The Second Wife


Brenda Chapman - 2011
    A year after her divorce, and more out of boredom and curiosity than anything else, she agrees to a meeting with her ex's new wife. She has no idea that the encounter will lead to murder. And she has decidedly mixed emotions when her ex-husband is arrested for the crime. Instead of accepting the lead detective's advice to book a Club Med vacation and leave the investigation to the professionals, Gwen decides to work the case on her own. Her life is about to get a lot less predictable and a lot more dangerous.

Selected Shorts. A Celebration of the Short Story: Timeless Classics


Symphony SpaceSteven Gilborn - 2006
    More than three hours of recordings in each collection capture the intimacy of live performance, with stories that are alternately exciting, poignant, and funny, making this the perfect accompaniment to any number of daily activities--driving, cooking, exercising, relaxing, or intently listening. Timeless Classics includes, among others, James Thurber's "The Night the Ghost Got In," read by Isaiah Sheffer; Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever," read by Maria Tucci; Jack London's "Make Westing," read by Steven Gilborn; D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking Horse Winner," read by John Shea; Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," read by Marian Seldes; Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," read by Charles Keating; and Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," read by James Naughton.

Marigold - the Golden Memories


Manali Debroy - 2019
    I make mistakes. I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best," and I couldn't agree more. Life is like a paradox of love and pain that may never leave each other, but in the end, the coexistence is worth the journey. Striving for the best is human nature, but are you really prepared for the roller-coaster rides or do you give up?

The Season to Be Wary


Rod Serling - 1967
    Winner of six Emmys (he was nominated nine times), two Sylvania Awards, on Peabody Award, and one Christopher Award for his teleplays, Serling came as close as anyone to dominating an era that abounded with talented men. His plays "Requiem for a Heavyweight" and "Patterns" are usually the first items on the lips of television aficionados reminiscing about the good old days. Yet as television changed, Rod Serling kept pace. He became producer and chief writer for the famous "Twilight Zone" series. These bizarre and fantastic adventures into the occult and demonic were without doubt one of the most creative, imaginative and successful enterprises in the history of television.Now Rod Serling has applied his prodigious writing talents to a new medium: one in which he is perhaps destined to make his greatest mark. The three novellas that compromise THE SEASON TO BE WARY betray the skillful hand of a master storyteller and prose stylist. Fired with a savage yet disciplined irony, paced with deliberate cadence that rises to a starting denouement, each story explores the theme of a terrible vengeance delivered for terrible deeds performed.In "The Escape Route," ex-Gruppenfuehrer Joseph Strobe - ex-deputy assistant commander of Auschwitz, ex-confidant of Heinrich Himmler - putters about his little rathole in Buenos Aires chewing over the good times he had breaking Jews. Yet his snug little world is turned upside down b the capture of Adolf Eichmann, and Strobe soon finds himself on the wrong end of a terrifying hunt."Color Scheme" recounts the life and times of the great King Connacher, racist and rabble-rouser, who makes his living on the stump, preaching the lynching gospel, only to find himself one summer evening the victim of an extraordinary case of mistaken identity.In "Eyes," Miss Claudia Menlo, who in her fifty lifeless years has been denied nothing that she wanted - except her sight - manipulates people with the same purposeful indifference with which she fondles the expensive bric-a-brac in her lavishly cluttered dwelling. Yet her insistant will is brutally thwarted by the one set of circumstances she cannot control.Serling has infused these simple, forceful tales with an extraordinary richness of character and detail. There is, for example, the Prussian officer Gruber, who cannot stomach the pigs like Strobe he helped create and with whom he is forced to share his guilt. And there is Indian Charlie Hatcher, the most memorable portrait of a burned-out prizefighter since Serling's own justly famous Mountain Rivera.The power, the drive, the complexity and subtlety of these novellas mark Rod Serling as one of the most important and graceful fiction writers. Mr. Serling is a graduate of Antioch College and lives in Southern California with his wife and two children.

Brothers in Arms


Marcus Wynne - 2004
    Lost in the maze of one patient's shattered mind is a terrible secret, so terrible that even in his shattered state he cannot be allowed to live.The Twins are young, blond, nubile women---and the most deadly team of assassins in the world. Their first attempt at killing the patient succeeds only in killing a double, and they are almost killed by two unlikely bystanders: ex-military special operator Dale Miller (No Other Option) and former CIA operator Charley Payne (Warrior in the Shadows).Miller and Payne are recruited by the CIA to protect the patient. And a clandestine game of cat and mouse between the assassins and the protectors leads to Amsterdam, where the money man behind the Twins' operations has set up base, and to a bloody showdown in Athens, where Dale Miller nearly loses his life.It's left to Charley Payne to discover the secret locked deep in the subconscious of the patient's shattered mind and hunt one deadly man through the streets of Washington, D.C., and stop him before he can unleash an event that could kill millions.Marcus Wynne took you on a thrill ride in his first book, No Other Option, when a special ops team had to hunt down one of its own. In Warrior in the Shadows, Payne pursued a psychopathic killer who drew his strength from cannibalism and black magic. Brothers in Arms unites the heroes from his previous books in a global battle to face down a threat to the United States of America.

