Magical Realism Fiction Short Stories

Seven Stories. Endless Possibilities. From magical realism to hard-hitting crime thrillers, from poetic flash fiction to urban fantasy, this genre-spanning collection showcases a masterful range of storytelling, packed with heart, action, and the unexpected. Inside Short Fiction, you’ll discover: • Oaf – A thrilling magical realism take on the classic “boy and his dog” story—with an unforgettable twist. • The Picnic – A palate-cleansing flash fiction piece, blending poetry and atmosphere in a haunting vignette. • A Peculiar Brew – A heartfelt tale of a dying man, a ...

The Staggered Births of the Triplet Witches Reuniting after years apart, three sisters find their latent powers springing to life, evolving into potent shields against looming darkness. Despite sharing a birthright, they've grown up unaware of their shared lineage, thanks to being brought up by a secretive grandmother and an enigmatic great aunt. As the shadows of an unsolved serial murder case resurface, troubling signs emerge— their young cousin bears unexplained bruises, and the townsfolk are growing increasingly sinister. Can the sisters, bound by blood but unaware of their profound ...

“In villages where women bore most of the weight of a constricted life, witches flew by night on broomsticks,” said Italo Calvino of the way imagination bridges the gap between everyday existence and an idealized alternative. The 15 stories of Animal Wife are each about girls and women who cross this threshold seeking liberation from family responsibilities, from societal expectations, from their own minds.

Ten short stories, different tastes, various shades are what make Ghost Runner & Others. Ghosts, lesbians, rapists, optimists, myths, achievers, mothers, lovers all are part of the short stories in Ghost Runner & Others. It travels through serene forests and mountains, obscure towns and burgeoning cities, even through imaginary landscape, imaginary time frames, yet it remains rooted in reality. It speaks of humans thriving through odds of politics, corruption and natural disasters. It connects history and mythology to the present and the future. In nutshell, Ghost Runner & Others narrates ...

Deep within the revered halls of the Smithsonian Museum lies the ancient Deceiver’s Casket—a small, intricately carved box rumored to possess the ability to unveil the darkest depths of a person’s soul. It is here that Ava’s journey begins. Entranced by the casket’s allure, it quickly draws her into a world where truth may be more terrifying than any lie. As truth and deception collide in a world of intrigue, will the Deceiver’s Casket ultimately serve as a tool of salvation or a harbinger of doom?

A demon who runs story time at the local library. A robot that guards nuclear waste. A vampire who gives relationship advice. Death’s personal lawyer. The Strange Garden and Other Weird Tales is a collection of stories that mix the mundane and bizarre, that both disturb and delight. From the creator of The Stench of Adventure comes a set of mystifying stories with an undercurrent of warmth and heart.

Playful, frightening, shocking - these stories from a writer at the height of his power will make you think, or make you laugh. Sometimes they’ll make you want to look away, but they will always hold your gaze. These are stories set in London, in Byzantium, in the ghetto, in the Andes, and in a printer’s shop in Lagos. Characters include a murderer, a writer, a detective, a man in a cave, a man in a mirror, three little boys, a prison door, and the author himself. Each one of these 23 stories will make you wonder if what you see in the world can really be all there is....

This collection of eight stories paints a vivid image of people who don't do what you might expect them to living on the fringes in America. Not stories of triumph over adversity but something completely other. Described in language that is brilliantly sardonic, Woods' characters return repeatedly to places where they don't belong - often the places where they were born. In the background are the endless American wars and occupations and too many early deaths of friends and family. This is fiction that is fresh and of the moment, even as it is timeless.

Seamlessly shifting between the speculative and the blindingly real, balancing the bizarre with the subtle brutality of the mundane, A Manual for How to Love Us is a tender portrait of women trying their best to survive, love, and find genuine meaning in the aftermath of loss. In these unconventional and unpredictably connected stories, Erin Slaughter shatters the stereotype of the soft-spoken, sorrowful woman in distress, queering the domestic and honoring the feral in all of us.

