Short Family

A woman seeking refuge. A man out of his depth. A set of orphaned twins. Rosemary Clark toils daily at the Morton Match Factory. Though she has wonderful friends, she yearns for a family of her own. The Matrimonial Times offers the opportunity to start a new life in Colorado with a dashing sawyer. Before her courtship is complete, Rosemary must flee westward after an alarming incident with the factory supervisor. But when she arrives, no one is waiting. She travels to the sawmill, only to be confronted with the shock of a lifetime... Grant Ferguson loves his work at the sawmill in Hidden ...

Abby: I have one job. That’s it, just one: Babysit the bad-boy soccer hero for a week, so that he doesn’t embarrass the entire country before his knighthood ceremony. Everything goes according to plan until I somehow end up in his bed and on the cover of every tabloid in England, my heart shattered in a million pieces and my job in jeopardy. Brilliant, Abby. Rory: What reason do I have to believe that this curvy blonde is any different from every other woman I’ve met? Sure, she’s smart and beautiful and funny and amazing in bed and… did I mention those luscious curves? Right, I am...

These 12 stories - published over the last five years in Harper's, The Best American Short Stories, McSweeney's, Playboy, and other publications - veer from comic tales of love to social satire to suspenseful crime fiction, from hip Portland to once-hip Seattle to never-hip Spokane, from a condemned casino in Las Vegas to a bottomless lake in the dark woods of Idaho. This is a world of lost fathers and redemptive conmen, of meth tweakers on desperate odysseys and men committing suicide by fishing.

What would you do for love? What would you do if only you knew someone you loved was guilty of murder? And: How far would you go for the one chance to be with the love of your life? What would you do if you learned your sister killed her husband to get out of an unhappy marriage, and no one else knows or even suspects? You believe your sister's husband died in a tragic accident, but shortly afterwards you learn your sister was seeing another man. You also learn that your sister was out with that man the night her husband died. Suddenly the husband’s death looks less like an ‘accident’...

The Harden Brothers' Stories begins... A Bride for Bear-Tired of living in his oldest brother’s shadow, Barrett Harden, Bear to family and friends, accepts his inheritance from his parents and decides to strike out on his own. Unfortunately, he must agree to the terms of his inheritance. He needs to find a business to purchase or start his own in the town of Silver Springs, Colorado. Then, Bear only has three months to find a wife after he purchases the mercantile. If he fails in either venture, he must return to the ranch and work off the money he spent. His younger brother urges Bear to...

A trip to the library prompts one woman to question her fate in this galvanizing short story. For a woman like Hadley, deemed not acceptable to procreate, there’s only one recourse. Unlicensed for motherhood, she can alleviate her grief and frustration at a “baby library,” where a curiously endless supply of infants is available for a two-week loan. But the borrowed life that serves as a temporary balm leads to a journey of self-discovery that will forever change the direction of Hadley’s future.

Apprehensive about coming out of the closet, Kevin visits Todd, the handsome older man he's known his whole life, for some advice. What Kevin actually receives from the older hunk is something beyond his wildest fantasies! Now there’s only one thing left for Kevin to do: Get the sexy bull of a man who raised him included into the mix! This smoking hot gay romance story will satisfy all your taboo household cravings! 18+ ONLY! For the full naughty details that I can't disclose here, make sure to Look Inside!

When Alison Strange receives a debt claim she can’t afford to pay from the Australian government’s unemployment office, she’s caught completely off-balance. As she wrestles with a slippery bureaucracy, her history-loving grandfather bolsters her resolve with the story of their ancestor John Strange, an English cobbler who was banished to Australia for his part in a political movement. Drawing inspiration from John’s life, Alison finds her own unique way to demand a future that’s fair for all.

A long-haired woman moves into the priest's house and sets fire to his furniture. That Christmas, the electricity goes out. A forester mortgages his land and goes off to a seaside town looking for a wife. He finds a woman eating alone in the hotel. A farmer wakes half-naked and realises the money is almost gone. And in the title story, a priest waits on the altar for a bride and battles, all that wedding day, with his memories of a love affair.

