Short Stories audiobooks

The Ambitious Guest

By: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Narrated by: Andrea Giordani

Length: 21 minutes

Abridged: No

A brutal winter storm sweeps through the mountains of New England, forcing a young man to seek shelter. A kind family welcomes him into their humble home, tucked away in a remote mountain pass. The traveler is the story’s eponymous “Ambitious Guest,” as he tells the family about his aspiration to make a mark on the world. The evening takes an... Read more

The Great Carbuncle

By: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Narrated by: Andrea Giordani

Length: 36 minutes

Abridged: No

 This tale follows eight individuals all searching for the Great Carbuncle, a legendary red gemstone. These wildly disparate individuals camp together one night in the White Mountains, united by their shared desire for the stone. Each wants it for a different reason, though: fulfilment, knowledge, wealth, skepticism, inspiration, posterity,... Read more

Astrid

By: JT Lawrence

Narrated by: Roshina Ratnam

Length: 25 minutes

Abridged: No

A mother becomes suspicious of her daughter’s pre-school teacher.
Is Teacher Dalton who she appears to be, or is something more sinister afoot?
'Astrid' is part of the 'Sticky Fingers 2' short story collection: diverse, dark-humored, and deliciously bite-sized. Fans of Roald Dahl and Gillian Flynn will love these unsettling stories with a twist in... Read more

Rockabye Baby

By: JT Lawrence

Narrated by: Roshina Ratnam

Length: 25 minutes

Abridged: No

A female-only cult has a very dark side.
'Rockabye Baby' is part of the 'Sticky Fingers 2' short story collection: diverse, dark-humored, and deliciously bite-sized. Fans of Roald Dahl and Gillian Flynn will love these unsettling stories with a twist in the tale.
Click now to start listening. Read more

A Simplified Map of the Real World

By: Stevan Allred

Narrated by: Stevan Allred

Length: 8 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Fifteen linked stories chart a true course through the lives of families, farmers, loggers, former classmates, and the occasional stripper. In the richly imagined town of Renata, Oregon, a man watches his neighbor’s big-screen TV through binoculars, an errant son paints himself silver, mysterious electrical humming emanates from an enormous... Read more

Death Is a Lonely Business

By: Ray Bradbury

Narrated by: Andrew Garman

Length: 9 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Ray Bradbury, the undisputed Dean of American storytelling, dips his accomplished pen into the cryptic inkwell of noir and creates a stylish and slightly fantastical tale of mayhem and murder set among the shadows and the murky canals of Venice, California, in the early 1950s. Toiling away amid the looming palm trees and decaying bungalows, a... Read more

A Lady of Many Charms and Other Stories

By: Heidi Wessman Kneale

Narrated by: Heidi Wessman Kneale

Length: 1 hour 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Three tales--one past, one present, one future--explore what it is to love and just how far someone would go for the love of another. The Past: Lady Daphne Collister is unimpressed with her fellow magic-wielding debutantes. She finds their methods overbearing. Surely there was a better way of finding a noble husband in Regency England? The... Read more

Let's All Kill Constance

By: Ray Bradbury

Narrated by: Andrew Garman

Length: 4 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

On a dismal evening in the previous century, an unnamed writer in Venice, California, answers a furious pounding at his beachfront bungalow door and again admits Constance Rattigan into his life. An aging, once-glamorous Hollywood star, Constance is running in fear from something she dares not acknowledge -- and vanishes as suddenly as she... Read more

Young Goodman Brown

By: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Narrated by: Andrea Giordani

Length: 37 minutes

Abridged: No

In this classic tale, the young Puritan Goodman Brown heads into the woods for a meeting with the devil. His world turns on its head, however, when he sees who else has gathered for the satanic ceremony. This one evening will forever mar how he sees his neighbors, his family, and himself. See for yourself why Hawthorne’s chilling allegory for... Read more

The Birthmark

By: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Narrated by: Andrea Giordani

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Aylmer has a great career as a scientist and a beautiful new wife, Georgiana. There’s only one problem—Georgiana has a small red birthmark on her cheek. Aylmer grows increasingly disgusted with the birthmark and becomes obsessed with removing the one thing barring his wife from perfection. With “The Birthmark,” Hawthorne crafted a tale of tragic... Read more

Rappaccini's Daughter

By: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Narrated by: Andrea Giordani

Length: 1 hour 21 minutes

Abridged: No

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Last Shot

By: Justine Avery

Narrated by: Ian Gordon

Length: 36 minutes

Abridged: No

Today is the perfect day to die.Bernard is the type of man that accomplishes all that he sets out to—and easily. He's intelligent, hardworking, and completely unfamiliar with failure. His only complaint—the singular source of the inner anger bubbling within him—is that no one else in the world recognizes that.

