Short Family

They say money can’t buy love. But what about fame? Ever since rock legend Ziggy Barnes died in a fiery plane crash, his family members have been struggling to put their lives back together and find love. Fans of reality TV and family dramas will love these three steamy romance novels.

Have you ever asked “What’s it all for?” or “Is my life enough?” Jack finds himself back at the local pub after another monotonous day at work asking himself these very questions. From an outside perspective, Jack has a good job and a supportive family, but somehow it’s not fulfilling his true desires, which has created a deep sadness. Seeing Jack’s hopelessness, the bartender, Lloyd, suggests a short story for him to read about a cowboy going through similar struggles in wanting better for his family and his life. Jack is not much of a reader, but finds some solace in ...

How quickly the ground shifts beneath our feet. We make choices—in the face of love, or violence, or necessity—and the effects ripple outward. In these moving short stories, acclaimed authors examine the foundations of the past, uncovering the irreversible decisions and life-changing encounters that mark the turning point between before and after.

The Peterkin Papers record the antics of the most memorably and hopelessly bumbling of respectable American families. Confronted by the endless challenges of daily life, the Peterkins rise to every occasion with misguided aplomb: they sit out in the sun for hours and fail to go for a ride because they've forgotten to unhitch the horse.

It is All Souls Day, and the spirit of Marcus Conway sits at his kitchen table and remembers. In flowing, relentless prose, Conway recalls his life in rural Ireland: as a boy and man, father, husband, citizen. His ruminations move from childhood memories of his father's deftness with machines to his own work as a civil engineer, from transformations in the local economy to the tidal wave of global financial collapse. Conway's thoughts go still further, outward to the vast systems of time and history that hold us all.

A book about life, travel, survival, and awareness of mistakes. Escape to Myself is the first book in the Big Little Stories series by Ukrainian writer Ivan Kuznietsov. Each book in the series is an independent, complete story and can be read in a free sequence. All stories have something in common—they are all about change. You will discover the adventures of different characters, but all of them, just like you and me, are essential parts of the big little story of our world. This book tells the story about a conscious transition from the life of a highly respected person, the heir to ...

John Updike reads six stories he has selected from the 100-odd he has published. Mr. Updike, when asked to described his method of reading aloud, said "I try to picture the things described and to speak the words distinctly, and to let the emotion come through on its own." The method works beautifully.

Come sit on the porch a spell. Let's talk about times gone by and folks we remember, about slow summer evenings and lightning bugs in a jar. Listen to the music of a creaky swing and hand-cranked ice cream and cicadas chorusing in the sultry night air. Let's talk about how things used to be in the South - and for some of us, they way they still are. Welcome to the world of Sweet Tea and Jesus Shoes, where award winning authors Deborah Smith, Sandra Chastain, Virginia Ellis, Debra Dixon, Donna Ball and Nancy Knight come together for the first time to create this poignant, humorous collection of nostalgic tales.

That summer - more than 10 years ago, while they were still in high school - Noelle McDowell and Thomas Sutton fell secretly in love. Secretly because their mothers had been locked in a bitter feud for decades. But despite the animosity between Sarah McDowell and Mary Sutton, Noelle planned to elope with Thom. Until he jilted her.

Judging by the popularity of her home-makeover show, Katie has it all: a sweet-natured husband, Damian, as her cohost; adorable tween daughters; a designer mansion; and a just-folks appeal that has made the happy couple home-renovation royalty. Out of the spotlight, it’s a different story. Katie’s marriage is disintegrating, her spoiled daughters despise her, and her money can’t do anything to repair her personal problems - or her professional ones.

Detective Jake Sharpe pulls his son Darrell away from video games and joins Tom Stone and the boy he’s befriended, Andrew, on an early morning hike in the foothills above Los Angeles. A father and son jaunt becomes a fight for survival when they take a wrong turn on a little-used path. An armed homeless man with a link to an unsolved cold-case murder is camping in a secluded ravine, and without warning opens fire on them. Stone and his group have to outwit and outmaneuver his shots in this deadly action-filled short story.

The town doctor is about to heal this lumbersnack’s broken heart. Dr. Reagan Banks is known as the local klutz…and a hopeless romantic. She's been dreaming of finding true love ever since she was a little girl, but her luck with relationships has been less than stellar in a busy life of straight A's and medical school. Then tall, muscular carpenter Caleb Hart shows up…and Reagan can't help but be drawn to him–even if he’s good with his hands and not so good with his heart. After a dreamy first night together, Reagan realizes that Caleb is inaccessible, cut off from his feelings, ...

In the captivating stories that make up The Empty Family, Colm Tibn delineates with a tender and unique sensibility, lives of unspoken or unconscious longing, of individuals often willingly cast adrift from their history. From the young Pakistani immigrant who seeks some kind of permanence in a strange town, to the Irish woman reluctantly returning to Dublin and discovering a city that refuses to acknowledge her long absence, each of Tibn's stories manage to contain whole worlds.

A trip to the library prompts one woman to question her fate in this galvanizing short story. For a woman like Hadley, deemed not acceptable to procreate, there’s only one recourse. Unlicensed for motherhood, she can alleviate her grief and frustration at a “baby library,” where a curiously endless supply of infants is available for a two-week loan. But the borrowed life that serves as a temporary balm leads to a journey of self-discovery that will forever change the direction of Hadley’s future.

Shannon Sanders’s sparkling debut brings us into the company of the Collins family and their acquaintances as they meet, bicker, compete, celebrate, worry, keep and reveal secrets, build lives and careers, and endure. Moving from Atlantic City to New York to DC, from the 1960s to the 2000s, from law students to drag performers to violinists to matriarchs, Company tells a multifaceted, multigenerational saga in thirteen stories.

Pamela is a newly retired teacher with time on her hands. She’s finding it hard to muster enthusiasm for what’s ahead: exhausting postdivorce dating rituals and an uneasy relationship with her emotionally stunted, live-at-home son. But for Pamela, there’s a surprise in store that could challenge the status quo and, against all expectations, make life interesting again.

The Vitale Crime Collection is a mafia romance series that focuses on powerful men and the women that bring them to their knees. Featuring arranged marriages, runaway brides, and bounty hunters that fall for their target. This collection features the short romance reads: Married To The Boss, Falling For The Enemy, and Hunting Down The Bride. This year, don’t hesitate to fall for a bad boy. Happily ever after guaranteed! ♥

In The Girl of the Lake, Bill Roorbach conjures vivid, complex characters whose layered interior worlds feel at once familiar and extraordinary.

First-time English edition THE TIME OF THE OAKS: book recommended by the portal lifeder.com as one of the top 23 books based on real stories: http://www.lifeder.com/libros-basados-en-historias-reales/ The most celebrated book by author Abel Carvajal, which tells incredible and funny stories based on real facts: The lives, adventures, and dangers, of an extraordinary family that lived in Colombia and Venezuela of the twentieth century... For those who like short true stories, with real photos of the characters. A fascinating book that shows us how reality surpasses fiction in South America. ...

Eva Gray has a secret. Eight years ago her sister entered the Brothers of Sin Motorcycle Club and never came back. Seven years ago she vowed revenge, even if she had to change everything about her life to do it - her look, her name, her face. Now she's stalking the Brothers and looking for weakness. She's close to achieving her goal, so close she can taste it. But a prominent federal judge is now in ICU, and Eva's the only one who can prove the club hired the hit.