American Fiction Short Stories

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions.

What happens when two people meet by accident? Cashlynn Myers and Quadir Jackson meet in an odd way. Upon their unusual meeting, they thought they would never see each other again, until they meet again by coincidence. The fiery attraction leads them to an erotic place of no return. One snowy night alone, the two burn up the sheets with fierce and unadulterated sex like never before. Will lust and erotic pleasures be all they have, or will it all turn into a blazing love affair like no other?

A vibrant debut story collection—poignant, unflinching, and immersive—masterfully moving between sharp wit and profound tenderness, Guatemalan Rhapsody offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of an ever-changing country, the people who claim it as home, and those who no longer do. Ranging from a custodian at an underfunded college to a medicine man living in a temple dedicated to San Simon, the patron saint of alcohol and cigarettes, the characters in these stories find themselves at defining moments in their lives, where sacrifices may be required of them, by them, or for them.

This is a small tale of a big betrayal.

This volume of six linked stories and the novella from which the book derives its title is set in Port William from 1908 to the Second World War. Here Wendell Berry introduces two of his more indelible and poignant characters, Ptolemy Proudfoot and his wife Miss Minnie, remarkable for the comic and affectionate range that—with the mastery of this consummate storyteller working at the height of his powers—here approaches the Shakespearean.

This magical realist short tale was inspired by the Latin American myth of El Sombrerón, the nighttime guardian of peace and justice. El Sombrerón arrives in a sleepy town to find that a young girl has stolen a golden necklace. El Sombrerón must convince the girl to return the necklace so she can avoid El Sombrerón’s justice…and before the sun rises.

Knight Miller and Exotic Wright aren’t strangers to one another. After being in LA for ten years Exotic decides to come home just in time for Christmas. What she didn’t expect was to run into the one and only, Knight Miller. He had grown into a sexy man who had her thinking of explicit Christmas Pleasures. ​When Knight lays eyes on Exotic after ten long years the night before Christmas at a crowded downtown bar, he knows he has to have her. After a few drinks and small talk the two embark on a world of pleasure that will leave them both yearning for more. Secrets and drama swarm ...

After gracefully enduring marriage to a king who never loved her for his mourning of his first wife, and providing him two heirs, Queen Serenity is now free. Her husband, King Timothy is dead. As are her two stepsons from his first marriage. Whom she loved as her own. Now her own son is king. And she is free to love and be loved for the first time by a man who has carried a flame for her for years, or is she?

Carl Weber brings the best of urban street lit authors together, all telling their own dramatic tales of life in the streets in known cities across the USA. The second installment continues with Treasure Hernandez telling the tale of the Dirty South.

In these buoyant and inventive stories, Karen Tei Yamashita transfers classic tales across boundaries and questions what an inheritance - familial, cultural, emotional, artistic - really means. In a California of the '60s and '70s, characters examine the contents of deceased relatives' freezers, tape-record high school locker-room chatter, or collect a community's gossip while cleaning the teeth of its inhabitants.

It’s 1974 in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and 15-year-old Justine grows up in a family of tough, complicated, and loyal women, presided over by her mother, Lula, and Granny. After Justine’s father abandoned the family, Lula became a devout member of the Holiness Church - a community that Justine at times finds stifling and terrifying. But Justine does her best as a devoted daughter, until an act of violence sends her on a different path forever.

The stories in This Is How You Lose Her, by turns hilarious and devastating, raucous and tender, lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weaknesses of our all-too-human hearts. They capture the heat of new passion, the recklessness with which we betray what we most treasure, and the torture we go through - "the begging, the crawling over glass, the crying" - to try to mend what we've broken beyond repair. They recall the echoes that intimacy leaves behind, even where we thought we did not care.

This is a short story prequel to the full length novel "Embracing the Darkness" by Renee Tarot. One Night Can Change Everything Nevayah Wilson is ready to embrace all that Yale has to offer—new experiences, new friendships, and maybe even love. When she meets DeMarco Thomas, a confident and ambitious business student, their connection is undeniable. His touch lingers, his words ignite something deep inside her, and for the first time in a long time, she feels like she’s exactly where she’s meant to be. But fate has other plans. After a night that should have been ordinary, everything ...

📖 The Unsent Letter A magical realism novella about an unsent letter, a city that breathes memory, and a man who discovers that some words only find their way when released to the wind. A solitary afternoon. A letter written decades ago. And a moonlit bay where words begin to fly. Carlos keeps a letter he never dared to send. A letter written to Alma, the woman who marked his youth. Years later, an unexpected conversation and the breeze of Valparaíso push him to do the unthinkable: release it to the wind. 🌬️ But unsent letters don't always get lost. Sometimes they wait. And when ...

A celebration of beloved American author Wendell Berry, the five stories in Fidelity return listeners to Berry's fictional town of Port William, Kentucky, and the familiar characters who form a tight-knit community within.

The ancient Druid Atticus O’Sullivan gets more than greasy corn dogs and flat soda when he visits a carnival in Kansas to which his apprentice, Granuaile, drags him. He runs across a barker with a strange power over the crowd: attractive women leave their men and disappear into an unmarked tent, never to be seen again, and the men wander away, forgetting that they ever had girlfriends or wives. When Granuaile falls under the barker’s influence and enters the tent, Atticus isn’t about to forget it and move on.

Hot Ghetto Mess is and exciting read, about a set of friends from the hood and their relationships, money, love, lust, lies, drugs, and friendship. Come on this bumpy ride and find out what it means to have a friend who has your back no matter what, a true ride or die. Shanique and Amy are best friends who have seen more than their share of heartache. Shanique became a mother in high school with her first baby a son by Ricky, the school star football player. Ricky took to a life in the streets he dropped out of school and sold drugs on the corner with his best friend, J-Rock. Ten years ...

🔥 A warrior king. A fearless princess. A storm of fate. Passion and power collide in a forbidden romance that will change history. On an uncharted island off the coast of West Africa, King Jahtgo, a fierce warrior, meets Princess Neeha, the bold and untamed leader of an elite band of female warriors. Their worlds clash in an intoxicating battle of passion, desire, and power, culminating in an erotic encounter that neither of them can deny. Set in the year 1245, this gripping historical romance unfolds in a world of dangerous betrayals, forbidden love, and raw ambition. As Jahtgo and ...

Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and X-ray insights into complex human relationships. With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters’ lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history. She introduces us to Black and multiracial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief - all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively.

Though the lives of Mexico's characters are effected by the corrupt and dangerous subculture of their country, these are much more than simple "crime stories". They are complicated and deeply moving tales that tap into universal and enduringly powerful themes: love and loss, religion, family relationships, government abuse, sexual identity, professional ambition, cancer; they introduce us to characters that feel fully realized in their humanity.