It's time to force them to.

Bernard's... Read more

Presentiments

By: P.C. Wren

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 31 minutes

Abridged: No

Percival Christopher Wren (1875-1941) was an English writer of adventure fiction mostly dealing with colonial soldiering in Africa. He is remembered best for Beau Geste, a much filmed book of 1924, involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa."Presentiments" is the story of a legionnaire who knows he will be killed the following day but... Read more

The Cage

By: J.D. Beresford

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

John Davys Beresford (1873-1947) was an English writer, now remembered for his early science fiction and short stories in the horror and ghost story genres. "The Cage" explores what would be the reaction of an ancient caveman ancestor of ours to a surprise glimpse of our modern world. Read more

Five Short Stories by Sabine Baring-Gould

By: Sabine Baring-Gould

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 3 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) was a British writer, clergyman and member of the landed gentry, having inherited an estate of 3,000 acres. While a young curate, he met and fell in love with a beautiful 16-year-old mill worker. He paid for her education and married her, and they subsequently had 15 children. Their relationship formed the... Read more

Mustapha

By: Sabine Baring-Gould

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) was a British writer, clergyman and member of the landed gentry, having inherited an estate of 3,000 acres. While a young curate, he met and fell in love with a beautiful 16-year-old mill worker. He paid for her education and married her, and they subsequently had 15 children. Their relationship formed the... Read more

The Library Window

By: Margaret O. Oliphant

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 1 hour 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Margaret Oliphant (1828 – 1897]) was a Scottish novelist who wrote as Mrs. Oliphant. She is best known for her fictional works, historical novels and supernatural tales. "The Library Window" is a ghost story. A young girl, visiting her aunt in Scotland, finds herself increasingly intrigued by a mysterious window in the house opposite her own... Read more

The Mahatma's Story

By: May Sinclair

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 30 minutes

Abridged: No

May Sinclair was the nom de plume of Mary Amelia St. Clair (1863-1946), a British writer of novels, short stories and poetry and an active suffragette and spiritualist. "The Mahatma's Story" is a strange supernatural story about an oriental magician who switches the memories of two couples, with bizarre results. Read more

Major Wilbraham

By: Hugh Walpole

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 38 minutes

Abridged: No

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) was a New Zealand-born English novelist, famous for his skill at scene setting and vivid plots. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s and remains popular to this day."Major Wilbraham" is the extraordinary tale of a respectable ex-army officer whose mysterious death is shrouded in the greatest... Read more

The Ceremony

By: Arthur Machen

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Arthur Machen (1863 – 1947) was a Welsh author and mystic, best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction."The Ceremony" is the eerie tale of a standing stone which exerts a supernatural pull towards young females and draws them fearfully to make offerings there. Strange and mysterious offerings, at secret erotic... Read more

Torture

By: Arthur Machen

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author and mystic, best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy and horror fiction."Torture" is a horror story about a schoolboy with a dangerous secret fantasy. Read more

A Double Return

By: Arthur Machen

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author and mystic, best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy and horror fiction."A Double Return" is a classic doppelganger tale. A successful artist, Hallswell, is returning by train from a painting trip in the southwest of England. As the down train passes him at a junction, he imagines he... Read more

The Red-Haired Girl

By: Sabine Baring-Gould

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 29 minutes

Abridged: No

Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) was a British writer, clergyman and member of the landed gentry, having inherited an estate of 3,000 acres. While a young curate, he met and fell in love with a beautiful 16-year-old mill worker. He paid for her education and married her, and they subsequently had 15 children. Their relationship formed the... Read more

Matthias the Hunter's Stories

By: Peter Christen Asbjørnsen

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812-1885) was a Norwegian writer, scholar and collector of traditional folktales. Matthias the Hunter's Stories is one of the sets of tales he collected and tells accounts of encounters with the Hulda (woodland or bogland fairy) and the brownie. Read more