Family Survival Fiction

Sisters Lu and Min have always known their places as the princesses of the Empire of the First Flame: assertive Lu will be named her father's heir and become the dynasty's first female ruler while timid Min will lead a quiet life in Lu's shadow. Until their father names their male cousin Set his heir instead, sending ripples through the realm and throwing both girls' lives into utter chaos. Determined to reclaim her birthright, Lu has no choice but to go on the run, leaving Min to face the volatile court alone.

Neither Elizabeth nor her little brother, Matty, have ever been north of Georgia. They’re used to sandals and shorts, not boots and parkas. So when they fly to New York City to spend the holidays with their cousin, Ashley, they want to experience one thing: Snow! Ashley can’t wait to show her cousins how magical Manhattan is at Christmastime. But instead of a week of fun, what they get is an arctic blast that knocks out the power and plunges the skyscrapers into darkness.

Seventeen-year-old Serendipity "Pity" Jones inherited two things from her mother: a pair of six shooters and perfect aim. She's been offered a life of fame and fortune in Cessation, a glittering city where lawlessness is a way of life. But the price she pays for her freedom may be too great....In this extraordinary debut from Lyndsay Ely, the West is once again wild after a Second Civil War fractures the U.S. into a broken, dangerous land. Pity's struggle against the dark and twisted underbelly of a corrupt city will haunt you long after the final bullet is shot.

In the heart of America, nestled in the serene town of Oakridge, Mark Henderson, a visionary inventor and loving father, discovers more than just a revolutionary material: he uncovers the key to survival. When global tensions spiral towards the unthinkable, Mark's breakthrough, a formidable alloy that is impervious to nuclear devastation, becomes Oakridge's beacon of hope. "The Silver Fortress" is a gripping tale of courage, family, and the human spirit's unyielding will to protect what is most precious. As an inventor's ultimate test unfolds beneath the shadow of apocalyptic dread, his ...

Sarah Robinson and her family intended to have a vacation adventure aboard a boat but ended up stranded on a remote and mysterious island. Along with unusual, weird creatures, they met the "Curator", a strange boy who may be an...alien. And then they met Cash, a girl who may hold the key to why Shipwreck Island has been kept a secret for so long.

Biff Temperance, a gentle and withdrawn yet brilliant commodity futures trader, experiences a devastating emotional attack triggered by childhood memories. His breakdown is bad enough, but the timing is even worse. It occurs on a chaotic trading floor and leads to a catastrophic financial loss for his firm. His future in shambles, Biff abandons the meticulously structured life disengaged from the world, which he built for himself in New York City. He embarks on a trip to find his estranged father, who he hasn’t seen since he was five. His only clue about him is a recent letter containing ...

On Choosing Day, children of Adranna who reach the age of 14 are finally eligible to undergo the tests to determine if they are worthy of bonding a Frostsliver. Only one in a hundred are destined to succeed. If chosen, they will have to climb to the top of the glacier and cut a piece off for themselves, so that they may be granted the powers they've always dreamed of. When Sabira is chosen, an entire world of possibilities opens up to her. But in order to see it through, she'll have to embark on a dangerous pilgrimage to the top of the glacier.

Hunting, gathering, and keeping his family safe - that's the life 17-year-old Kol knows. Then bold, enigmatic Mya arrives from the south with her family, and Kol is captivated. He wants her to like and trust him, but any hopes of impressing her are ruined when he makes a careless - and nearly grave - mistake. However, there's something more to Mya's cool disdain - a history wrought with loss that comes to light when another clan arrives. With them is Lo, an enemy from Mya's past who Mya swears has ulterior motives.

A church mouse is no ordinary mouse, and Hildegarde - the Mouse Mistress of Saint Bartholemew's - is no ordinary mouse leader. It falls to her to keep all the church mice safe and out of sight. But when a few parishioners report mouse sightings, Hildegarde and the rest of the church mice must face a most dreadful consequence: the Great X. To complicate things, a ceremony called the Blessing of the Animals is fast approaching. Saint Bartholemew's will soon be filled with pets... including cats!

