Short Stories

Joey Finds His Jump!

Joey Finds His Jump!
Title: Joey Finds His Jump!
Tag:
Illustrator: Olha Tkachenko
Published: February 18, 2021
Joey Kangaroo never learned how to jump, and he desperately wants to find the secret. Kids move alongside Joey and Juniper with Ballerina Konora as inspiration in this interactive story of determination and friendship.

Assessed for Awesome Indies Book Awards

Riding the Dog

Riding the Dog
Title: Riding the Dog
ASIN: B00PJL7WDS
Publisher:
Published: November 12, 2014
Author:
Riding the Dog is a collection of nine short stories that all take place on a Greyhound bus. Strangers collide in cramped spaces. Secrets are told to nameless seatmates in the dark of the bus in the middle of the night. Two strangers exchange trinkets, unaware of a past that connects them. A woman crisscrosses the country looking for her brother who disappeared in New York City on 9/11. A soldier returning from Iraq with PTSD finds unexpected solace in the chaos of a broken-down bus. A down-and-out musician loses his most treasured possession on a deserted West Texas highway. Riding the Dog explores an often-invisible world – the world of a desperate, funny, resilient, heartbreaking America.

Assessed for Awesome Indies

A Taste of Triskele

A Taste of Triskele
Title: A Taste of Triskele
ASIN: B011L303S8
Category:
Tag:
Publisher:
Published: July 20, 2015
Short Story Collection (with recipes) A tale, a place, a time, a taste. Eight delectable short stories, each set in a distinctive location, accompanied by a local dish. Fall in love with honey, bite into bitterness, sweeten the secrets, indulge your excesses, tickle your palette and free your imagination. Whether you’re on a beach or in your own back garden, escape into extraordinary worlds.

Assessed for Awesome Indies

Me-Time Tales

Me-Time Tales
Title: Me-Time Tales
ASIN: B01DGLI484
Categories: ,
Published: April 28, 2016
Author's Twitter: @Minettjr
Ironic short stories with a dark edge. All kinds of women unlocked. Inhibited Elfreda learns the beauty of a gorge.
 A bizarre theft in the Well Woman clinic.
Marian faces middle age with attitude and support knickers. Fish-phobic Daryl finds her sole.

Assessed 

Murphy (F.IS.T.S. #2)

Murphy (F.IS.T.S. #2)
Title: Murphy (F.IS.T.S. #2)
ASIN: B00YAJ5UFM
Series:
Published: June 1, 2015
Author:
Author's Twitter: @beydeckard
Sometimes when it seems like it’s too late, the right person comes along and opens your eyes… Murphy is the continuing story of a D/s relationship between two Space Marines who found each other in the midst of hopelessness and misfortune. Sarge and his newly minted squad travel across the galaxy on a top-secret mission that could help win the war. However, to Murphy something about the mission stinks, and it’s not just the planet they’ve landed on.

Assessed 

To Do the Deal, A Novel in Stories

To Do the Deal, A Novel in Stories
Title: To Do the Deal, A Novel in Stories
ASIN: B00NUAOTPY
Illustrator: GB Tran
Published: September 22, 2014
Author:
This humorous career and family drama will captivate anyone who has ever held a job, lived in a family, or been on either side of a sales transaction. To Do the Deal, A Novel in Stories is about the quotidian — the challenges, minute dramas, and endearing moments that make up the every day. Set in a suburb of Washington, DC, To Do the Deal sets its focus not on the power brokers that dominate the nation’s capital but rather, on one family that is muddling along. Through ten stories, one each set in the years 1991 through 2000, we follow Kenneth Bodine on his quest to make a decent living in commission sales. We also follow his wife, Jodi, who tries hard as wife, worker, and mother and who often gets it right but just as often overthinks. To Do the Deal will appeal to readers who like witty stories, well told; who appreciate carefully plotted narratives; and who want to be entertained by an ensemble cast of deftly drawn characters. The language is literary yet light: readers who put check marks in the margins next to lines that resonate will mark a lot of pages. Beyond the appeal of its writing, To Do the Deal will captivate anyone who has ever held a job, lived in a family, or been on either side of a sales transaction.

Assessed for 

The Sicilian Defence

The Sicilian Defence
Title: The Sicilian Defence
ASIN: B00LDEM686
Publisher:
Published: June 28, 2014
Stories reflecting Sicily’s power to encompass ideas of Good and Bad, Heaven and Hell, to enmesh them so tightly that, at times, it remains impossible to distinguish the two concepts.   A talented schoolboy struggles with unseen forces that rip his family apart; a hand-written note hidden in a hotel magazine has dire consequences for a relationship; a private detective hired to track a cheating fiancé is faced with a life and death decision… These short stories provide a window on contemporary Sicilian life seen through the lens of the island’s literary history. They reflect Sicily’s power to encompass perfectly the ideas of Good and Bad, Heaven and Hell, to enmesh them so tightly that, at times, it remains impossible to distinguish the two concepts.

Assessed for 

Short & Happy, (or not)

Short & Happy, (or not)
Title: Short & Happy, (or not)
ASIN: B00OQZSWGY
Published: October 21, 2014
Author's Twitter: @dhallaj @RichardBunning
SHORT & HAPPY (or not) brings together authors from English speaking countries around the globe and a sprinkling of ex-pats who enjoy life in non-English speaking countries as well. Their stories cover just as wide a spectrum of subjects. Humor (or humour), light romance, science fiction, fantasy, memoir, satire, reflection, exotic locales … it's all here in bite-sized pieces.

Assessed 

Sarge (F.IS.T.S. #1)

Sarge (F.IS.T.S. #1)
Title: Sarge (F.IS.T.S. #1)
ASIN: B00OME9ROA
Series:
Published: October 16, 2014
Author:
Author's Twitter: @beydeckard
Sometimes it’s just about being in the right place at the right time… with the right person. Sarge is the short story of a burgeoning D/s relationship between two Space Marines stationed on an alien planet where an endless war drags on.

Assessed