Showing results for "life" in Short Stories

When good fights evil, the battle does not always go as planned. The Crimson Pact anthologies (Volumes 1-5) include a wide variety of standalone tales about the members of the Crimson Pact fighting demons across the multiverse. Now, three acclaimed tales from darkly disturbing author Donald J. Bingle are collected for you to taste and find out if demon-hunting is in your blood.

A beguiling trio of fantastical and farcical anti-fairy tales about a giantess who builds a magical “cottage of one’s own,” battles a silver-scaled sea monster, and defies governesses and gravity alike.

In these tales of loss and pleasure, lovers and family, a woman learns to conduct an affair, a child of divorce dances with her mother, and a woman with a terminal illness contemplates her exit. Filled with the sharp humor, emotional acuity, and joyful language Moore has become famous for, these nine glittering tales marked the introduction of an extravagantly gifted writer.

A teenage Anita fights with her first wave of infatuation, a grown-up girl goes through crests and troughs of her various firsts, a married woman struggles with the meanderings of her mind at various stages of her married life, a love story told from a child observer's perspective, and a story of a man's yearning to feel his roots in another part of the globe. Mundane details of ordinary lives and the darker recesses of the minds of these marginalized characters are played with strokes of myriad colours to bring forth the strangeness, unpredictability and adventure that life holds.

In this charming and heartwarming retelling of the classic It’s a Wonderful Life, Camille Pagán introduces us to Bailey, a dutiful yet sharp-witted 30-something who finds herself on the verge of a nervous breakdown as Christmas Eve approaches. As if it wasn’t enough that Bailey’s husband just cheated on her, the family business she’s been running since her parents died, which employs most of her small town, is about to go under. But even as she’s questioning whether her life has any meaning, Bailey bumps into a handsome stranger who claims to know her.

A captivating collection of six stories from Australia's master storyteller Judy Nunn. The Long Weekend, The Wardrobe, The Otto Bin Empire: Clive's Story, Changes, The House on Hill Street and Just South of Rome.

In his three novellas, In Short Measures, Strong Conspirators, and Sally Forth, Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love - and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades. Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity - what are one's obligations toward one's spouse, one's family, and one's heart?

The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here. Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.

It’s a New Jersey summer in 1967, and thirteen-year-old Ravi Ramanathan has the makings of a tennis prodigy. His surgeon father encourages his ambition, while his mother dreams of their only child following his father’s path. Surrounded by his parents’ love, Ravi chafes a bit at their daily routines and little traditions. Then one unexpected day, everything changes. Realizing how much he took for granted, Ravi must grow up overnight and find a new role in the life of his family.

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.

The Gibson sisters weren’t expecting to speak to each other ever again after Isabel ran off to New York and left Sophie alone. But here they are, years later, running the family bookstore together on Brinkley’s Island, Maine. Isabel also thought she’d left Johnny Lenox behind, but whether or not she knew it, Johnny was always going to be there for her. Five years into their happily ever after, Isabel and Johnny are making the most of their second chance at love.

For over 60 years, since his award-winning debut, The Room on the Roof, was published, Ruskin Bond has charmed and entertained us with characters ranging from the animal world to humans to ghostly spirits, and his magic touch has often presented to us a world unhurried, tucked away in hills and valleys. What does it mean to be an octogenarian loved by the young and old alike? To be synonymous with the smell of pinewood and rambling mountain paths? In short, what is it that makes him Bond?

Thirteen stories that are just right for a lunch time read. All stories stand alone, and are complete in this volume.

A saga of love, loss and seasons of hope, Signs of Life is a vivid and evocative record of life in the times of pandemic. With uncertainty and unrest gripping the world, Kunti finds solace in translating the Mahabharata, cobbling together bits and pieces. As time and space stand suspended, she finds that stories repeat and renew themselves.

Esta obra es una profunda exploración del alma humana y sus conflictos eternos. A través de una narración conmovedora, Tólstoi nos lleva en un viaje por las pasiones, miedos y esperanzas que definen nuestra existencia. Enfrentando dilemas morales y espirituales, los personajes de esta obra buscan respuestas a la pregunta esencial: ¿Qué es lo que realmente da sentido y propósito a la vida?

Imagine a world without Mr. Darcy. How would things have been different if he had never been born? In a moment of despair over Elizabeth’s rejection, the iconic hero of Pride and Prejudice wishes his life away. Now, on a tour with a surprising celestial guide, he must face up to the results. Instead of everybody being better off, as he had supposed, there have been unexpected consequences for his closest friends. Darcy realizes, too late, that his presence made a positive difference in the world, and that he really had a wonderful life. Is it all lost and gone forever?

Growing up, Violet was so busy helping others realize their dreams, she found little time to pursue her own. But five years ago, she took the chance of a lifetime, leaving the family bookshop on Brinkley’s Island, Maine, to attend culinary school in Paris. Now she’s working her dream job as a pâtissiere in an upscale Parisian restaurant—yet all she can think about is home.

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.

In the quiet world of rural English clergy, lives are full of challenges, conflicts, desires and expectations. George Eliot’s first published work of fiction (1857) comprises three separate stories and has the hallmarks of her famous later works–her gentle wit and clever satire, her psychological insight, and her keen observation of human nature and frailty. These are beautifully written and poignant tales, set in and around the fictional Midlands town of Milby.

The author describes life in South Africa from the viewpoint of different cultures and characters. As a keen observer of human nature, she invites her listeners to become part of real-life issues by visiting the characters behind the scenes, often shocking them with open and honest dialogue about unusual situations. Sharing experiences in a government hospital, one real and another fictional, and a matric dance where a man reluctantly takes his gardener's son to his matric dance in his sports car, Mandy and her Friends reveal the shocking reality of what life is like living with a drug addict.