In a world scorched by ruin, where faith is rare and mercy rarer, Eden walks the wasteland with nothing but a prayer on her lips and fire in her soul. She rescues the broken, buries the dead, and listens for the quiet voice that still speaks in the dark. When she finds a wounded stranger bleeding out in a graveyard, she doesn’t flinch—she prays. Silas Ward is a soldier with blood on his hands and no reason to believe he deserves saving. But Eden doesn’t ask if he’s worth it. She just stays. What begins as a fragile alliance in the ashes becomes something holy—fierce devotion ...

Emma has always orbited Henri, her fierce, magnetic queen bee of an older sister, and the two have always been best friends. Until something happens that wrecks them. Then the unthinkable occurs - a watery nightmare off the dazzling coast. The girls wash up onshore, stranded. Their only companion is Alex, a troubled boy agonizing over his own secrets. Trapped in a gorgeous hell, Emma and Alex fall together as Emma and Henri fall catastrophically apart. To find their way home, the sisters must find their way back to each other.

One bright spring morning in the woods of France, a soldier, blinded by the war, is found by a little girl named Coco, and her older sister Marcelle. In return for their kindness, the soldier tells the sisters marvelous tales, each story connected to the keepsake he carries in his pocket: a perfect, tiny, silver donkey.

Mohira's dream of leaving Central Asia for the magic of America finally comes true when she meets a man in the Peace Corps who sweeps her off her feet. But the dream doesn't live up to the reality and, when she finds divorce papers on her pillow, her world falls apart. Now she struggles to find a sense of belonging, as a foreign woman in America with no friends or family around. She's not even sure her family will accept her if she gives up and returns to them, considering their traditional Muslim beliefs about divorce. In the midst of her journey of discovering who she is and reevaluating ...

Irréelle fears she’s not quite real. Only the finest magical thread tethers her to life - and to Miss Vesper. But for all her efforts to please her cruel creator, the thread is unraveling. Irréelle is forgetful as she gathers bone dust. She is slow returning from the dark passages beneath the cemetery. Worst of all, she is unmindful of her crooked bones. When Irréelle makes one final, unforgivable mistake by destroying a frightful creature just brought to life, Miss Vesper threatens to imagine her away once and for all.

It’s been 18 months since the Raxter School for Girls was put in quarantine. The Tox turned the students strange and savage, the teachers died off one by one. Cut off from the mainland, the girls don’t dare wander past the school’s fence where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure as the Tox takes, their bodies becoming sick and foreign, things bursting out of them, bits missing.

Questions can be tricky things. Everyone has their own way of dealing with them. India Tompkins can charm her way out of answering most of them. Finn Tompkins is too quiet to be asked in the first place. And Mouse Tompkins? She's a genius - she's used to having all the answers.

An old traveler tells his grandchildren how he survived a harsh winter alone in the American Northwest during the gold rush of the 1800s, facing brutal cold and hungry wolves, and finding help from an unexpected source. This is a short story of about 3k words.

Hattie Barton’s life changes forever on October 24, 1929, the historic day of the New York stock market crash. She is suddenly forced to leave her palatial home in Calhoun, relocate to an apartment in her hometown in Greenville, and find work to support herself, her two young daughters Pauline and Alice, and her trusted housekeeper, Georgia. When she takes a job as secretary in a small insurance firm, a potential romance develops between Hattie and her boss, Seth Snoddy However, an unexpected turn causes her to reevaluate whether she can ever settle for a marriage of convenience.

Murder. One of the Allerdon sisters has been charged with a pre-meditated killing and taken to jail. It doesn't seem possible - but it's happening. What was supposed to be a typical summer is anything but for this seemingly ordinary family. Shortly after they arrive at their cozy family cottage on the river, Lander meets and is smitten with a handsome young man, and they begin to date. Miranda has a bad feeling about her sister's new boyfriend. And when the family must deal with an unimaginable nightmare, Miranda can't help feeling that the boyfriend has something to do with it.

War has forced Omar and his mother to leave their home in Afghanistan and venture across the sea to Europe. When their boat sinks, and Omar finds himself alone, with no hope of rescue, it seems as if his story has come to an end. But it is only just beginning. Because in the end, a little hope makes a big difference....