Audible Original Stories

Teenaged Jesse is trapped. Growing up, he had all the potential in the world, but then real life intervened. Now he's got a high school diploma, two perpetually black eyes, and a pill fix he can't shake. By day, when he's not high on pain killers, Jesse is hardening his body; it’s the only thing about his life that he can really control. By night, he’s a god in the makeshift ring under the barnyard flood lights, willing to take on any local tough the Madsen brothers put in front of him.

I don’t agree with many of the words you’ve used, but I will give you this: They do have a way of looking at you sideways that can be unsettling. So begins a letter from Nathaniel, a PhD candidate who’s recently moved from the east coast to Orinda, California. Nathaniel knows that his brother, Brice, who still lives near their mother in Michigan, couldn’t possibly understand the nuances of his and Cate’s new life: their eclectic community, their work in academia, and the liberal, alternative thinking that shapes the way they’ve handled their fertility issues.

Mary Landry and her pregnant rescue dog are on their way home for Christmas when the unthinkable happens: Her car breaks down along a deserted stretch of mountain highway in the middle of a blizzard. Facing dire conditions, Mary seeks shelter from a lone cabin in the distance whose warm light beckons her like a Christmas star.

Toni Danzig is a dirt bag—literally. There’s nothing she enjoys more than being out in the mountains leading adventure tours. On a well-deserved break over a long weekend, she’s DJ-ing karaoke at the Dew Drop Inn when Audrey Adams takes the stage to sing the greatest middle finger break-up song ever, dedicated to her ex-girlfriend. It’s a perfect night that culminates in a transcendental experience in bed…before Audrey rushes out the next day.

Yarima Lalo believes he has been murdered twice before. The cause? Love. To make sense of these vivid memories he cannot shake, he travels from Abuja to Kano with his new friend and love interest Aziza to meet an old woman who he might have known in a past life. She is skeptical at first - and hesitant to revisit painful memories of her own - but together, they dig deeper and deeper into the past, piecing together a shared history with ripple effects that could shape Lalo’s future.

When we meet Joseph Patrick, he’s in the midst of a classic midlife crisis. After dropping an obscene amount of money on a luxury watch — and leaving his wallet at the store — Joseph hops into a rented Porsche and takes off across the desert. He no sooner hits the open road than a coyote darts in front of the speeding car, wrecking it and leaving Joseph stranded in the heat, with no cell phone service — and no ID.

Was there any particular reason that, near the end of your lives, you suddenly stopped buying Bounty paper towels? So begins the first question from Bounty’s market research representative to Paul and Maggie. In this unique short story, a couple who died suddenly in their 50s recounts their use of Bounty paper towels and their sudden switch to a bargain brand near the end of their lives. What appears to be a run-of-the-mill spat between spouses at the Stop & Shop is revealed to be a defining moment of a marriage years in decline.

Gary Bruce is a slacker of epic loserness. Can’t keep a job. His friends are as bad as he is. No girlfriend. No direction. Gary Bruce is also a werewolf. Desperate for any kind of success, Gary decides to out himself on YouTube. The moment this ordinary guy goes full-on fur, fangs, and claws, the world can’t get enough of him. He’s the biggest thing on social media, he’s on every talk show, book and movie deals fall in his lap, and for the first time in his life he gets invited to all the best parties. But celebrity is a special kind of voracious monster.

When the biggest colony ship in human history was sent to settle a paradise world, an accident hurtled it deep into uncharted space. A thousand light years from Earth, with no way home and no way to call for help, the colonists’ only hope for survival was the one barely habitable planet in range, a nightmare world they named Croatoan. Landing on the only five mountain peaks tall enough to rise above the lethal acid clouds, the settlers carved a civilization from the rock.

Gabriel has spent the last decade trying to forget his best friend, the first boy he ever loved: Jacob. Ripped away from each other in the midst of a family tragedy, Gabriel grieved for Jacob alone, surviving in their small religious town before finally breaking free to attend college, where they found new friends and relationships to pursue. To Gabriel, Jacob became a distant memory. Until one fateful Halloween night, when the two are reunited.

