Showing results by author "James R" in All Categories

Gabrielle has spent her entire life as a secret, closeted lesbian, and in her early 30s she feels she's missed her opportunity to explore her hidden fantasies. She works as a maker of dresses, largely as a means of showing her admiration for the female form, and begins to think that her job is as much a meaningless aspect of her life as any. There is one bright spot in her routine, however, and that comes in the form of her brightest and most chipper regular customer, 22-year-old blonde bombshell Elizabeth.

This is a story from the Classic Ghost Stories collection.

Just when I think I've sworn off men for good, I find myself abducted and probed so thoroughly that I might never come back from it.... I've always been a bit on the curvier side, and though that shouldn't really bother me that much, it does. I know curvy women are attractive, but I've always felt insecure about myself and anxious as a result.

Chip Bannister ran the nation's largest real estate rip off from 1965 to 1974. He was the youngest of three boys; smooth, good looking and charming. An egomaniac, but, very smart, extremely cunning. He was an East Coast trust fund kid that attended USC, and then, with the help of his billionaire father, formed Bannister Financial in downtown Beverly Hills.

James R. Smith, Ph.D., a retired educator and psychotherapist, grew up in California (and now lives in Bandon, Oregon) and has been fishing for eighty years (since he was four years old). This memoir is emotionally honest, very detailed about fishing, and informative about so many kinds of fish. Fishermen will relate, and people who don't actually fish but enjoy human-interest stories and nature will enjoy this book. What makes this book come alive is that it includes over one hundred photos, most of which are in color. There are photos of fish, of family and friends, of scenery, and most ...

The Modern Age is one of information overload. Bombarded, surrounded, and battered by facts, figures, opinions and seemingly whatever else comes out of anyone’s head from all directions at all hours of the day and night. It’s exhausting. In the pens of such luminaries as Henry James, E M Delafield, C E Montague, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and many others we connect with old fashioned media from publishing and advertising to telegrams and radio and everything in between in ways that are surprising, enlightening but always entertaining.

Crystal Moore's good friend Ron Drake is a shoo-in for governor of Texas. Two members of the opposition camp believe their candidate's only chance is a political dirty trick that will sink Drake's backing. They execute an elaborate hoax. But something goes terribly wrong and a man is killed. And things only get worse from there as the perpetrators try to eliminate loose ends.

M. R. James (1862-1936) was provost of King's College, Cambridge, and Eton College. He was a highly regarded scholar and academic in his time but today is remembered for his ghost stories, which are considered among the finest in the genre. Here is one of them: "Casting the Runes".

I'm lying in bed one night, staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep from anxiety. In a few hours, I'll be starting my new job at a successful company, and I'm concerned that my first day there could either make or break me. Soon, however, I find myself drifting off to sleep, and when I do, I have quite the Freudian nightmare. For whatever reason, I have the strangest dream of becoming intimate with my new boss, Mr. Jones, right in the middle of my new office, and I wake up screaming and soaked with sweat. And other fluids....

Just weeks after his arrival, the area's wealthiest woman, 84-year-old Clara Silverman, mysteriously vanishes from her gated estate, and Archie is asked to take on the case. Sixteen hundred miles away, in Michigan's remote Upper Peninsula, John Barrington gets a mysterious call asking him about an aunt he thought had passed away years before.

Duncan MacDougal is on his way to marry the woman he has chosen to spend his life with. With the nagging of his mother and other family members, he knows that it is time to give the clan an heir. But first he must find a wife. Sheena was a beautiful woman when he last saw her, years before. She was gentle, serene, and quiet, and exactly what he needed for his clan. However, he is wed to another - her younger sister. To complicate things, he must share with her a secret that could devastate her.

Things are about to get hairy between the two twin bear kings and their fleshy human lover....

I couldn't believe that I had lost my poor little lamb in this raging storm. As I wandered out into the driving rain and violent wind, the only thing on my mind was the recovery of my lost sheep so that we could both go home and get dry and warm. I never imagined that I would be accused of stealing, by two attractive, burly shepherds. And I never imagined what the two of them could do to my poor, innocent body....

Sir Richard, having inherited his family estate, looks forward to beginning a new life amidst the peaceful English countryside. His pastoral dreams of contentment soon turn to nightmares as the old ash tree outside his window reveals a terrible curse upon his family - a curse of unrelenting hatred that is thirsting for revenge.

A young antiquary and archaeologist named Paxton is on vacation in the south-east coast of England when he hears the legend of the three holy crowns. According to the legend, England was kept safe from being invaded when three crowns were buried long ago at sites near the coast. One of the crowns was later dug up, one is now beneath the sea but one still remains buried in the earth and keeps England safe from invasion. Members of a family named Ager long guarded the site where the crown was buried.

A chilling collection of ghost stories containing Rats by MR James, The Raven and Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe, The Birthday of the Infanta by Oscar Wilde, A Tough Tussle by Ambrose Bierce and The Signalman by Charles Dickens. In Rats, Mr Thompson comes to regret his decision to investigate a locked room in a country inn, and in The Signalman, the subject of the story is haunted by ghostly appearances that always precede tragic events.

This collection of three ghost stories, by master of the genre M. R. James, first appeared in “A Warning to the Curious” published in 1925. James wrote “The Haunted Dolls’ House” in 1923 on a commission from Queen Mary who wanted miniature books from the most popular writers of the day to include in the library of her doll’s house at Windsor Castle. Antique dealer Mr. Chittenden has an exquisite example of a doll’s house in his shop. After a little haggling he manages to offload it onto one of his regular customers, a collector called Mr. Dillet.

When Jim Pierrot dropped out of high school and joined the navy at 17, it did not look to outsiders like he could possibly be destined to succeed. He quickly learned to make the most of his situation, though. He faced a range of exciting and dangerous situations. Whether he was delivering the governor and his entourage ashore during a nighttime squall or preventing a destroyer from running aground during a high-wind torrential downpour, Jim always pushed himself to do his best.

Is the law of blood vengeance the only justice for the Apache? The end had been so close. A handful of days and his people would be released from their prison at Fort Sill. Life was good. Then suddenly there was no longer a future for him. Every perception he had cherished concerning life and the future was no longer valid. Innocence had died, and with it, bitter truth had been exposed. For the White Eyes justice was a word without meaning. Under American law an Indian isn’t worth as much as a white man. The old ways were better because the Apache understood justice.

Virtually overnight Jonathon Wilson’s carefree bachelor world has been turned upside down. His sister is dead from a drug overdose that may or may not have been accidental, and he’s suddenly the guardian of a niece and nephew - who’ve been sexually and emotionally abused. Fighting a Government Bureaucracy to keep the children out of the foster care system is only the beginning of his problems. His sister’s former drug dealer wants to ask the children some questions, and they aren’t likely to survive the interrogation.