Book picks similar to
Crystal by Susan Hill
fiction
short-stories
susan-hill
preist-hood-and-religion
The Sleep Tight Motel
Lisa Unger - 2018
Check in for the night with New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger.Eve has a fake ID, a .38, and a violent lover receding in the rearview mirror. He’ll never find her at the isolated motel, and its kindly manager is happy to ease her fears. But if Eve is the only guest, whom does she keep hearing on the other side of the wall? Eve won’t get a good night’s rest until she finds out.Lisa Unger’s The Sleep Tight Motel is part of Dark Corners, a collection of seven heart-stopping short stories by bestselling authors who give you so many new reasons to be afraid. Each story can be read in a single sitting. Or, if you have the nerve, you can listen all by yourself in the dark.
Inconstant Moon
Larry Niven - 2012
Has the sun gone nova and these are their last few hours alive? As Los Angeles drowns in storms and people move from shock to terror, Stan and Leslie face their own mortality, as Stan seeks to understand what has happened.Written with intelligence and humor, Larry Niven's Hugo Award-winning short story became an "Outer Limits" episode. "Inconstant Moon" invites you to ask yourself, "How would you spend your last night on Earth?""Inconstant Moon" appears in the Niven collection ALL THE MYRIAD WAYS (available as an e-book) and the British collection INCONSTANT MOON. Author of the celebrated RINGWORLD novels, Larry Niven is co-author of such bestsellers as LUCIFER'S HAMMER and THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE. "Great storytelling is still alive in science fiction because of Larry Niven." - Orson Scott Card, author of ENDER'S GAME."The scope of Larry Niven's work is so vast that only a writer of supreme talent could disguise the fact as well as he can."- Tom Clancy, author of THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER"His tales have grit, authenticity, colorful characters and pulse-pounding narrative drive. Niven is a true master!"- Frederik Pohl "Larry Niven is one of the giants of modern science fiction."- Mike Resnick "Our premier hard SF writer."- The Baltimore Sun "Niven ... lifts the reader far from the conventional world -- and does it with dash."- The Los Angeles Times "Niven...juggles huge concepts of time and space that no one else can lift." - Charles Sheffield "In creating a geologic world and in the interactions between humans and aliens, Niven is superb."- Boston Sunday Globe "One of the genre's most prolific and accessible talents."- Library Journal about the author:Born April 30, 1938 in Los Angeles, California. Attended California Institute of Technology; flunked out after discovering a book store jammed with used science fiction magazines. Graduated Washburn University, Kansas, June 1962: BA in Mathematics with a Minor in Psychology, and later received an honorary doctorate in Letters from Washburn. Interests: Science fiction conventions, role playing games, AAAS meetings and other gatherings of people at the cutting edges of science. Comics. Filk singing. Yoga and other approaches to longevity. Moving mankind into space by any means, but particularly by making space endeavors attractive to commercial interests. Several times we’ve hosted The Citizens Advisory Council for a National Space Policy. I grew up with dogs. I live with a cat, and borrow dogs to hike with. I have passing acquaintance with raccoons and ferrets. Associating with nonhumans has certainly gained me insight into alien intelligences. www.larryniven.net
Adalee (Curvy Girls Can, #3)
Sadie King - 2020
I’m the plus-size model who refuses all men until I meet Hayden. He watches me through the lens and it makes me feel beautiful, confident, and bold, bold enough to do something I know I shouldn’t...But what happens when the one man I finally trust betrays me?HaydenSince the moment I saw Adalee on the fashion runway, I’ve known she’ll be mine. And now that I’ve got her in my photography studio, I’m not letting her go. But it’s not just her curves I crave. I want her heart, body, and soul.Will she open herself to love, or has the Viking Ice Queen frozen me out of her heart?Adalee is book three in the Curvy Girls Can series. Short, sweet and steamy insta-love stories about women with big curves, big attitudes, and big dreams and the alpha men who are man enough to love them.High heat, oh so sweet, and always with a happily ever after. Each book in the series is a standalone. No cliffhangers.
Paris for One and Other Stories
Jojo Moyes - 2016
She's never even been on a romantic weekend away--to anywhere--before. Traveling abroad isn't really her thing. But when Nell's boyfriend fails to show up for their mini-vacation, she has the opportunity to prove everyone--including herself--wrong. Alone in Paris, Nell finds a version of herself she never knew existed: independent and intrepid. Could this turn out to be the most adventurous weekend of her life? Funny, charming, and irresistible, Paris for One is quintessential Jojo Moyes--as are the other stories that round out the collection.
