American Fiction Short Stories

Before he was an assassin, David Rivers was a patriot. One year after the 9/11 attacks, he serves as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan. His patrol enters the Shigal Valley, a desolate place with a fearsome reputation for enemy fighters - a reputation that David is about to experience firsthand. As the first shots ring out over the valley, David must decide between military orders and gut instinct...and in the process, discover a hidden truth about himself.

Short Stories in Irish for Beginners has been written especially for students from high-beginner to low-intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and most importantly—enjoyment! Mapped to A2-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference, these eight captivating stories are designed to give you a sense of achievement and a feeling of progress when reading.

For Unique, life is good until her dope-dealing boyfriend, Took, is arrested and winds up in jail. Now she's broke as a joke, trying to put every petty hustle into play to chase hard times away from the door. With an empty refrigerator, a stack of bills piling up, a tenth-grade education, a big butt and a smile, it doesn't take long for her to learn to pull the wool over the eyes of any fool who's blinded by her good looks.

Leo Carrington and Anthony Black have been enemies since their friendship ended when Leo came out to Anthony. Throughout high school, Anthony and his friends made Leo’s life miserable due to his sexual orientation, and their harassment persisted into his adulthood. Leo had noticed Anthony’s attractiveness over the years and hated that he was drawn to his former best friend. During his summer break from college, Anthony made Leo a proposition he couldn’t refuse. But would their deal hurt Leo’s feelings instead of benefiting him?

Nursing a broken heart days before her cousin wedding leaves Aurora questioning her worth. It's a good thing her best friend has her best intentions at heart. While on this trip, they encounter miscommunication of their lips. What happens at the reception indeed stays at the reception, right? Well, Malcolm has been in love with his best friend for over a decade. While her ex tries to sneak his way back into her heart, he takes his chance. Will their forbidden relationship be tested during the holiday, or will they return to being friends for a happily ever after? This holiday novella is a ...

In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on first through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”

African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of enslaved people narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives.

Anthony Bourdain chases the fumigation truck in Bergen County, New Jersey. Dave Eggers tells it straight: Illinois is Number 1. Louise Erdrich loses her bikini top in North Dakota. Jonathan Franzen gets waylaid by New York's publicist...and personal attorney...and historian...and geologist. John Hodgman explains why there is no such thing as a "Massachusettsean."

Here, gathered in one volume, are the stories that made Clarice a Brazilian legend. Originally a cloth edition of 86 stories, now we have 89 in all, covering her whole amazing career, from her teenage years to her deathbed. In these pages, we meet teenagers becoming aware of their sexual and artistic powers, humdrum housewives whose lives are shattered by unexpected epiphanies, old people who don't know what to do with themselves - and in their stories, Clarice takes us through their lives - and hers - and ours.

Spanning from a mediocre spa in Florida, to New York’s gritty East Village, to death row in Alabama, this collection reveals boundless suspense in small, quiet moments, offering startling twists in the least likely of places. From a powerful response to hateful bullying, to a fight for health care, to a gripping desperation to vote, these stories are equal parts shocking, devastating, and enthralling, revealing the tension pulsing through our everyday lives and affirming that mystery and suspense writing is better than ever before.

A Steamy BWWM, Close Proximity Instalove Romance Angela: I never expected to catch the eye of a man like him—a heartbreakin' male escort watching me from across the street like I was his next meal. But the more I tried to fight it, the harder it became to ignore the way he pulled me in—was I about to fall into temptation or should I keep my distance? Angel: She didn’t know I watched her—day after day, night after night—from my balcony, like she was made just for me. My own private little show. I was a paid lover with a cold heart, but the shy, beautiful woman across the street had...

Sapphire Wright has been dealt a bad hand. A week before Valentine’s, her fiancé kicks her out into the freezing cold. Two cold lonely nights she spends in front of Chandler’s Hotel. One night, her life changes in the blink of an eye. Lincoln ‘Linc’ Chandler stumbles upon Sapphire when he gets back in town from a business meeting. One look at the beautiful creation before him, and he knew he needed to help. In a short time, the two fall for each other. In this steamy, passion-filled tale, two souls will be snatched and connected. **Disclaimer** This is a short story!

En Eva Luna, su tercera novela, Isabel Allende recupera su país a través de la memoria y la imaginación. La cautivadora protagonista de esta historia constituye un nostálgico álter ego de la autora, que se llama a sí misma «ladrona de historias» precisamente porque en las historias radica el secreto de la vida y el mundo.

With accomplished precision and gentle eloquence, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the crosscurrents set in motion when immigrants, expatriates, and their children arrive, quite literally, at a cultural divide. The nine stories in this stunning debut collection unerringly chart the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations.

A veritable library of listening in this splendid collection of American Short Stories! This boxed set includes all stories from Volumes 1, 2 and 3.

The transporting stories in this year’s The Best American Mystery and Suspense are populated by those who exist on the fringe of our society and want more than what life has dealt them: A haunted veteran turned career criminal is on the run. An injured fighter turned bouncer seeks vengeance for his lost love. An assassin on his last job finds himself questioning his life choices and breaks all the rules to understand his final victim.

In Enigma Variations, Aciman maps the most inscrutable corners of passion, proving to be an unsparing reader of the human psyche and a master stylist. With language at once lyrical, bare-knuckled, and unabashedly candid, he casts a sensuous, shimmering light over each facet of desire to probe how we ache, want, and waver, and ultimately how we sometimes falter and let go of those who may want to offer only what we crave from them.

Charles thought he had it all - until a devastating betrayal and the shattering loss of his family drove him to living on the streets. Beatrice is the first person who's truly cared about him in a long time. Little by little, he's finding reasons to care about rebuilding his life. Drawn to Charles and the temptation of a second chance, Beatrice is faced with the hardest of decisions. But his insight, secrets - and the reminder of a profound past encounter - will give her unexpected inspiration, gratitude, and the strength she needs to find her way - perhaps in time for Christmas.

He wrestled with Abraham Lincoln, invented the game of baseball, and taught Stevie Wonder how to sing. A reporter’s hunt to find and interview the oldest man in the world comes to an abrupt halt at a facility for seniors when he meets Obadiah Short, and hears the intricate, funny, and mesmerizing yarns that Obadiah weaves. The reporter instantly realizes that he has found a better story than the one he had initially been pursuing. But Obadiah’s story is more significant than the reporter could ever begin to imagine. Enjoy The Tall Tales of Obadiah Short.

Havana, 1939: It’s opening night at the famed Tropicana nightclub. Cuban American college student Natalie Trainer, on vacation from Miami, is watching from the sidelines—as usual. Then comes an invitation to dance from a handsome stranger named Antonio. Normally cautious and reserved, Natalie somehow finds herself saying yes. A tiny thrill of rebellion, of taking a chance, and Natalie’s in heaven. Will her first step into this unfamiliar realm set a new course for her life, or only tonight?