Literary Trauma

Clara's sister is missing. Angry, rebellious Rose had a row with their mother, stormed out of the house and simply disappeared. Eight-year-old Clara, isolated by her distraught parents' efforts to protect her from the truth, is grief-stricken and bewildered. Liam Kane, newly divorced, newly unemployed, newly arrived in this small northern town, moves into the house next door, a house left to him by an old woman he can barely remember and within hours gets a visit from the police. It seems he's suspected of a crime.

Alison Donnelly has suffered for love. Still stuck in the small Northern Irish town where she was born, working for her father's real estate agency, she hopes to pick up the pieces and get her life back together. Her sister, Liz, a fiercely independent college professor who lives in New York City, is about to return to Ulster for Alison's second wedding before heading to an island off the coast of Papua New Guinea to make a TV show about the world's newest religion.

Some inheritances change your future. This one will help you find your way back home. Jana Calloway has built a perfect life—or so it seems. Maren Foster spends her days helping others heal, but her own heart remains guarded. Ivy West would rather run than risk being hurt again. They haven’t seen each other in over a decade, not since their friendship shattered under the weight of an unbearable loss. When their beloved college professor leaves them Winterfield Manor—a sprawling Tudor estate deep in the Oregon mountains—the three women are brought back together to confront not just ...

You like it when the outlaws win? When survivors turn the tables on their abusers? Then this is a story you’ll love. Listeners will benefit from the full emotional impact of the story. How Wonder Woman Became a Smuggler is an adventure-fueled tale of a child coming of age in the midst of domestic violence to become an outlaw.

In the dark labyrinth of his memories, can Cameron Todd uncover the truth about his girlfriend's fatal plunge from a clifftop? With a brain injury preventing him from remembering anything, even the night Emma died, Cameron is trapped in a sinister game of piecing together his fragmented past. Accusations swirl around him - the police, Emma's grieving family - they all question whether his amnesia is a mere pretence. As he struggles to reconstruct the mosaic of his life, Cameron discovers that his relationship with Emma may not have been as idyllic as he believed.

With the Second World War only a few years in the past, and Japan still reeling from its effects, two sisters - born to the same father but different mothers - struggle to make sense of the new world in which they are coming of age. Asako, the younger, has become obsessed with locating a third sibling, while also experiencing love for the first time. While Momoko, their father's first child - haunted by the loss of her kamikaze boyfriend and their final, disturbing days together - seeks comfort in a series of unhealthy romances.

As a psychiatrist Charlie Weir has seen every kind of trauma New York has to offer. Yet he has never managed to overcome the tragic mistake, seven years earlier that lost him his wife and his daughter, leaving him prone to corrosive loneliness and restless anger. Then into his life walks the alluring Nora Chiara, with her inescapable air of sadness and mystery, and Charlie falls for her quickly, hungrily.

A career-making assignment. An elusive, charismatic sociopath. Will Sarah’s big break secure her fame or savage her soul? The Interview takes you on one woman’s transformational journey as she faces the demons of her past while navigating the manipulations of an enigmatic man. Sarah, a young reporter with a deeply troubled history, wins an interview with a powerful business mogul who is rarely seen in public and has never before granted an interview. This assignment could make or break her career. Little did she know it could also break her spirit. Sarah must tackle direct challenges to...

The worst is over. All that remains for the survivors hiding in the castle is to gather supplies to prevent starvation. It is a problem they believe they can solve without further loss of life.

"Violet Lemon" is a heart-wrenching, life-affirming journey through five decades of pain, survival, and ultimately—peace. It begins in December 1970, when young Violet and her brother are torn from their home and the loving father they once knew. Thrust into a world of instability, abuse, and betrayal, Violet’s childhood becomes a battlefield. Raised by a toxic mother and an abusive stepfather, she grows up surrounded by domestic violence, mental illness, addiction, and poverty. Told in powerful vignettes, this raw and poetic novel follows Violet over 50 years as she grapples with PTSD,...

South Korea, 1970. San is a lonely child, ostracised from her community. She soon finds a friend in a girl called Namae, until one afternoon changes everything. Following a moment of intimacy in a minari field, Namae violently rejects San, setting her on a troubling path. We next meet San, aged twenty-two, when she happens upon a job at a flower shop in Seoul's bustling city centre. Over the course of one hazy, volatile summer, San is introduced to a curious cast of characters.

