American Fiction Short Stories

A war hero on the run. A girl behind barbed wire. A love letter to hope in the darkest times. In 1944 California, Aiko Takeda writes letters to her childhood friend, Takeshi "Taki" Nakamura, a Nisei soldier serving with the famed 442nd Infantry Regiment in Europe. Through their letters, their bond deepens across oceans and gunfire. But when her letters suddenly stop, Taki fears the worst. Learning of the U.S. government's internment of Japanese Americans, Taki makes a life-altering decision: he deserts his unit and sets out on a perilous journey across continents and borders to find Aiko. ...

In the gritty streets of Detroit, the game has changed, but the players remain the same. "Detroit Life After 15 Years: Volume 3" plunges you back into the heart of the city where loyalty, betrayal, and survival are the only currencies that matter. As old rivals resurface and new alliances are forged, the stakes have never been higher. With each move, the line between friend and foe blurs, and the consequences of every decision become deadlier.This volume continues the gripping saga of those who have lived by the hustle and survived the streets, now facing the ghosts of their pasts and the ...

From the bustling streets of America to the quiet mountain towns in rural China, this captivating collection of short stories spans continents and cultures, weaving a tapestry of universal human experiences. Each tale offers a unique glimpse into lives shaped by love, betrayal, and the search for identity. These stories, by turns humorous and poignant, explore the intricate threads that connect us all—the joy of friendship, the pain of betrayal, the challenges of coming of age, and the bittersweet realities of leaving one's homeland. With its rich diversity of settings and emotions, this ...

An incident at a TSA security check point sows chaos and rumors, creating a chain of events that impacts twelve young Asian Americans in a crowded and restless airport. As their disrupted journeys crisscross and collide, they encounter fellow travelers—some helpful, some hostile—as they discover the challenges of friendship, the power of courage, the importance of the right word at the right time, and the unexpected significance of a blue Stratocaster electric guitar.

Karlie Houston hasn't seen a raise in forever, but the payday loan office she manages is raking in the cash. So why not get what she's rightfully owed by masterminding a heist? Once her lover Sidney's boys hit all the company's locations at one time, there's a fortune to split. But suddenly bodies start dropping - and Karlie better devise the perfect plan to survive.

Framed as a reference work of humorous “entries” that offer trenchant social commentary, Everything Abridged presages a dark vision of the near future but tells jokes in the face of it: An intelligence agency operative uncovers a conspiracy to generate conspiracies and realizes his participation in the scheme. A Caribbean monarch meets four decades of American presidents and adjusts his country’s foreign policy accordingly. Experiment participants are asked to bring back a gun as quickly as possible.

“When love turns lethal, who will save you—and who will watch you burn?” Lost in the Crowd: Symphony & Roman (A Westbrook High Series Short, Book #5) Roman is on the edge of total collapse. Kicked off the football team, tangled up in a toxic situationship he never saw coming, and spiraling into an addiction that could cost him everything. Desperate and out of options, he turns to Symphony—the one girl he swore he’d never need again. But is she willing to help him when his downfall proves she was right all along? Symphony has her own chaos. Stripped of her cheer captain crown, ...

Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories brings together 15 stories that span Hisaye Yamamoto's 40-year career. It was her first book to be published in the United States. Yamamoto's themes include the cultural conflicts between the first generation, the Issei and their children, the Nisei; coping with prejudice; and the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.

In the title story of Souvankham Thammavongsa's debut collection, a young girl brings a book home from school and asks her father to help her pronounce a tricky word, a simple exchange with unforgettable consequences. Thammavongsa is a master at homing in on moments like this—moments of exposure, dislocation, and messy feeling that push us right up against the limits of language.

In a daring and fierce debut work of fiction - the likes of which comes along once in a generation - Virginia’s landscapes, emblems, and Thomas Jefferson’s historic plantation set the stage for a cast of unforgettable characters fighting for their right to exist in America. Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging.

