Fancy a trip to Pluto? Or how about a fearful drive along a stretch of country road, or a long, hot, dusty walk to Nairobi? Unless you prefer to go to church with a strange woman in green tights, her hair alive with electricity. Here you have 34 stories, each one a journey, whether planned or unexpected, funny or frightening, real or figurative, shared or dreadfully alone. ‘They had a long journey ahead of them’ was the prompt: the writers here, from award-winning authors to exciting new t...

122 fantastic stories from Britain's best crime writersFor ten years the Mammoth Best British Crime series has been publishing an annual volume of the most outstanding crime and mystery short fiction published in the UK. Over 400 stories by the very best writers in the field have been published. Contributors have included, among many others, Mark Billingham, Liza Cody, Roger Jon Ellory, Reginald Hill, Peter James, Simon Kernick, Alexander McCall Smith, Val McDermid...

Heart-warming short stories for cold winter nights…Featuring short stories from Sunday Times bestselling authors Miranda Dickinson and Claudia Carroll and highly anticipated debuts from Mhairi McFarlane and Liz Trenow, this collection is the ultimate treat.Each short story is followed up by exclusive extracts of each of the authors upcoming titles.Love, Loss and Coffee Cake: Through tears, heartbreak and the undying hope of love, a tale of a pair of star-crossed lov...

Step behind the hotel room doors of The Chatsfield, London…This is so not how Alice Hammond planned on spending her birthday. Not only has her own father stood her up, but now some guy has sat down next to her at the Chatsfield bar and started teasing her! Ok, he’s the seriously gorgeous captain of a top football team, but he’s also the most arrogant man Alice has ever met, and storming off is the only option!But when she accidentally switches phones with Angus it’s time to...

Shatter a mirror, and rearrange the pieces. What shapes will you find in the splintered glass?Sinister forces roam London's streets, skulking through the neon-lit rain. They are not alone. Haunted by memories of the man who abandoned her, Amber goes walking in the deep night. The phone box she enters takes her on a journey she could never have imagined, one in which the past and the future will be rewritten. Others follow in her footsteps, their lives intertwining, and the...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2017ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE MONTHLRB BOOK OF THE WEEKCAUGHT BY THE RIVER BOOK OF THE MONTHSHORTLISTED FOR THE COLLYER BRISTOW PRIZEThis Is Memorial Device, the debut novel by David Keenan, is a love letter to the small towns of Lanarkshire in the west of Scotland in the late 1970s and early 80s as they were temporarily transformed by the endless possibilities that came out o...

There are many monologues books on the market but very few provide rich material for comedy. This collection from up and coming comedian & actress Katy Wix plugs that gap and provides female performers with the kind of wonderfully warm and interesting characters that they need – and deserve.A comedian and writer, Wix has for the past few years been writing audition speeches for students at drama schools including RADA, LAMDA, Drama Centre and The Royal Welsh College of Music and Dr...

Between 1995 and 2002, Dark Terrors: The Gollancz Book of Horror was Britain's premier non-themed anthology of original horror stories.Over six volumes, it published some of the biggest names in the field as well as many newcomers who have gone on to forge impressive careers in the genre.Edited by the World Fantasy Award-winning team of Stephen Jones and David A. Sutton, Dark Terrors established itself as a cutting-edge market for some of the most literary and disturbing fi...

The first Bath Short Story Award was launched in 2012. By the time the competition ended in March 2013 there were almost 1,200 entries from all over the world, varying in content and perspective. Themes included war, love, relationship struggles, bereavement, neglect, abuse and the curious things people do.The stories here are linked by a common theme - the choices people make or that others have made for them. A young woman makes a life-changing decision over the course of a lunch...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE TED HUGHES PRIZE 2015Tabard Inn to Canterb'ry Cathedral,Poet pilgrims competing for free picks,Chaucer Tales, track by track, it's the remixFrom below-the-belt base to the topnotch;I won't stop all the clocks with a stopwatchwhen the tales overrun, run offensive,or run clean out of steam, they're authenticand we're keeping it real, reminisce this:Chaucer Tales were an unfinished busines...

‘Touching, true and shocking. Here is a book that not only makes more sense of life, it delights the mind’ Irish TimesThese stories find dignity in quiet lives and beauty in dark corners. They tell of allure, betrayal, nostalgia, solitude, seduction, damage and desire. They are stories of youth mislaid and love lost, and of recovery. They go to the heart of things.‘Original and quietly devastating’ Daily Telegraph‘Raymond Carver and Alice Munro ech...

narratorAUSTRALIA Volume One is a collection of more than 200 poems and short stories from more than 100 emerging and established Australian writers which were published on the narratorAUSTRALIA blog during the period 1 May to 31 October 2012.Contributors include: Susan Adams, Alannah, David Anderson, Eulyce Arkleysmith, Hettie Ashwin, Irene Assumpter, Rosemary Baldry, Don Beer, Eddie Blatt, Bridge, Ann-marie Brittain, Nicholas Brooks, Jean Bundesen, Marina Byrne, Linda Callaghan, ...