for live-in help at the Hotel Paradise, located on an island just off the French coast. There the young couple are seduced by the tranquility and magical beauty of the hotel and its setting. But the island has a darker side, with a history of bloodshed that fills Genevieve with foreboding. When a stranger arrives who threatens her future with Paul, Genevieve senses that events are about to spin out of control … Anglo-Irish actress Carol Drinkwater is still well-known for her award-winning portrayal of Helen Herriot in the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small. A popular and acclaimed author and film-maker as well, Carol has published twenty books for both the adult and young adult markets. She is currently at work on her twenty-first title. When she purchased a rundown property overlooking the Bay of Cannes in France, she discovered almost seventy 400-year-old olive trees. Along with her French husband, Michel, Carol reclaimed the land and began producing top-quality olive oil. Her series of memoirs recounting their experiences on the farm (The Olive Farm, The Olive Season, The Olive Harvest and Return to the Olive Farm) have become international bestsellers, and the related travel books,The Olive Route and The Olive Tree, inspired the five-part documentary film series, The Olive Route. Carol's first Kindle Single, The Girl in Room Fourteen, reached the number one position in the Singles charts in both the United States and the UK.

    In one story, two New Jersey siblings with substance-abuse problems relapse together on Christmas Eve; in another, a young couple tries to make sense of an increasingly unhinged veterinarian who seems to be tapping, deliberately or otherwise, into the unspoken troubles between them. In tales about characters as they age from punk shows and benders to book clubs and art museums, the promise of community acts--at least temporarily--as a stay against despair.Running throughout Cool for America is the characters' yearning for transcendence through art: the hope that, maybe, the perfect, or even just the good-enough sentence, can finally make things right.

    As in her acclaimed novels The Siege and A Spell of Winter, world-class storyteller Helen Dunmore shows us with subtlety and humor precisely who her characters are and why we should care for them. In each taut, agile tale, they grow to surprise, concern, and move us as they negotiate situations that are often both mundane and bizarre: a cafeteria cook confronts her Polish pen pal in a meeting that is unexpectedly intense; a divorced mother gains insight from a parking meter; a boastful writer is put in his place in spectacular fashion; and in a chilling future, conception is ruthlessly controlled by the government. In several stories a soulful, curious woman named Ulli takes up residence in the reader's imagination -- stumbling across a strangely magnetic collector of religious icons, contemplating a youthful pregnancy, and remembering a troubled lover. In Ice Cream, Dunmore reveals both her poet's ear for the concise and piercing potentialities of language and the novelist's ambition of scope, proving her status as "a master of the shorter form" (The Sunday Telegraph). "Spellbinding ... She captures a moment in time and leaves us reeling at the echoes." -- Michael McLoughlin, The Irish News "Cool, elegant, and beautifully controlled, the stories collected in Ice Cream display Dunmore's virtuosity of language." -- Pamela Norris, The Independent on Sunday "All the senses are vibrantly alive in these stories." -- Katie Owen, The Sunday Telegraph

    They begin somewhere, too. In between, all manner of things happen: friendship, betrayal, horror and maybe even joy. For some, the End of the Road brings love and happiness, for others agony and suffering, and for a precious few, sorrow may lead to something revelatory. The potholes and pitfalls found in this anthology are many, but for every character, there is an end of the road. This road ends in a collection of short stories by 31 of the most gifted writers of our time, with stories from action and mystery superstars Russell Blake, Traci Tyne Hilton and Mike Meyer; romance stars Jeannette Raleigh, C A Newsome, Suzie O'Connell, Kathleen Steed and Anna J.McIntyre; and from cutting edge science fiction and fantasy authors Saxon Andrew, Stephen Arseneault, John Daulton, and JRC Salter; post-apocalyptic and dystopian authors Brandon Hale, Scott Langrel, Dale Roberts and Jess Mountifield. Intended for lovers of short fiction everywhere, the End of the Road is a must read for anyone intent on keeping current with the literary scene.Contributing authors:Brandon HaleRobert ThomasSaxon AndrewRussell BlakeJames RozoffAnna J. McIntyreDonna B. McNicolDale RobertsRandall MorrisJames RozoffAlison BlakeStephen ArseneaultJeanette RaleighL. S. BurtonJess MountifieldShirley BourgetC. A. NewsomeJ R C SalterMichael MeyerE. B. BoggsDavid A. CubanScott LangrelTraci Tyne HiltonJohn DaultonKathleen SteedChris WardJacques AntoineSuzie O'ConnellSherrie GiddensThomas JennerAngeline Perkins