Examining the borders between one nation and another, between one person and another, Urrea reveals his mastery of the short form. This collection includes the Edgar-award winning "Amapola" and his now-classic "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses," which had the honor of being chosen for NPR's "Selected Shorts" not once but twice.

“CHILLING HISTORICAL HORROR” “Wildly imaginative” A delicious mix of history, horror, and love. Three early American gothic tales, including America’s last witch trial in 1730, the birth of the Jersey Devil in 1735, and the true origin of the Headless Horseman in 1776. In 1730 Ben Franklin published a story about a witch trial in Mount Holly, in The Pennsylvania Gazette. But did he tell the complete story, or was it a coverup of more sinister and frightening events? Emmet, an aspiring reporter, takes his first assignment for Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette and travels to New ...

Previously published as Deadly Secrets: Hidden Guilt by Madalena Melchior. SECRET GUILT London, 1905. Under the pretext of retrieving some books he has left behind at Number 221B, Sherlock Holmes temporarily trades his small farm upon the Downs, five miles from Eastbourne, and his beehives, for Baker Street. Before he has time to unpack his Gladstone, however, there's already a client at the door asking for his help with a case. So much for retirement...

In the collection's title story, a pack of girls raised by wolves are painstakingly reeducated by nuns. In "Haunting Olivia", two young boys make midnight trips to a boat graveyard in search of their dead sister, who set sail in the exoskeleton of a giant crab. In "Sleepaway Camp for Disordered Dreamers", a boy whose dreams foretell implacable tragedies is sent to a summer camp for troubled sleepers (Cabin 1, Narcoleptics; Cabin 2, Sleep Apneics; Cabin 3, Somnambulists . . . ).

Latasha Lee has always been extraordinary. The proud byproduct of her genius Botanist Mother Lola Lee, and her father, Commander Joseph Lee. However, she craved freedom within her chin-up and the shoulders-back world she lived in. Her idea ... to do something she'd never seen done before. Latasha wanted to pick her afro in space. Follow her wild ride with her group of friends to see if she can turn her dream into a reality.

Queen is a young woman living by her own rules. But she has things that she would like to change. One is her circumstances and the other is her relationship with her abusive boyfriend Ness. She thinks that she will never be able to fully be rid of him, until she meets Logan. Logan introduces her to a world that she always knew she was meant for. Even though the way there isn't exactly legal. Queen learns the game quickly and starts to live up to her given name. "Careful how you play your cards when you have a queen in your hand."- Queen

Desa Rae Jenkins and her 20-something-year-old playmate are back with drama only the two of them can bring. Roc has been released from prison, and he's trying to show Desa Rae that his past life is well behind him, but his baby mama and his playa-hating uncle want Desa Rae out of the picture. Chyanne Johnson has tried to steer clear of drama since she was old enough to be out on her own. She's content with her mundane position at Atlanta's top marketing firm, but all of that changes when sexy CEO Aric McHale promotes her to be his executive assistant.

In a town struggling to survive, can love bring two people together? At the tender age of eight, Christmas Macy’s life takes a dramatic turn when her parents suddenly die. She’s forced to live in an orphanage near Denver, Colorado, with a woman who doesn’t take kindly to children, and most definitely not to Christmas. Now in her twenties, Christmas is heartbroken. The place she’s called home for over fourteen years is being stripped away, along with her best friend. She travels to the drought-ridden town, not knowing what her future holds. Being told over and over she’s unworthy ...

This year’s selection of science fiction and fantasy stories, chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and bestselling author of the Divergent series Veronica Roth, showcases a crop of authors that are willing to experiment and tantalize readers with new takes on classic themes and by exchanging the ordinary for the avant-garde. Folktales and lore come alive, the dead rise, the depths of space are traversed, and magic threads itself through singular moments of love and loss, illuminating the circulatory nature of life, death, the in-between, and the hereafter.

Critics have compared her work to that of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, but J. California Cooper has a warm, witty style that’s definitely her own. Each of her short stories is a gem of downhome wisdom, polished with a bit of gossip, some heartbreak, and lots of humor.