American English Fiction

Gabi isn't looking for love. At all. She's much more interested in starting a new life, in a new city, away from the overbearing demands of her parents. Terrence...is even less into the idea of a relationship than Gabi. He's in a good place in his career, focused on receiving a coveted promotion. Follow along with Gabi and Terrence as they navigate the stages of a relationship that was never meant to go further than a single night. Will they be able to overcome the challenges of family and career to build something that could last?

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions.

Jada left home at the age of sixteen, running from her own demons and the horrors of physical abuse inflicted by her mother’s boyfriend. She partied hard, and life seemed good when she was with Born, the neighborhood kingpin whose name was synonymous with money, power, and respect. But all his love couldn’t save her from a crack addiction. Jada goes from crack addict and prostitute to survivor and back again before she finds the strength to live for herself and come out on top.

A chance encounter and one night of passion leads to a mutually beneficial arrangement for two souls from different worlds. When love creeps into the equation, neither is sure how to feel or what to do. The only thing either is certain of, is their need for the other.

Six months ago, I gave my heart to a girl. Beautiful, kind, and sexy as sin, she's the only person who saw past my record or the color of my skin. Who ever saw me for me. She loved me enough to let me go, to let me leave this city to find my own path. But without her, I drift, lost without direction. Without me, she spirals, desperate for connection. I gave my heart to a girl, and she gave hers to me. But love shouldn't hurt this much.

Cash and Sheriff Wheaton make for a strange partnership. He pulled her from her mother's wrecked car when she was three. He's kept an eye out for her ever since. It's a tough place to live - northern Minnesota along the Red River. Cash navigated through foster homes, and at 13 was working farms. She's tough as nails, five feet two inches, blue jeans, blue jean jacket, smokes Marlboros, drinks Bud Longnecks. Makes her living driving truck. Playing pool on the side.

When an unexpected blizzard grounds all flights, Nia and Andrew’s holiday plans are put on ice, and they’re stuck spending Christmas Eve at the airport. Soon the pair of travelers decide to make the best of it and team up to spread holiday cheer to the other stranded passengers. After all, just because their flight is cancelled doesn’t mean Christmas is. Now they’re about to discover that with the right person, home for the holidays can be anywhere—and life’s crossroads are the perfect place to begin a new story.

Lord Dawlish is a well-liked and generous man. But he is poor, the poorest of his rank in the British Isles. His fiancée will not marry a man of modest means, so Dawlish decides to make his fortune any way possible. Romance, golf, the theater, and mad monkeys are all part of this merry mix-up that has more witty remarks and sharp retorts in one minute than most people could dream up in a lifetime.

Ever since Colin Firth's Mr Darcy emerged from the lake in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, the novels of Jane Austen have become more popular than ever, delighting millions of fans all over the world. Now, Alison Larkin's critically acclaimed narrations of Austen's six completed novels are brought together in this very special 200th anniversary audio edition. "Alison Larkin's narration will captivate listeners from the first sentence" raves AudioFile magazine about the Earphones Award-winning recording of Sense and Sensibility, which starts the collection.

Self Help was published in 1859 by Samuel Smiles. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism". Self Help sold 20,000 copies within one year of its publication. By the time of Smiles' death in 1904, it had sold over a quarter of a million. Self-Help elevated Smiles to celebrity status; almost overnight, he became a leading pundit and much-consulted guru.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce listeners to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.

Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorist's worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world...and then tragedy struck.

“There have never been as many exquisitely built stories in existence than there are now,” proclaims guest editor Lauren Groff in her introduction. This abundance led to a volume of robust stories with the nerve to push against narrative expectations. The Best American Short Stories 2024 boasts a collection of twenty stories that “buzz with their own strange logic.” Daring and resonant, the stories in this volume invite in Groff “a feeling that both the author and I were simultaneously discovering something together.”

Three brothers tear their way through childhood—smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn—he’s Puerto Rican, she’s white—and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times.

This national best-seller vividly reconstructs one of the most unbelievable and controversial battles in American military history—General Custer’s Last Stand in 1876. Why would a seasoned leader like Custer lead 200 U.S. Army soldiers into battle against 2,000 Native American warriors? The answer lies in this book, which captures in stunning detail the heroism, foolishness, and brutality that led to this legendary battle.

"A witch!" It's an accusation Arianna O'Sullivan dreads as she struggles to conceal her abilities from the suspicious villagers in colonial Massachusetts. Saved from the pillory by a handsome, chivalrous stranger, Arianna senses an inexplicable connection. When she's given no choice but to marry the charismatic man, even after discovering he's the grandson of an infamous witch-hunter, she fears her powers won't be restrained for much longer.

A haunting dream that will not relent pulls author Kent Nerburn back into the hidden world of Native America, where dreams have meaning, animals are teachers, and the "old ones" still have powers beyond our understanding. In this moving narrative, we travel through the lands of the Lakota and the Ojibwe, where we encounter a strange little girl with an unnerving connection to the past, a forgotten asylum that history has tried to hide, and complex, unforgettable characters.

Luca Kareem and Riana Santee made an exchange a little over eight years ago - a heart for a heart. Riana had no problem relinquishing her heart to Luca, but Luca preferred spreading his love and his body thinly to almost every attractive woman he came in contact with. After a year of warring for a place in his heart, Riana finally gives up, but when Luca leaves her, he takes her heart with him. She becomes a heartless, emotionally detached hit-woman, stealing the hearts of men in her path just for fun.

Bleu Montclair knew as a young girl that she would one day escape the hard, unrelenting streets of Flint, Michigan. When her desperate prayers are answered in the form of a scholarship to UCLA, she knows she's struck gold. But soon after arriving, all her beautiful, bright dreams begin to fall apart. Endless temptations abound in the form of cars, clothes, booze, and drugs, and Bleu cannot keep up. When her roommate gives her the opportunity to make a lot of money fast, Bleu goes all in.

Contains the complete Fold series: Thou Shall Not Run, Thou Shall Not Hide, and Thou Shall Not Fear.