From critically acclaimed author Troy Onyango comes a dark, suspenseful tale of spirits bearing witness to a crime that rocks an island community, based on the Luo legend of the water people.

Mia is reluctant to go camping with her boyfriend and sister, who are graduate students working on a dissertation about American folklore. But ultimately, they convince her to help document the trip. The group sets off to Black Creek, a remote destination in the Pacific Northwest where Bigfoot has allegedly been sighted. They think they’re prepared for anything, but their sense of terror grows as they find more and more evidence to suggest the monster really is out there. Eventually, Mia realizes she’ll be lucky just to make it out of the woods alive.

In this evocative short piece, Candace worries that her mother, Annie, has reached an emotional breaking point. When her best friend loses her battle with cancer, Annie is acting in uncharacteristic ways, seemingly less concerned than ever about what her friends and neighbors think of her - a troubling development in her daughter’s eyes. But while Candace may think she knows her mother better than anyone, something deeper lingers beneath the surface, and times of hardship have a way of bringing us closer together than ever.

In this romantic and comic story about class, language, and the art of reinvention, “Nebraska Jack" Rigel is about to quit his Latin studies program at the Vatican when he suddenly finds himself face-to-face with the mysterious and ethereal Angelina Amadio, the famous Angel of Rome. Hired to translate the romantic feelings of the unpredictable former TV detective Ronnie Tower, Jack must navigate these two forces of nature in a Rome of late night bars and fancy villas, as he searches for his own role to play.

When overwhelmed stay-at-home mom Alexis finds herself at odds with her husband after she’s charged with a DUI, she is given one chance to get her family back: complete AA and admit her faults. The problem is, she’s never had a drinking problem and has no idea what caused the blackout that led to her arrest. Still, she’s committed to working through the program, if that’s what it takes to be reunited with her two young children. But when she connects with a new friend, Farrah, she’s empowered to take a closer look at her husband’s role in her downfall.

Electrodomésticos is an elegant yet powerful depiction of the post Spanish Civil War era, where class divisions lay bare those who can afford to eat a decent meal and those who can not. Josu is an inexperienced electrician, tasked with installing an oven in the home of an upper-class Basque couple. He’s completely captivated. But the couple, though they seem to have it all, are in a prison of their own. Mesmerizing in its subtlety and sinister intimations, Electrodomésticos reveals the poverty and loneliness of this era.

Two estranged sisters, Lillian and Adelia, struggle to come to terms after the mother they've believed to be dead for the past 15 years actually passes away. Confused and in shock, they travel together to the isolated village of their childhood to claim the farm that was passed on to them. There’s comfort in returning to this place of their birth, where a simpler, rustic life feels possible - but the sisters quickly realize that something is very wrong with the village and that their mother was hiding more than they could have ever imagined.

Sally has recently left an unfulfilling job to volunteer at a living history museum, where she is assigned to the Death House. Every day, she dons Victorian mourning garb and describes traditional funeral services to tourists. It sounds depressing as hell, but for Sally, it’s less depressing than her tepid marriage to her childhood sweetheart. This becomes all too clear when she accidentally travels through time and space to a liminal world where the ghosts of the living history museum haunt its grounds. There, she meets and falls hard for Victorian-era pretty boy Nathaniel.

When Catalina Cartagena returns home for her older sister’s wedding, she’s shocked to discover that her soon-to-be brother in law is possessed by a demon. To make matters worse, everyone else seems to be under the demon's spell - except for Diego Paz, younger brother of the groom and Cat’s childhood rival. With only three days until the wedding, Cat must join forces with her sexy nemesis to break the spell and defeat the demon. If they fail, demonic forces will control two of the most powerful witch families on Isla Bruja.

It’s a story you may think you know - an aging baseball coach is challenged by the very boy he took in and raised. But in this near future world, "smart” houses talk and listen, and - privy as they are to the secret life of the household - family life gets interesting. Creepy and funny, unsettling and entertaining, this is a story that stands on its own even as it proves the perfect follow up to Gish Jen’s critically acclaimed novel The Resisters.