Short Days

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and Charlotte and Seth are not looking for romance. Armed with emotional-support bear spray, Charlotte is in self-imposed isolation and on guard from men. Having a stalker can do that to a person’s nerves. Just across the hall and giving off woodsy vibes is Seth, a recently divorced arborist. As in today recently. Heights, he’s fine with. Trust? Not so much.

After the loss of her mother, a woman returns to the San Fernando Valley only to uncover a haunting secret about her childhood friend. A visiting professor at a charming but strange California liberal arts college must face her past in order to protect her son. A sister, lost in the woods, confronts the dangerous truth about her brother, her stepmother, and herself. Rose's dog Wolfie has died, and three seductive women offer to help return him to her. But only if she will pay the price.

From the Thurber Prize-winning author of New Teeth, hailed as “a triumph of sustained humor” (Sarah Lyall, New York Times Book Review), comes a hilarious and powerful collection of short stories chronicling the plight of aging millennials. ​

The “best short story writer in English” (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.

Everyone deserves to get away for a bit. Even the miscreants at St Mary's. Astonishingly, Dr. Bairstow has declared a holiday. Even more astonishingly - he's paying for it. Needless to say, there are strings attached. They have to record the 1601 performance of Hamlet, with Shakespeare himself in the role of the Ghost. It doesn't go well, of course.

Speed wins. And successful people build their lives around “Strategic Sprints”. Discover the power to accelerate your success, and gain total control over your mind, your body, your emotions, your relationships, and your future.

Patty Durham was an only child and was teased about being ugly as she grew up. The children used to tell her that her parents stopped having children when they saw how ugly she was! Of course, their cruel words would make her cry...and then they enjoyed teasing her more. Patty was fortunate to have a very loving mother who told her when she grew up, she would be prettier than any of the other girls that made fun of her. She always hoped her mother would be right! Her mother sent her away to finishing school...and while she was gone, Patty received a message informing her of her mother's ...

A well-meaning dad frets because his fifth-grade daughter dresses as Dracula for the first day of school in this funny short tale. Haunted by his own memories of childhood insecurity, he nervously awaits the call from school.

Acclaimed in her own time for her short story “The Lottery” and her novel The Haunting of Hill House - classics ranking with the work of Edgar Allan Poe - Shirley Jackson blazed a path for contemporary writers with her explorations of evil, madness, and cruelty. Soon after her untimely death in 1965, Jackson’s children discovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, many of which are brought together in this remarkable collection.

Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories, written by 12 best-selling young adult writers and edited by international best-selling author Stephanie Perkins, will have you dreaming of sunset strolls by the lake. So set out your beach chair, and grab your sunglasses. You have 12 reasons this summer to soak up the sun and fall in love.

Nine stories that will redefine your fears from the fairy tales and nursery rhymes of your childhood. A small town hires a unique exterminator to clear their fields of pests, but when they refuse to pay he uses his skill for revenge. The U.S. military embarks on an experiment unlike any other and offers soldiers the chance to reach new heights and shorter contracts. An anesthesiologist discovers his skills go beyond simply guiding people to sleep and that they have lasting consequences. A brother and sister get lost in the woods and discover a beautiful woman with a house luring teenagers ...

This military hero will do anything to protect the woman he falls hard and falls first for, even if she can’t remember what she’s running from… I found her wandering the highway on Valentine’s Day, barefoot with torn clothes. She doesn’t remember who she is, where she came from, or who gave her the bruises on her body. I call her Valentine because that’s the day she wandered into my life—the day my life changed forever. Valentine doesn’t remember her past, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have one. And when it comes for her, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my ...

Does your child struggle with confidence on the field? Do they get frustrated after a tough game or feel pressured to perform? Faith on the Field is a 30-day devotional designed to help young soccer players ages 5-10 develop resilience, sportsmanship, and a strong faith that carries them through both victories and challenges. Each daily devotion includes: An engaging scripture-based lesson to connect faith with soccer and everyday life. Encouraging stories and real-life examples to help kids overcome fear, self-doubt, and frustration.

How businesses can harness the power of online consumer reviews. More than seventy percent of consumers now consult online reviews before making purchases, and they take those picks and pans very seriously. A disgruntled but ignorant customer on Yelp might have more clout than any expert guidebook, magazine article, or newspaper critic. No wonder many businesses feel terrified by the review-driven marketplace.

More than 60 stories, poems, and essays are included in this wide-ranging collection by the extravagantly versatile Raymond Carver. Two of the stories - later revised for What We Talk About When We Talk About Love - are particularly notable in that between the first and the final versions, we see clearly the astounding process of Carver's literary development.

In a city where glamour meets grit, these ex-military alpha bad boys must protect the lives of the only women who can open up their shielded hearts. This dual-narrated Platinum Security Series Collection includes four full length romantic suspense novels, each featuring an Extended Epilogue written exclusively for this boxed set!

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by “the seminal and venerated mystery pulp magazine” ( Booklist).

Set in a Lower East Side tenement in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Fourteen Days is an irresistibly propulsive collaborative novel from the Authors Guild, with an unusual twist: each character in this diverse, eccentric cast of New York neighbors has been secretly written by a different, major literary voice—from Margaret Atwood and John Grisham to Tommy Orange and Celeste Ng.

Over the years, thousands of tales both true and fantastic have been told about the dastardly thievery of pirates. Their rum-drunk exploits and high-seas violence never fail to delight. Now in a brand new series collection, The Best Pirate Stories Ever Told includes many of the very best pirate yarns ever created on history’s most debaucherous scalawags. Anyone who loves a good story full of excitement, adventure, thrills, and laughs will find this collection irresistible.

Brother's Best Friend. One crazy request. Will they be able to keep their relationship strictly professional, or will their agreement put more than just their safety at risk? Chloe has always wanted to be a biker like her big brother James. James doesn’t want her anywhere near bikes and especially bikers… that is until he calls Chloe and tells her to keep the biker outside her apartment from leaving. With no other plan, Chloe climbs onto the bike and teases the mysterious biker. When she learns that the biker is her brothers-best-friend she comes up with a crazy plan for him to teach ...