American Short

This magical realist short tale was inspired by the Latin American myth of El Sombrerón, the nighttime guardian of peace and justice. El Sombrerón arrives in a sleepy town to find that a young girl has stolen a golden necklace. El Sombrerón must convince the girl to return the necklace so she can avoid El Sombrerón’s justice…and before the sun rises.

Noelle Carter is looking forward to an uneventful holiday season at the office. But when a secret admirer starts sending her love poems signed, "Your Secret Santa," things take an unexpected turn. As Noelle navigates the mystery and mixed emotions, she's also juggling relationship issues for her best friend Karole. When Noelle suspects Karole's boyfriend is cheating, secrets threaten to ruin the holidays. Add in a hostile boss who seems to be out to get her, and Noelle has her hands full. Will Noelle be able to solve all her problems before Christmas comes? Or will they destroy her holiday ...

In Mules and Men, some of the rich cultural heritage of black America is revealed and preserved. In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston returned to her home town of Eatonville, Florida, to collect and record the oral histories, songs, and sermons, many dating back to slavery times, that she remembered hearing as a child. These highly metaphorical folktales, "big old lies", and powerful songs helped her to recover her history, and preserve an important part of American culture.

This series is a short story collection aimed at the reader on the go. Each standalone takes you into the lives of the men and women that play in the streets risking life and limb for the almighty dollar. Some handle the heat of the life while others fold under the pressure of it all. So, take a few minutes on your lunch break or right before bed and see who is and who isn’t about that life. This story is book 4 and is titled "88 Hustlers".

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? ...

A vibrant debut story collection—poignant, unflinching, and immersive—masterfully moving between sharp wit and profound tenderness, Guatemalan Rhapsody offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of an ever-changing country, the people who claim it as home, and those who no longer do. Ranging from a custodian at an underfunded college to a medicine man living in a temple dedicated to San Simon, the patron saint of alcohol and cigarettes, the characters in these stories find themselves at defining moments in their lives, where sacrifices may be required of them, by them, or for them.

I am THAT wife. I am Suzy Homemaker. I don't go anywhere; don't do much of anything. I stay home, I cook, I clean, I take care of my man. I am faithful to my man. I am a fraud. I'm not happy, least not completely. I am unfulfilled. I'm missing something. My husband is a great man but he doesn't get my motor running or my heart racing. And when was the last time he made my panties wet? Has he ever made my panties wet? Our sex life, when it happens, is vanilla at best. But I make it work, you know? Because that's what wives do. But then one day, I am accosted by a sexy, demanding, enticing ...

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.

Minister Terrell Crutchfield of Tabernacle Baptist Church deals with life consequences when his past and present romances collide. In this African American / Black contemporary church suspense romance story, Megan Hightower, and Madeline Webster, two brazen church harlots will bring on the drama. Marital infidelity and adultery take center stage in this delightfully entertaining church tale. Sometimes in life when it rains unfortunately it pours out deceit and deception. Mixing Madeline Webster into the equation literally adds fuel to the fire. Megan Hightower and Minister's Crutchfield's ...

This is Raymond Carver's third collection of stories, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, including the canonical titular story about blindness and learning to enter the very different world of another. The 12 stories in Cathedral mark a turning point in Carver's work.

This addition to Oxford's Very Short Introductions series traces how Americans have addressed the issues and events of their time and place, whether it is the Civil War, the Great Depression, or the culture wars of today.

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.

The stories in this collection are drawn mainly from those tribes which lived in the northern and central areas of North America. These represent the linguistic groups gerneally referred to as Algonquian, Iroquois, and Sioux. A final chapter covers the tales of the northwest Pacific Coast.

Like Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, Sidik Fofana’s electrifying collection of eight interconnected stories showcases the strengths, struggles, and hopes of one residential community in a powerful storytelling experience. Each short story follows a tenant in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone’s mind. We root for these characters and more as they weave in and out of each other’s lives, endeavoring to escape from their pasts and blaze new paths forward for themselves and the people they love.

With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story and instantly became both the recognized master of the form and one of our best-loved fiction writers. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.

Calvin Snow is the new Associate Pastor of Mount Zion and the attention from the single ladies is becoming irresistible. Although his wife Savannah tries to keep things spicy in the bedroom, Calvin finds his life boring and predictable. The couple struggles to stay connected in the midst of all the adversity.

Though the lives of Mexico's characters are effected by the corrupt and dangerous subculture of their country, these are much more than simple "crime stories". They are complicated and deeply moving tales that tap into universal and enduringly powerful themes: love and loss, religion, family relationships, government abuse, sexual identity, professional ambition, cancer; they introduce us to characters that feel fully realized in their humanity.

What happens when everything around you seems perfect - your family, your health, your social status, your overall life - but all of a sudden something threatens to tear it all apart and rob you of what you've always known? This type of thing happens to many people, every day, from all walks of life. Some are able to get over it and go on with their lives. But others are not so fortunate. They find themselves stuck in their own meltdown of loss, hurt, and pain. Such is the situation in Marita L. Kinney's latest novel.

Transgressive, foulmouthed, and brutally funny, Brontez Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends is a revelatory spiral into the imperfect lives of queer men desperately fighting the urge to self-sabotage. As they tiptoe through minefields of romantic, substance-fueled misadventure - from dirty warehouses and gentrified bars in Oakland to desolate farm towns in Alabama - Purnell’s characters strive for belonging in a world that dismisses them for being Black, broke, and queer. In spite of it - or perhaps because of it - they shine.

Tales of the Out & the Gone reflects the astounding evolution of America's most provocative literary anti-hero. The first section of the audiobook, War Stories, offers six stories enmeshed in the vola-tile politics of the 1970s and 1980s. The second section, Tales of the Out & the Gone, reveals Amiri Baraka's increasing literary adventurousness, combining an unpredictable language play with a passion for abstraction and psychological exploration.