American Short

A woman fleeing a horrible fate. A lonely man yearning for love. Brought together by a twist of fate, will they find a Christmas miracle? After her mother died, Pansy Robbins’ life changed forever. Forced to cater to the whims of her step-sisters, ignored by her step-father, and pitied by the servants and staff, she has no one to turn to. Neither mistress nor maid in their stately Savannah, Georgia home, Pansy lives caught in limbo. When an unwanted engagement is arranged for her, Pansy escapes Savannah to find a new home in Colorado. But when she arrives in the town of Hidden Pines, ...

Kendra Bentford has always been the type to believe in the happily ever after love story, even after experiencing heartbreak after heartbreak. Her mother always told her 'Those who practice patients, love's the hardest.' And, she didn't know how true that statement was until she ran into Ronnie her first crush and the first man that she had ever loved. She never told him because he was dating someone at the time. Then the unthinkable happened he broke up with his girlfriend and confessed his love to Kendra; she in return expressed her same love for him. Once it was all over she realized ...

A special Christmas Collection of delightful old West romance stories all in one binge-worthy collection. A Tin Star for Christmas - A temporarily blinded sheriff! A woman secretly in love! Both set to marry someone else. Can this Christmas get any worse? Candy Cane Christmas - A grieving sibling, a man without hope and two orphans that bring them together. Viola - Angel Creek Christmas Brides - A Southern Belle looking for peace after the war - An outlaw turned rancher, determined to start over - Can two people from opposite worlds find happiness together in Angel Creek this Christmas? ...

Something About Ann, a historical fiction novella, is accompanied by twelve interconnected short stories that follow a group of soldiers who faced traumatic experiences in Vietnam, as depicted in the novel A Long Way Back. Although they managed to remain close after returning to the States, violence and turmoil continue to haunt the soldiers as they try to normalize their lives, sometimes depending on the help of each other or relying on the skills they acquired in combat. In the novella Something About Ann, a black Vietnam veteran and a Vietnamese woman fall in love in Cleveland, Ohio, not...

Relentless is the fifteenth novella in the ongoing story of the Andersen family. Livia Andersen was a woman who held her family together with a quiet smile and an iron will. It’s been months since her death and her children and grandchildren she leaves behind continue to grapple with the shifting changes in their lives now that she’s gone. Some look back at what else has been lost to them. Chris Andersen is looking forward with anticipation to the future spread that's out in front of him…one that he didn’t expect. But he is also looking behind him at what was lost and never ...

Confession: I like being frisked by rough, sexy, crooked cops because they are always excited to find my BIG surprises. Arnold is a straight college frat boy with a criminal past that desires to be manhandled by muscular, sexy police officers. He has one in mind, Officer Stuart. Arnold fantasizes about Officer Stuart pinning him against the wall, frisking his body, and finding a surprise so big he made him his boy toy for the night. He gets butterflies in his stomach, and his little friend between his legs inches down his basketball shorts at the thought of him. He wants Officer Dennis ...

The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction, and it is the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. Don Winslow, the Raymond Chandler Award-winning author of City in Ruins, picks the best twenty mystery and suspense stories from the previous year.

“Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,” writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. “The most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.” The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises.

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 ...

Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts. Fiona was always destined to leave, her effortless beauty burnished by fierce ambition—qualities that Jane admired and feared in equal measure. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California.

Zane’s erotic writing has captivated a legion of fans. Her previous short story collection not only became a best seller but also delivered fully on its promise—exploding the myth that men are more sexual in nature than women and that African American women are particularly inhibited. This second volume of Sex Chronicles is Zane’s hottest collection yet. Smart, witty, and extremely sexy, these stories are tailored to women—but perfect for lovers to share.

There's a saying in Brooklyn that if you come from my part of town, you're from around the way. Well Lyric, Juicy, and Precious are all from around the way. They all live in Crown Heights, one of the most notorious sections of Brooklyn, but to them it's just a place they call home. Around the Way Girls 2 is a fast-paced look at the life of some street-smart women who think they know it all but are about to get the lessons of their lives.

An ordinary man wakes one morning to discover he’s a famous reggaetón star. An aging abuela slowly morphs into a marionette puppet. A struggling academic discovers the horrifying cost of becoming a Self-Made Man. In There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, Ruben Reyes Jr. conjures strange dreamlike worlds to explore what we would do if we woke up one morning and our lives were unrecognizable. Boundaries between the past, present, and future are blurred. Menacing technology and unchecked bureaucracy cut through everyday life with uncanny dread.

Hope Hammond is best friends with Faith Abernathy and has grown up around her brother Davis. Recently, an attraction has surfaced between the friends. As the new relationship starts to form, problems caused by the American Civil War have reached a boiling point for the Hammond family, leaving little room for Hope to focus on love. Davis Abernathy wants to be a soldier and fight for the Confederacy, but his family is against him joining the war effort. The only thing he wants more that serving with honor is to marry Hope, but their relationship can’t progress with her father refusing to ...

In ancient mythology, the Titan Prometheus was punished by the gods for bringing man the gift of fire - an event that set humankind on its course of knowledge. As punishment, Prometheus was bound to a rock. But in The Gift of Fire, those chains cease to be, and the great champion of man walks from that immortal prison into present-day South Central Los Angeles. Disheveled and lost, he is thrown in jail, where he meets lifelong criminal Nosome Blane....

For Jack Cho, a fortysomething gay man, being able to marry someone he loves is so unfamiliar it’s terrifying. Then a wedding invitation from a college friend brings about a collision with those fears--and his own secret history. Jack and his new boyfriend, Caleb, are attending the wedding of Jack’s estranged straight friend Scott. No sooner do the guests start to mingle than questions arise

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.

You can’t have faith with the spirit of fear. The ancestors cannot reach you if you aren’t strong enough to believe. REINA is excited about leaving her hometown of Houma, LA. Away from the legends, stares, and whispers that run rampant about her family. She just wants to get away and feel normal for once in her life. Her parents OSCAR and ESMERALDA fear losing their daughter to her independence, not knowing a more menacing force awaits her. After settling into the private university in Alabama, she embraces her freedom. A day trip with one of her roommates, NIKKI, turns into a nightmare...

Make your heart merry and unwrap these delightful stories of seasonal romance.

Kirkus Reviews writes: "Two richly textured, captivating tales of inappropriate romance. Young's two tales explore families, school groups, and small towns beset by buried secrets and unspoken desires." Joseph and Mary: A Family Romance is set in Phoenix in 1978 and Rec Park: A Small-Town Romance in a coastal community outside of Los Angeles in the early years of the twenty-first century. These two short novels are by the author of the highly praised Blue and Other Stories.