In the tradition of narrativa de lo inusual (narrative of the unusual), The Only Sound Is the Wind combines the fantastic with the everyday, weaving elements of magical realism and surrealist twists to sharpen our view of human (and animal) connection. In the title story, the arrival of a mail-order clone complicates a burgeoning romance; a lonely librarian longing for her homeland strikes up an unusual relationship in the award-winning “The Moth”; when humans start giving birth to puppies and kittens in “This New Turn,” a realignment of the natural order ensues.

Spanning decades and landscapes, from the forests along the Black Sea to the streets of Istanbul, Kenan Orhan’s ​playful stories ​conjure dreamlike worlds—of talking animals, flying houses, and omniscient prayer-callers—to ​examine humanity’s unfaltering pursuit of hope in even the darkest circumstances.

In each story in this collection, Haruki Murakami sidesteps the real and sprints for the surreal. Everyday events are transcended, leaving the reader dazzled by this master of his craft. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is Murakami's most eclectic collection of stories to date, spanning five years of his writing.

From USA Today best-selling author Casi McLean, five award-winning novelettes with supernatural twists grab you on minute one and hold you spellbound long after you listen.

Raising the literary bar to a new level, Jerome Charyn re-creates the voice of Theodore Roosevelt, the New York City police commissioner, Rough Rider, and soon-to-be 26th president through his derring-do adventures, effortlessly combining superhero dialogue with haunting pathos. Beginning with his sickly childhood and concluding with McKinley's assassination, the novel positions Roosevelt as a "perfect bull in a china shop," a fearless crime fighter and pioneering environmentalist who would grow up to be our greatest peacetime president.

And what if in each universe there reigned other Black woman gods? One million versions of god, and one million saints to watch over us? And what if this Black woman god were placed here on earth? These are just a few of the questions Anastacia-Reneé asks in this daring and mind-bending hybrid collection. Hers is a universe of striking variety—monsters, nontraditional saints, witches, zombies, the couple in the apartment next door, the wise elders from down the block, and gods watching over us all—as well as community and connectedness.

A woman meets her next-door neighbor and loans her a spatula, then starts suffering horrific gaps in her memory. A man, feeling jilted by an unrequited love, becomes obsessed with sorting through his neighbors' garbage in the belief that it will teach him how to better relate to people. A landlord decides to raise the rent, and his tenants hatch a plan to kill him at a team-building retreat. In 10 captivating, unnerving stories, Flowers of Mold presents a range of ordinary individuals who have found themselves left behind by an increasingly urbanized and fragmented world.

The tales in Mark Haddon's lyrical and uncompromising new collection take many forms - Victorian adventure story, science fiction, morality tale, contemporary realism - but they all showcase his virtuoso gifts as a stylist and the deep well of empathy that made his three best-selling novels so compelling. The characters here are often isolated physically or estranged from their families, yet they yearn for connection.

A group of women contemplate violence after they’re sent into foreign territory to make husbands of the enemy. A support network of traumatized joggers meets to discuss the bodies they’ve found on their runs. And a town replaces its Confederate monument with a rotating cast of local residents. Slippery but muscular, sly but electric, this stunning debut collection moves from horror to magical realism to satire with total authority. In these stories, characters build and remake their sense of home, be it with one another or within themselves.

Original, honest and thought-provoking, Roar is Cecelia Ahern's unforgettable story collection. With her trademark honesty, Cecelia Ahern gives us 30 linked stories, all titled 'The Woman Who...', that capture the different facets of women's lives. Humorous, moving, surreal and poignant, the stories capture the moments the characters are overwhelmed by guilt, confusion, frustration, intimidation, exhaustion - the private moments when they feel the need to roar.

In this masterful debut, an award-winning writer and first-rate storyteller explores the tenuous bonds of family - fathers and sons, husbands and wives - as they are tested by the sometimes brutal power of love. In each of the stories in this remarkable collection, David James Poissant delivers a moving portrayal of a relationship in turmoil. His strikingly true-to-life characters have reached a precipice, chased there by troubles of their own making. Some stand frightened, some ready to fight. Some seek atonement, others the atonement that is owed them.