A Pleasure and a Calling
Phil Hogan - 2014
Heming. He was the estate agent who showed you around your comfortable home, suggested a financial package, negotiated a price with the owner, and called you with the good news. The less good news is that, all these years later, he still has the key. That's absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine? The answer is; he has the keys to them all. William Heming's most at home in a stranger's private things. He makes it his business to know all their secrets, and how they arrange their lives. His every pleasure is in his leafy community. He loves and knows every inch of it, feels nurtured by it, and would defend it - perhaps not with his life but if it came to it, with yours. Things begin to change when Mr. Hemings' obsession shifts from many people to one, and then a dead body winds up in someone's garden. For a man who is used to going unremarked, Mr. Heming's finds his natural routine becomes uncomfortably interrupted.
The Disembodied
John Grover - 2011
In the mist.An apprentice mortician moves his family to the small town of Sotherton to provide them with a better life. Little did he know the dark secret the town and its people harbored. The town sat on the edge of a mist-shrouded forest with a deadly secret. Something lives in the trees, in the mist and it’s jealous. Jealous of all those who have flesh.Disembodied is a preview story from the author’s upcoming collection Creatures and Crypts due out in late 2011. Creatures of the living and the dead gather in a volume of over 70,000 words to stalk their prey…humans. 20 stories set the scene for a cast ranging from the Grim Reaper, shambling zombies and restless spirits, to unimaginable monsters that only inhabit the shapeless darkness and the author’s imagination. Join them as they wreak havoc on their unsuspecting victims and celebrate with a victory dance on hollowed bones.
Fake Bride
Cassandra Bloom - 2017
Anaconda,’ they call me. I don’t chase women, they chase me. I’ve made my fortune, I’ve built my empire. I play to win and live by my own set of rules. My darkest secret? There's something I’m missing. Something all my billions can’t buy. Till she came into my life. Every inch of her curvy form makes my mouth water. But she’s heard of my womanizing reputation. Now she needs a job. And I have the perfect assignment for her. $50’000 for her to be my Mrs. for two weeks. She is mine now. Now the game is on. And I play Dirty… I won’t let anybody f*ck with my plans. But to really fall for a girl. To make her completely and utterly mine. Claim her for my own. My wildest dream and my darkest nightmare all in one… Which one will it be? If I toy with my desires, will she steal my heart? Fake Bride is a steamy fake marriage romance story with no cheating, no cliffhanger and, as always, a happy ever after ending. Includes bonus content for your reading pleasure! Enjoy.
Hannah-Beast
Jennifer McMahon - 2018
The mean girls made sure of it. To this day, for a haunted local mother, the most unsettling Halloween costume of all is an urban legend they call Hannah-Beast. It’s a reminder of the past she can’t forget. Especially tonight when it’s come back, so close to home.Jennifer McMahon’s Hannah-Beast is part of Dark Corners, a collection of seven heart-stopping short stories by bestselling authors who give you so many new reasons to be afraid. Each story can be read in a single sitting. Or, if you have the nerve, you can listen all by yourself in the dark.
Reckless Nights in Rome
C.C. MacKenzie - 2012
THE ONE! Though the name of her celebration and wedding cake business is up in lights, Bronte Ludlow doesn't care for the trappings of success. All that matters to her is her company, her independence and her heritage,The Dower House. Home to her ancestors since the seventeenth century, no way will she part with it to ‘a man with too much money and no soul’. Nico Ferranti’s only passions are money and power... He's a man who stopped believing in romance long ago and Bronte's a romantic, yet the attraction sparking between them like fireworks over the Piazza del Popolo stuns Nico. When Bronte's brother is badly hurt in a car accident in Rome, Nico whisks Bronte to the Eternal City. He wants her and he wants The Dower House and Nico Ferranti always gets what he wants. But Bronte’s heart has already been broken by one ruthless charmer and although tempted she isn’t about to give up either her heart or her home to the charismatic Italian without a fight!
