His eyes. Twinkling with cunning ENJOYMENT. Have glanced the at every Moment towards HIS companion's face vs' ' When he was quite sure that the narrative had ended he laughed noiselessly for fully half a minute. Then he said: Well ...! That takes the biscuit! 'James Joyce's naturalistic. unflinching portrayal of ordinary working people in his Dubliners stories was a literary landmark. These four stories from that collection offer glimpses of defeated lives - an unremarkable death. a theft. a desperate plan. a failed writer's dream - yet each creates a compelling and ultimately redemptive vision of a city and of human experience. This book includes: Two Gallants. The Sisters. The Boarding House. and A Little Cloud.

    She’s too busy for that thanks to a more than hectic work schedule with a crazy Hollywood tyrant for a boss.But there’s something about her new personal trainer, Mick, that Karen just can’t get out of her head. She can sense his intense, animal heat, and feels like she has an unusual, strong connection with him right away. But does he feel the same? And what happens when Karen's movie star crush asks her out on a date? Watch how Karen and Mick’s story unfolds. The heat level is off the charts as all the hot sex, passionate romance, and drama ensues! Tiger Pawed is a BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance. This is a standalone novella and the first story in the Shifter Heat series. These paranormal romances can be read in any order. Gonna make you sweat - this novella includes steamy scenes, spicy language, and sizzling hot content. If you like the sound of that, then this book is for you!

    A female officer who is attacked in the line of duty must protect her own husband from his worst impulses in this short story, first published in The Blue Religion (Michael Connelly, ed.) and recognized as one of 2009's Best American Mystery Stories (Jeffery Deaver, ed.).

    It is a riveting commentary on the way we live now by a spectacular prose artist.Ann Beattie published her first short story in The New Yorker in 1972. Twenty-eight years later, she received the 2000 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is, as the Washington Post Book World said, "one of our era's most vital masters of the short form." The eleven stories in her new work are peopled by characters coming to terms with the legacies of long-held family myths or confronting altered circumstances -- new frailty or sudden, unlikely success. Beattie's ear for language, her complex and subtle wit, and her profound compassion are unparalleled. From the elegiac story "The Famous Poet, Amid Bougainvillea," in which two men trade ruminations on illness, art, and servitude, to "The Big-Breasted Pilgrim," wherein a famous chef gets a series of bewildering phone calls from George Stephanopoulos, Perfect Recall comprises Beattie's strongest work in years. It is a riveting commentary on the way we live now by a spectacular prose artist.

    5,000 words (16 pages).For Bafion, there is no farther to fall. Once a banneret, officer, and gentleman, he is none of those things now. He is a swordsman who has slipped through the cracks of society and is eking out an existence as a thug for hire.Bafion is presented with the opportunity to reclaim some of what was lost to him, but to do so will mean facing part of his past that he would rather forget.The Swordsman of Tanosa is a swashbuckling fantasy short story set in the same world as the Society of the Sword trilogy.

    On a night when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest, all that is real and unreal meet in a nowhere place, at a nowhere time.'

    "He brings to life characters and situations as vivid and compelling as any in contemporary literature."--Michael Dorris, The Washington Post Book World.

    The stories recounts the life of times of the hero Domrudhar in colonial India. The protagonist Domrudhar is portrayed as a dishonest man who rises from a lowly shop-assistant to a land owner.

    An old friend shows up in town to stay and they have decisions to make about some big plans for their future. Spend a little more time in Bellingwood during the holidays and see what everyone is up to. Rebecca and Andrew have a party to attend, Polly has yet another rescue. It's just one more week in that little world we all love.

    The writer has a fertile imagination and an attractive narrative style.' '...one of the best reads I have had this year. Gripped by the grizzled Irish detective.....plenty of twists and turns Bravo!' '...I thoroughly enjoyed Black December - it's a very good "who done it" - and so often!' '...Top drawer crime fiction...' --Amazon  Scott Hunter is a CWA shortlisted author.

    Even in the costume her curves are obvious. All I can think about is ripping off the bunny suit and giving her some joy. I do women, not relationships. Besides it’s forbidden. But she makes me feel ways I’ve never felt. I’m the doctor but somehow she’s healing me. Forget the rules - she’s mine ***Sizzling hot alpha romance holiday novella with no cliffhangers, no cheating, and a guaranteed happily-ever-after***

    Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected — and most popular — of its kind. The Best American Short Stories 2011 includes Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Jennifer Egan, Nathan Englander, Allegra Goodman, Ehud Havazelet, Rebecca Makkai, Steven Millhauser, George Saunders, Mark Slouka, and others

    Author of the New York Times bestsellers “Let the Great World Spin” and “Transatlantic,” McCann has been called “a giant among us” (Peter Carey), “dazzlingly talented” (O: The Oprah Magazine), and “that rare species in contemporary fiction: a literary writer who is an exceptional storyteller” (The Independent). He’s received a National Book Award, an Oscar nomination, and a slew of international prizes. His talents are on full display in his new short story, “Gone,” a deeply affecting literary thriller about a mother and son, alone in a cottage on the west coast of Ireland, and the search that ensues when the boy—whom she adopted years before, deaf and with “already a whole history written in him”—goes missing. He slips away in early morning, down to the cold sea with his new Christmas wetsuit, and as the hours and days drag on, the coast guard, police, dogs, fishermen, farmers, and schoolchildren holding hands search the sea and walk the fields while the television crews and detectives come and go, the police at the cottage seeming to “ghost into one another: almost as if they could slip into one another’s faces.” The mother, Rebecca, now under suspicion, is racked with guilt over the decisions that led to her son’s disappearance, and tormented by the judgment of others: "You bought what? A wetsuit? Why in the world? What sort of mother? How much wine did you drink?" For Rebecca, “every outcome was unwhisperable.” “Gone” is a charged narrative that propels you forward, heart in your throat, and a moving, intimate look at life’s struggles toward grace and a kind of redemption.

    Both Detective Mark Whitman and Sorcerer Merrick Stone have expressed a desire to woo her, but she’s had to put them both on the back burner while she and her son have gotten their thriving restaurant and B&B up and running. But now that things at Habernackle’s have settled down a little, Linda is at a crossroads. It’s time to pick which man has her heart! Unable to make up her mind, Linda enlists the help of local matchmaking witch Sweets Porter to help. But when everything goes haywire will Linda be forced to start back at square one again? Or will she finally choose one of the men to call her own? ​ This is a Witch Squad Cozy Mystery Short-Story. It falls after Witch School Dropout and before The Witch Within in the series. If you haven’t read the series yet you may discover a few character spoilers.

    Little by little, Jacinta’s mother lost her—first to college, then to a boy she said she loved, and then, finally, to the rage of a school shooter. Snap. In an instant it was all gone. All she has now is her daughter’s phone. Like an album, gripped in the palm of her hand—texts, photos, messages, and videos of her daughter’s first three years at college. With it, Jacinta’s mother is reconstructing her daughter’s last three weeks.In this uniquely moving exploration of mourning, fury, and reminiscence, Susan Straight evokes—through a grieving mother’s devastating internal monologue—both a modern-day nightmare and exquisite proof of love’s extraordinary power to overcome it.