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures


Vincent Lam - 2005
    A formidable debut, it is a profound and unforgettable depiction of today’s doctors, patients, and hospitals.Provocative, heartbreaking, and darkly humorous, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures introduces readers to a masterful new voice in fiction. A practicing ER physician, Vincent Lam delivers a precise and intimate portrait of the medical profession in his fiction debut. These twelve interwoven stories follow a group of young doctors as they move from the challenges of medical school to the intense world of emergency rooms, evacuation missions, and terrifying new viruses. Winner of the prestigious Giller Prize, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures marks the arrival of a deeply humane and preternaturally gifted writer. Fitz, Ming, Chen, and Sri are the four ambitious protagonists of Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures. They fall in love as they study for their exams, face moral dilemmas as they split open cadavers, confront police who rough up their patients, and treat schizophrenics with pathologies similar to their own. In one harrowing story set amidst the 2003 SARS crisis, which the author witnessed firsthand, two of these doctors suddenly become the patients. Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures invites us into a world where the ordinary becomes the critical in a matter of seconds. A formidable debut, it is a profound and unforgettable depiction of today’s doctors, patients, and hospitals.

The Sargasso of Space


Edmond Hamilton - 2009
    Helpless, doomed, into the graveyard of space floats the wrecked freighter Pallas.

A Singular and Whimsical Problem


Rachel McMillan - 2015
    Merinda Herringford and Jem Watts would be enjoying the season a lot more if they weren’t forced to do their own laundry and cooking. Just as they are adapting to their trusty housekeeper’s ill-timed vacation, they are confronted by the strangest mystery they’ve encountered since they started their private investigation firm.In this bonus e-only novella, what begins as the search for a missing cat leads to a rabble-rousing suffragette and the disappearance of several young women from St. Jerome’s Reformatory for Incorrigible Females. From the women’s courts of City Hall to Toronto’s seedy docks and into the cold heart of the underground shipping industry, this will be the most exciting Christmas the girls have had yet…if they can stay alive long enough to enjoy it.

Collected Stories


Tennessee Williams - 1985
    Arranged chronologically, the forty-nine stories, when taken together with the memoir of his father that serves as a preface, not only establish Williams as a major American fiction writer of the twentieth century, but also, in Gore Vidal’s view, constitute the real autobiography of Williams’ "art and inner life."

Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose


Peter Lovesey - 1998
    "Passion Killers" will make your toes curl for the hapless Mrs Palmer, and "The Odstock Curse" may well induce goosebumps as a Gypsy curse is repeated in the present. Among the fifteen tales are two featuring Peter Lovesey's forthright police detective, Peter Diamond, and two with the amateur sleuth, Bertie, Prince of Wales, in rumbustious form. The collection also include "The Pushover," winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Golden Mysteries short story prize, and "Quiet Please—We're Rolling," both nominated for Britain's Crime Writer's Association Short Story Dagger. **

Frenzied Fiction


Stephen Leacock - 1917
    He touches on the changes time has brought about in the city, education, and work habits. Among the other topics in this work are nature, fishing, gardening, success, and spirits--both of the departed and of the variety Prohibition prohibited.Each chapter of this book is a standalone story and if you love a good laugh, these stories are for you. In me, Leacock’s wit produced the full range of laughter: smiles, chuckles, guffaws, and some uncontrollable giggles. Also, occasionally, I found myself shedding a tear or two.Summary by Debra Lynn

Frying Plantain


Zalika Reid-Benta - 2019
    We see her on a visit to Jamaica, startled by the sight of a severed pig’s head in her great aunt’s freezer; in junior high, the victim of a devastating prank by her closest friends; and as a teenager in and out of her grandmother’s house, trying to cope with the ongoing battles between her unyielding grandparents.A rich and unforgettable portrait of growing up between worlds, Frying Plantain shows how, in one charged moment, friendship and love can turn to enmity and hate, well-meaning protection can become control, and teasing play can turn to something much darker. In her brilliantly incisive debut, Zalika Reid-Benta artfully depicts the tensions between mothers and daughters, second-generation Canadians and first-generation cultural expectations, and Black identity and predominately white society.

My Grandma's Bag of Stories


Nishant Joshi - 2017
    Nishan Joshi's "My Grandma's Bag of Stories" is delightful and at the same time enjoyable. This book is a collection of 40 moral stories, ideal for young children and those who are 5+ in age. Simple and lucid language of the book, makes reading a pleasure. Each story ends with a powerful message which can be interpreted in various ways and will help you expand the horizons of your mind. This book guides one on the correct path by enlightening with age old morals interlaced with new age stories. I hope you will imbibe the morals and apply them in your day to day life. You can read more moral stories on Nishant’s website: www.nishantindia.com.

Great American Stories: Ten Unabridged Classics


Ambrose Bierce - 1994
    The following stories are included in this collection: "The One Million Pound Bank Note" by Mark Twain"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain"A Visit to Niagara" by Mark Twain"Mysterious Visit" by Mark Twain"The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" by Stephen Crane"The Eyes of the Panther" by Ambrose Bierce"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce"The Love of Life" by Jack London"To Build a Fire" by Jack London