Owning the Future: Short Stories
Neal Asher - 2018
However, though I think some of them are great, some aren’t, and some are profoundly dated. I am aware that there are those out there, who will just buy these without a second thought, so I have to edit, be selective, and I damned well have to show some respect for my readers. Kindle in this respect can be a danger for a known writer, because you can publish any old twaddle and someone will buy it. Time and again, I’ve had fans, upon hearing that I have this and that unpublished in my files, demanding that I publish it at once because surely they’ll love it. No they won’t. A reputation like trust: difficult to build and easy to destroy. I’ve therefore chosen stories other people have published here and there, and filled in with those I really think someone should have published. Here you’ll find some Polity tales, some that could have been set in the Polity (at a stretch) and some from the bleak Owner universe. Enjoy! Neal Asher 04/06/18
Forever
Lee Moan - 2011
But she had other ideas . . .This ebook contains two stories about marriages affected by supernatural forces. In the title story, FOREVER, David Scarsdale finds himself trapped in an endless void with his wife. Who is controlling it? And will he ever escape?In TWELVE MINUTES Jude must make a painful decision about the fate of his marriage - a marriage in which his wife is conscious for only twelve minutes each day . . .If you are a fan of The Twilight Zone these stories could be for you.The ebook also contains an extended preview of Lee Moan's forthcoming novel, Lazarus Island, a supernatural thriller. *This ebook: 11225 words approx.
Unsuitable Men
Pippa Wright - 2012
Even she would admit that her ex-boyfriend Martin wasn’t the most exciting man in the world – let’s face it, his idea of a rocking night was one spent discussing pension plans in a Harvester restaurant – but Rory could rely on him and, having watched her mother rack up four turbulent marriages, that’s what matters. But when she discovers that her supposedly reliable Mr Right is a distinctly unreliable cheater, she’s forced to consider the possibility that everything she knows about relationships is wrong. In an effort to reinvigorate both her love life and her lacklustre career at posh magazine Country House, she sets herself a mission to date as many unsuitable men as possible. Toyboys. Sugar daddies. Fauxmosexuals. Maybe the bad boys she’s never dated can show her what she’s been missing in life. But if Mr Right can turn out to be so wrong, maybe one of her Mr Wrongs will turn out to be just right...
The Tumor
John Grisham - 2015
In this short book, he provides readers with a fictional account of how a real, new medical technology could revolutionize the future of medicine by curing with sound. THE TUMOR follows the present day experience of the fictional patient Paul, an otherwise healthy 35-year-old father who is diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Grisham takes readers through a detailed account of Paul’s treatment and his family’s experience that doesn’t end as we would hope. Grisham then explores an alternate future, where Paul is diagnosed with the same brain tumor at the same age, but in the year 2025, when a treatment called focused ultrasound is able to extend his life expectancy. Focused ultrasound has the potential to treat not just brain tumors, but many other disorders, including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, hypertension, and prostate, breast and pancreatic cancer. For more information, you can visit The Focused Ultrasound Foundation’s website. Here you will find a video of Grisham on the TEDx stage with the Foundation’s chairman and a Parkinson’s patient who brings the audience to its feet sharing her incredible story of a focused ultrasound “miracle.” Readers will get a taste of the narrative they expect from Grisham, but this short book will also educate and inspire people to be hopeful about the future of medical innovation.
The Fact of the Matter
Madeleine L'Engle - 2020
Campbell stormed into the Franklins' general store, decrying the devilish nature of her daughter-in-law-a sentiment that deeply disturbed Mrs. Franklin, considering the woman in question, Alicia, was oft described as "saintly" by everyone around her. When she leaves the store in a huff, Mrs. Franklin thinks she's done with Mrs. Campbell's ravings for the day-until the woman calls her late in the night, urgently demanding to see her.Blending elements of fantasy and horror, what transpires between the two women over the course of the evening will test the boundaries of reason, faith, and family-and prove that, in times of great danger, even strangers can come together to help one another in need.For more stories by Madeleine L'Engle, read The Moment of Tenderness, available now.
Mr. January
Jasmine Garner - 2020
It’s why he’s a great firefighter. It’s also why he can’t get over the morbid scene he just witnessed during his last shift. And then he meets Tisha, who understands the emotional turmoil he’s going through. She ends up saving his life in the most embarrassing way possible, and he can’t get her out of his head.Tisha can’t think of the last time she’s laughed, yet she’s content with her life. When you’ve experienced indescribable trauma, sometimes good enough is, well, good enough.She meets Seth and suddenly wants more. But with both of them healing from the darkness in their pasts, a healthy relationship may not be possible. And she’s perfectly fine with rejecting his advances, until she learns that he is Mr. January in a smoking hot firefighter calendar. Suddenly, saying no isn’t as clear-cut as she thought it would be. Seth’s personal commitments and darkness prove to be too overwhelming to fully give himself to Tisha, although he’s trying his best. But his best may not be good enough. The logical part of her mind and the broken part of her heart say no, but they’re no match for the fire he kindles within her body.This BWWM romance is book one in the Hot Boys firefighter series. Each book can be read as a standalone and in any order. No cheating and a guaranteed happily ever after.Are you ready to step into the fire?