In this masterpiece of nature writing, beautifully narrated by Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape.

The middle of the night is the wrong time to be caught alone. But Sophia’s running from the only home she’s ever known. She's from a cult in the heart of Kansas. She’s looking for redemption and a brand new start. She wants to try all the things she never had. Including having her very first kiss and so much more. I’m the only person man enough to give it to her. Come hell or high water, I’ll claim Sophia no matter what it takes. A fast-paced knight in shining armor short read featuring the MC road captain, a gritty past, and a romantic first time that leads to happily ever after.

The fifth tale in the cycle of stories about people discovering that life outside their comfort zone is not so bad; if you have the courage to take The Plunge After having faced many testing situations young lesbian, Verina Lamb, is thrown into a loop again when she returns to her home, her sanctuary, to find her step-mother, Cynthia, enjoying a cup of tea in the garden. Cynthia's new boyfriend John is there too and .... they are both bare!

In the mystery of Christmas, we find its majesty. The mystery of how God became flesh, why he chose to come, and how he must love his people. Such mysteries can never be solved, just as love can never be diagrammed. Christmas is best pondered, not with logic, but with imagination.

Russo's characters in these four expansive stories bear little similarity to the blue-collar citizens we're familiar with from many of his novels. In "Horseman", a professor confronts a young plagiarist as well as her own weaknesses as the Thanksgiving holiday looms closer and closer: "And after that, who knew?" In "Intervention", a realtor facing an ominous medical prognosis finds himself in his father's shadow while he presses forward - or not.

When grandmother Maureen Phelan is surprised in her home by a stranger, she clubs the intruder with a Holy Stone. The consequences of this unplanned murder connect four misfits struggling against their meager circumstances. Ryan is a fifteen-year-old drug dealer desperate not to turn out like his alcoholic father, Tony, whose feud with his next-door neighbor threatens to ruin his family. Georgie is a sex worker who half-heartedly joins a born-again movement to escape her profession and drug habit.

In the tenth book in The Good Lord Made Them All series, Joe Wheeler offers a wonderful collection of stories about many different kinds of animal, including dogs, cats, horses, pigs, and turtles. Their family-friendly adventures will have you laughing with glee. Perfect to read aloud, and a must-have to complete the series.

That summer - more than 10 years ago, while they were still in high school - Noelle McDowell and Thomas Sutton fell secretly in love. Secretly because their mothers had been locked in a bitter feud for decades. But despite the animosity between Sarah McDowell and Mary Sutton, Noelle planned to elope with Thom. Until he jilted her.

A seventeen-year-old girl prodigy, physician and first-year resident in the nation's most prestigious pediatric residency program, navigates the new, turbulent and sometimes heart wrenching waters of professional life and romance while masking her true age.

Jason Mckinney never expected to find a zombie on the downstairs toilet, but apparently, everything eventually runs out of toilet paper at the worst possible time. Enter the *Federated Alliance of Rare Things, specifically created for those embarrassing bathroom moments, and the McKinney family, recruited as the latest Saviour of the Bog Roll. The paycheque is out of this world. Jason has kids, a house that needs some desperate upkeep, and a chupacabra falling in love with him. Life as a saviour is interesting, sometimes terrifying, and frequently lavender scented.

"Dizzy & Gillespie" unfolds as an emotionally rich mystery, intertwining the lives of a devoted daughter and her aging mother. Within their once-grand, now-fading New York City apartment, they face the relentless challenges of poverty, the encroaching tides of gentrification, and the relentless passage of time. Their bond, tested by life's struggles and their community's transformation, finds a glimmer of hope with the arrival of two rescue kittens, Dizzy and Gillespie. However, the actions of a new neighbor soon set off a chain of events that will alter their lives forever. This story ...