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This book will help you plot like a pro, master the art of suspense like Poe, craft captivating dialogue like Twain and - most crucially - get your short stories published. How to Write Short Stories and Get Them Published is the essential guide to writing short fiction. It takes the aspiring writer from their initial idea through to potential outlets for publication and pitching proposals to publishers. Along the journey this guide considers the most important aspects of creative writing, such as character, plot, point of view, description and dialogue. All of these areas are illustrated with examples of classic fiction, and accompanied by exercises that will help every writer hone their natural skill and talent into the ability to craft compelling short stories.

Why do women swing? In a frank and fascinating exposé of female involvement in the swinging scene, Ashley Lister sets out to find answers to this tantalizing question. Through painstaking research and countless interviews, he reveals the sometimes shocking attitudes and secret lives of those women at the forefront of today's recreational sex scene. This is the first ever book devoted exclusively to female swingers and includes candid confessions from a wide spectrum of women, from young party-loving students to outwardly conservative middle-aged professionals. It provides a comprehensive and up-to-the-minute survey of the contemporary swinging scene and a remarkable insight into modern female sexuality.

Ashley Lister, a freelance writer, author and reporter, has met countless singles, couples and triples involved in the UK's recreational sex scene. Meeting people who have turned their fantasy lives into reality, he uncovers today's swinging Britain and reveals the sexy, shocking and true secrets of what happens behind closed doors.

Whether you're writing a steamy erotic novel, or a romantic novel and want to take the reader beyond the bedroom door, writing a convincing sex scene can be one of the most difficult challenges for any fiction writer. How to Write Erotic Fiction and Sex Scenes is a practical guide to help every writer rise to this challenge.

This anthology draws together some of the best new stories of mystery and murder—compiled by the Anthony Award–winning crime fiction editor. This anthology collects the most original stories of murder by some of mystery fiction's most inventive talents from the United States and United Kingdom. With innovative new takes on locked-room mysteries and impossible crimes, these short stories are full of vexing conundrums and reality-defying puzzles. A murder has been committed—but how could it have happened? Curated by Maxim Jakubowski, one of the crime genre’s most renowned editors, this volume features never-before-seen stories by acclaimed authors—including British Science Fiction Award–winner Eric Brown, Derringer Award–winner O'Neil de Noux, and multiple CWA Dagger Award–winners and nominees.

Before it became the site of an amusement park, Instow Deep's dark and bloody past was associated with witchcraft, duplicity and death. In its heyday that history grew darker and bloodier until the night of the brutal Halloween tragedy that forced the park's untimely closure. Now abandoned, save for the occasional tribes of clowns who choose to visit, Instow Deep is the latest venue for a #DeadEndTours urban exploration. The tours explore the history of the last witch and the twisted events leading up to the Halloween tragedy. And, this evening, unbeknownst to the tour guides, there are going to be some sinister surprises.

Following the death of his best friend, author Ben Haversham is crippled by a terminal case of writer's block. The isolation of his agent's remote cottage, nestled in an out-of-the-way village, seems like the ideal location for him to rekindle his creativity.Except, Sandalwood village, with its curious museum the 'Doll House', is not as idyllic as it first appears.There is a history to Sandalwood. There are nefarious plots and dark secrets held by the sinister souls who reside in Sandalwood. And there are dark and dangerous characters determined to keep those secrets.Even if his ghosts hadn't followed him to Sandalwood, Ben discovers that he would still have been haunted by the many malevolent spirits that reside in the village beneath the shadow of the Doll House. The doll stared at Tina. From the moment she awoke in the morning, until she finally managed to creep out of the bedroom and escape its insistent glare, the doll fixed Tina with its sightless open-eyed gaze. The doll stared at her whenever she revisited the bedroom in the day, either to find a change of clothes for a dinner engagement, or simply to collect a thicker jumper to stave any early evening chill that gripped the cottage. The doll stared at her when she returned to the bedside cabinet to retrieve whichever book she'd fallen asleep reading the previous night. The doll stared at her as she drifted uneasily to sleep on the lumpy comfort of the sagging mattress. One eye was a muddy brown. The other, the one that always drew her attention, was impossibly blue. On a human child it would have been described as the blue eye of a cherubic angel. Poets would have called it the blue of an unpolluted ocean or the blue of an idyllic summer sky. Tina had started to think of the eye as satanic-blue. She had started to think of it as satanic-evil-blue with a slight hint of psychotic malevolence. Compared to the acrylics she was currently using, Tina thought the closest colour on her palette was manganese-blue, although that seemed less disquieting than the shade she saw in the doll's eye. She would have agreed it was impossibly blue, but she would never have said it was a blue that could be associated with something pleasant like an ocean or a summer sky. She awoke just after three in the morning to find the doll glaring at her. The satanic-blue eye was sharpened by a red glow. Tina told herself that the additional colour was nothing more than the reflection from the LED on her bedside clock. The doll's eyes were glassy and round and she figured the orbs were likely to collect and reflect any light in the room. It was a conversation she had often had since moving into the cottage. She told herself there was nothing creepy or supernatural about the way the doll glared at her. She told herself the doll wasn't really glaring. It was only a doll, and dolls didn't have the ability to glare. That was a humanising talent she had bestowed on the thing with her own hyperactive imagination. Her agent, John, had said as much when she told him about the way the doll glared. "Are you doing too many pills?" he'd asked. "Or not enough?" "It's creepy," Tina insisted. "It glares at me." "It doesn't glare at you," John said. "It's a doll. It's inanimate. It can't glare." But John had said those words in daylight. He had said those words downstairs at the kitchen table, away from the doll, where it was easy to believe such plausible truths. Now, it was the middle of the night and she was alone with the thing. The darkness in the bedroom was broken only by a sliver of errant moonlight and the red glow from the bedside clock with its figures showing 3:10AM. Despite everything John had said to her, Tina knew the doll was glaring. "If it disturbs you so much, why don't you get rid of it?" John had asked. "It was a gift. I can't get rid of a gift."

CE3 were a company that produced incredibly advanced technology. They were working on groundbreaking developments in weaponry and transportation. And then, six months ago, without any warning, CE3 simply closed their doors and ceased trading. Visiting the abandoned industrial site where CE3 used to reside, Billy, Tina and Cal think this might be the ideal location for the next #DeadEndTour urban exploration. All they need to do is research a little of the site's history and confirm that there is no one, or no thing, still remaining on the premises. It's going to be a night of surprises that are out of this world.

At the end of each summer season, the staff at the Fun Park enjoy a private ritual called Payback Week. Every customer who ever upset them, every boss who ever crossed their path, every person responsible for a grievance becomes eligible for payback. This year, Payback Week will be special because there's a homicidal killer clown with a meat cleaver patrolling the Fun Park and a lot of debts have come due.

Head to Mississippi in a 3-in-1 collection of historical romances. . . . Alexandra Lewis’s life no longer makes sense. After her father’s death in a shootout, she feels pressure to carry out her duty to her family and wed, regardless of love. Abigail LeGrand won’t be hindered by marriage. Until she catches the eye of an itinerate preacher. Caroline Pierce never dreamed someone like Luke Talbot would propose. But the promise of marital bliss quickly turns to civil strife as they disagree on everything from slavery to faith. Can God change hearts before love drifts away with the river?