American English Fiction

Denali Peters was sure her life would never get any better. She had two children with a man who showed her with time just how impure his intentions were. At the top of her priority list was being a great mom, but working two jobs and raising her man along with their kids began to take a toll on Denali. Eventually, she realized the importance of self-care and her own happiness…but that happiness came with a hefty price.

Saul Indian Horse is in critical condition. Sitting feeble in an alcoholism treatment facility, he is told that sharing his story will help relieve his agony. Though skeptical, he embarks on a heartbreaking journey from the present - and into the woods of Northern Ontario, where his life began in a snowy Ojibway camp. The tale that follows is one of great pain and great determination from Richard Wagamese, an author who "never seems to waste a shot" ( New York Times).

Eat Pray Love meets American Psycho in a seductive and sinister debut literary thriller. Food critic Dorothy Daniels indulges in her homicidal urges by murdering her lovers and devouring their organs in this intense, visceral, and lushly told tale of food, sex, power, and the pursuit of a very particular taste set between New York and Italy. Please Note: A Certain Hunger contains adult language and depictions of violence. Discretion is advised.

When society ceases to exist, who can you trust? After the collapse of the nation's power grid, America is under martial law - and safety is an illusion. As violence erupts around him, Morgan Carter faces one of his most difficult decisions yet: whether to stay and defend his home, or move to a more isolated area, away from the prying eyes of the government. He and his family are hesitant to leave their beloved Lake County, but with increasingly suspicious activities happening in a nearby refugee camp, all signs point towards defecting.

“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.”

Keita Ali has nothing: no bank account, no papers, no legal identity. A runner, he has fled home - a brutal dictatorship that produces the world's fastest marathoners - to live as an illegal refugee in a wealthy Western nation, surviving on winnings from local races. But the government is cracking down on illegal immigrants, so Keita - who will be executed if he is deported to his homeland - goes underground.

From Heathrow Airport to around the world, this set of steamy standalone novels follow passengers whose lives—and hearts—take unexpected turns. Adventure, passion, and love await them at every destination. Buckle up, because someone is always flying somewhere, but these men are all headed for one thing: their happily ever after.

Jim Harrison, Pam Houston, Ted Leeson, Nick Lyons, Thomas McGuane, and more, share stories of fly fishing and life on the river. This marvelous collection features stories from some of America’s finest and most respected writers about one of the world’s most solitary and satisfying sports: fly fishing. For the first time, the stories of thirty-one acclaimed writers including Kim Barnes, Walter Bennett, Russell Chatham, Guy de la Valdne, Robert DeMott, Chris Dombrowski, Ron Ellis, Jim Fergus, Kate Fox, Charles Gaines, Bruce Guernsey, Jim Harrison, Pam Houston, Michael Keaton, Greg Keeler, Sydney Lea, Ted Leeson, Nick Lyons, Craig Mathews, Thomas McGuane, Joseph Monninger, Howard Frank Mosher, Jake Mosher, Craig Nova, Margot Page, Datus Proper, Le Anne Schreiber, Paul Schullery, W. D. Wetherell, and Robert Wrigley come together in one collection. Fly fishers and non-fly fishers alike will recognize in these poignant tales the universal aspects of the appreciation of nature, the necessity of conservation, and the joy and knowledge that come from time spent on fresh and salt water. This is a delightful, handsome volume that captures the allure and spirit of fly fishing and those that love it.

Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.

When a Western star is gunned down at a rodeo, Ellery Queen saddles up to solve the mystery.

Buck Horne has roped thousands of cattle, slugged his way out of dozens of saloons, and shot plenty of men dead in the street - but always on the back lot. He's a celluloid cowboy, and his career is nearly kaput. The real box-office draw is his daughter, Kit, a brawling beauty who can out shoot any rascal the studio has to offer. Desperate for a comeback, Buck joins Wild Bill Grant's traveling rodeo for a show in New York, hoping to land one last movie contract.

This is the way the world ends...for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the Earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

As she races along Canada's Douglas Channel in her speedboat - heading toward the place where her younger brother Jimmy, presumed drowned, was last seen - 20-year-old Lisamarie Hill recalls her younger days. A volatile and precocious Native girl growing up in Kitamaat, the Haisla Indian reservation located 500 miles north of Vancouver, Lisa came of age standing with her feet firmly planted in two different worlds.

When Noni married the love of her life, she finally thought she would get everything she deserved. Riches, success, status, influence - she had it all as the wife of Mr. Dominick Meyer. But there is more to her title than meets the eye.When she catches Dom cheating and discovers that he isn’t the businessman he portrayed himself to be, her life is changed forever. Finding out that their wealth was amassed from drug money and that Dom has never truly been faithful, she wants out.

India, 1986: Mukta, a 10-year-old village girl from the lower-caste Yellama cult, has come of age and must fulfill her destiny of becoming a temple prostitute, as her mother and grandmother did before her. In an attempt to escape her fate, Mukta is sent to be a house girl for an upper-middle class family in Mumbai. There she discovers a friend in the daughter of the family, high-spirited eight-year-old Tara, who helps her recover from the wounds of her past.

While Laura Ingalls grows up in a little house on the Western prairie, Almanzo Wilder is living on a big farm in New York State. Here Almanzo and his brother and sisters help with the summer planting and fall harvest. In winter there is wood to be chopped and great slabs of ice to be cut from the river and stored. Time for fun comes when the jolly tin peddler visits or, best of all, when the fair comes to town.

Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom and working full time as an ICU nurse, when a patient named Caitlin arrives in her ward with a traumatic brain injury. They say she jumped from a bridge and plunged over twenty feet to the train tracks below.

After a tumultuous period in American politics, a new administration has just been sworn in, and to everyone’s surprise the president chooses a political enemy for the vital position of secretary of state. There is no love lost between the president of the United States and Ellen Adams, his new secretary of state. But it’s a canny move on the part of the president. With this appointment, he silences one of his harshest critics, since taking the job means Adams must step down as head of her multinational media conglomerate

With Fred ready to give birth and the revelation that Mary is also pregnant, spirits are high in the community. For Morgan, however, it's just one more thing to worry about. His mom and dad are now settled in and getting to work, but the babies are coming, the milking barn needs to be built, and the power plant must be kept running. To make matters worse, they're now dealing with the US Army. Morgan has real concerns once he hears about the Army's plans and what they expect of the people of Lake County. After more than a year without the rule of law, are the people ready to return to it?

Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They each feel disconnected, from their culture and each other, and struggle to fit in at school and at their new home—until they find a secret place, walled off in an unfinished attic bedroom. A portal opens to another reality, Askí, bringing them onto frozen, barren grounds, where they meet Ochek (Fisher).

Alicia was born to the good life, she's entitled to the best, and she'll do anything to get it. Even if it means piling up thousands of dollars in debt. Even if it means denying to everyone - even herself - that her love of shopping has gotten way out of control.