"After Dinner Conversation" Magazine - June 2021 Cost Of Human Life: AI software designed to more efficiently run the railroad system runs into a programming issue. Step Back: A husband and wife decide to have a natural childbirth and find it's more than they bargained. The Cave Of Adventure: A scientist that studies fish memory wanders into a cave that gives her the chance to share their experience. Christmas In Ushuaia: A sorrowful man heads to the ends of the earth to dispose of his most painful memories. The Freedom Machine: A woman is forced to make her own decisions when her computer ...

In 1966, Sook-Yin is exiled from Kowloon to London with orders to restore honour to her family. As she strives to fit into a world that does not understand her, she realises that survival will mean carving out a destiny of her own. Thirty years later, in London, her daughter Lily can barely remember the mother she lost as a small child. But when she is unexpectedly named in the will of a powerful Chinese stranger, she embarks on a secret pilgrimage to Hong Kong to discover the lost side of her identity and claim the reward.

As an ER nurse, she knew the day might come when her greatest fear happened, and after her husband of 10 years dies in her trauma bay, moving on feels impossible. Struggling to overcome her loss, Elle Conroy navigates the world the only way she thinks she can. Thrown from the top ranks of her career and drawn into the false comfort that diverted narcotics and alcohol bring, she fights to survive in an environment where daily reminders of her tragedy occur.

Laboring in emergency rooms all around the country is a group of dedicated doctors and nurses who just want to make a difference. Some swear, some drink, and some laugh in order to manage their emotions while providing high-quality care in the most unimaginable, shocking, and difficult cases. Among this group of highly skilled medical professionals is Goldie Fisher, a nurse who is completing her first week of orientation at a level one trauma center.

So says Mona Dean—playwright, actress and daughter to a man famous for one great novel, and in fruitless pursuit of the next, whose needs and insecurities exert an inescapable pull and exact an immeasurable toll on the women of his family: Mona, her sister, her half-sister, their mothers. His infidelity destroyed Mona's childhood, setting her in opposition to a cold, cruel stepmother who, though equally damaged, disdains her for being broken. Then, just as Mona is settling into her life as an adult and fledgling artist, he begins a new affair and takes her into his confidence.

Rated "Most Popular Fiction Magazine 2024" by Chill Subs Ranked Top 10 "Best Lit Mags of 2023, 2024" by Chill Subs Delight in intriguing, thought-provoking conversations about ethics, philosophy, and social issues! After Dinner Conversation is a monthly literary magazine publishing short fiction. Each issue features both established writers and up-and-coming authors who contribute fascinating philosophical insights on controversial topics like marriage equality, assisted suicide, the meaning of death, animal rights, and defining your "purpose." It's time to go deep in search of truth! If ...

Audrey Mendes is a clever lawyer but has never made partner. Her weeks are filled with long hours in the office, visits to her ageing parents, trivia nights at the local and evenings at home with her pet rabbit, Joni. When Audrey tries to buy wine at the pub she is ignored and walks out without paying. One thing leads to another, and soon she starts rebelling in small and creative ways against a world in which she is unseen - until a painful reminder from her childhood pushes her into a reckoning.

Brütende Hitze, ein Freibad und mittendrin sieben Menschen, deren Lebenswege sich für einen schicksalhaften Moment miteinander verbinden. Da ist Kiontke, der Bademeister, der noch immer am Beckenrand steht, auch wenn die Leute meinen, dass es ihn eigentlich hätte umhauen müssen, dieses Unglück damals. Da ist Renate, die hinter der Kasse sitzt und zu viel raucht und die zwei, vier, acht Sachen an Kiontke mag, was sie natürlich niemals zugeben würde.

"After Dinner Conversation" Magazine - March 2021 Bill And The Tooth Fairy: An adult loses a tooth and attempts to appease the tooth fairy. Sienna's Monster: A troubled girl leaves for college and is forced to come to terms with the monster that haunts her nightmares. Soon The Sentence Sign: A bar fight turns into a brush with the colonial AI driven judicial system. Echo: A woman wakes up to find she was "saved" by being put into the body of a robot with far fewer human rights than she is accustomed. StarStuck: The first child in 1,000 years is born to the "Great Purveyors of Reason" and ...