Showing results by publisher "HarperCollins Publishers Limited" in Short Stories

A tense and brilliantly dramatic short story from the best-selling author of The Throne of the Caesars Series. This thrilling short story opens at the end of Blood & Steel and is the perfect trailer for Harry Sidebottom's new novel, Fire & Sword. AD 238. When Gordian the Younger is brutally cut down at the battle of Carthage, his ally, Phillyrio, and a centurion from his army must make for the hills of Northern Africa to escape Maximinus' army.

Winner of the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize. Auntie Mei is a live-in nanny for newborns and their mothers. She has worked for 126 families and looked after 131 babies, one set of clients easily replaced by the next. But the 132nd baby and his mother, Chanel, prompts a crisis in Auntie Mei's life - a tremor that threatens to destroy her resolute detachment.

In the title story, we meet Maya, who is torn between her wryly funny boyfriend and the allure of her veterinarian. In "Andorra," a woman's lover calls her every Thursday as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counselling. "How to Give the Wrong Impression" shows us a woman pining for her roommate, a man who will hold her hand but then tell her that her palm is sweaty.

Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed, reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Hours. Rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true. The beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child.

A chilling short story featuring DS Sean Corrigan from Luke Delaney, ex-Met detective and author of Cold Killing. Perfect for fans of Mark Billingham, Peter James and Stuart MacBride. Five women have been murdered.... All prostitutes. All with dark, straight hair. Snatched from the shadows of London's red-light districts, their mutilated bodies left out in the pouring rain. Enter DS Sean Corrigan. He's been drafted in to assist the Streatham Police Department - much to the displeasure of the existing DI.

Eleventh story in a collection of interlinked tales of crime and retribution laced with dark humour, set around the festive season. What could be more festive than a trip to see Santa at the local shopping centre? Depends on who’s gunning for Santa…

Tenth story in a collection of interlinked tales of crime and retribution laced with dark humour, set around the festive season. Lord Peter Forsyth-Leven, MSP, is about to discover that having it all just means you’ve got more to lose….

Two powerful and unforgettable stories from the number-one best-selling author. 'Girl in the Mirror': Lila knows how lucky she is to have found the man of her dreams. But when a secret from her family's past comes to light on her wedding day, her destiny changes in the most unexpected of ways…. 'The Memory Maker': They say you never forget your first love....

An epic collection of fantasy stories from true masters of the genre, including a never-before-published Song of Ice and Fire novella by George R. R. Martin. Fantasy fiction has produced some of the most unforgettable heroes ever: Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné, Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Classic characters like these made sword and sorcery a cornerstone of fantasy fiction and an inspiration for a new generation of writers spinning their own magical adventures.

Back at dinner, somebody said that the goose thinks it’s a dog. No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t think it’s a dog. The goose doesn’t think. The goose just is. And what the goose is is goose. But goose is not goose, Robert thinks. Even the goose isn’t goose. In Good Trouble, the first story collection from Joseph O’Neil, author of Netherland, characters are forced to discover exactly who they are - and who they can never quite be.

A tense and brilliantly dramatic short story from the best-selling author of The Throne of the Caesars Series. AD 238. Emperor Maximinus' reign is under threat as Gordian the Younger and Elder are proclaimed emperor. Julius Burdo, official of the empire, must accompany the knife-boy Castricius north to assassinate Maximinus. The order is from the new Augusti; death is a certain fate to both men whether they succeed or fail.

A chilling short story featuring DS Sean Corrigan from Luke Delaney, ex-Met detective and author of Cold Killing. Perfect for fans of Mark Billingham, Peter James and Stuart MacBride. Sue Evans is a beautiful and successful TV presenter - that is until she's shot dead in the car park of her Southbank studios. DS Sean Corrigan and the Southwark Police Department are under pressure to solve the crime fast.

A chilling short story taking us back to DI Sean Corrigan's days as a detective from Luke Delaney, ex-Met detective and author of Cold Killing. Perfect for fans of Mark Billingham, Peter James and Stuart MacBride. DI Sean Corrigan is not like other detectives. The terrible abuse he suffered as a child has left him with an uncanny ability to identify darkness in others. Early in his career as a detective, Corrigan is approached for an undercover assignment.

A chilling short story taking us back to DI Sean Corrigan's days as a newly minted detective from Luke Delaney, ex-Met detective and author of Cold Killing. Perfect for fans of Mark Billingham, Peter James and Stuart MacBride. It's 1993. The Parkside Rapist has been terrorising the women of South London, and Detective Chief Superintendent Charlie Bannan is in need of a secret weapon if he's going to catch this particular monster.

Beasts Royal is the second book written by Patrick O'Brian - made available, at last, for the first time since the 1930s. Published when Patrick O'Brian was just 19, this is the enchanting, often bloodthirsty collection of 12 tales of animal adventure that would be published in 1934 as the author's second book. His first, Caesar, had been published in 1930 and was an instant success, seeing O'Brian hailed as the ‘boy-Thoreau'.

A fresh, honest, and darkly funny debut collection about family, friends and lovers and the flaws that make us most human. One woman takes a job selling sex toys in San Francisco rather than embark on the law career she pursued only for the sake of her father. Another realises she much prefers the company of her pit bull - and herself - to the neurotic foreign fling who won't decamp from her apartment.

The Fall of the House of Usher is a gothic novel by Edgar Allen Poe. The story tells of a mysterious house and an unnamed narrator's horrific experience with it.

Fourth story in a collection of interlinked tales of crime and retribution laced with dark humour, set around the festive season. Working in a call centre normally offers few career opportunities. But it looks as if Tracy’s about to get her big break.

Fifth story in a collection of interlinked tales of crime and retribution laced with dark humour, set around the festive season. There is never a good time to look upon the face of a dead loved one. But Mr Unwin has dedicated his life to helping the bereaved. While helping himself at the same time….

Second story in a collection of interlinked tales of crime and retribution laced with dark humour, set around the festive season. When a double suicide arrives at the city morgue, Sandra thinks it’s a Christmas like any other. But she’s about to get a very nasty shock – make that two very nasty shocks….