Short Family

Colm Tóibín's Mothers and Sons is a sensitive and beautifully written meditation on the dramas surrounding this most elemental of relationships. Psychologically intricate and emotionally incisive, each finely wrought story teases out the delicate and difficult strands woven between mothers and sons. This is an acute, masterful and moving collection that confirms Tóibín as a great prose stylist of our time.

Christmas at Falstone Castle - Sarah M. Eden - The Dowager Duchess of Kielder eagerly anticipates spending Christmas with her son and his family. Though their relationship has been strained, the duchess is determined to heal the chasm. Even with the help of the widowed local vicar, her plan will take a Christmas miracle. But during this magical season, anything is possible...even two second chances for love.

Every morning, Judy measures Stink, and it's always the same: 3 feet, 8 inches tall. Stink feels like even the class newt is growing faster than he is. Then one day, the ruler reads 3 feet, 7 and 3/4 inches! Can it be? Is Stink shrinking? Stink tries everything to look like he's growing, but wearing up-and-down stripes and spiking his hair don't seem to be fooling anybody into thinking he's taller.

The last in the Afrolit Now series, The Sins of The Fathers by Zukiswa Wanner is narrated by a man dealing with immense grief. When he’s unable to heal from the trauma of loss, Akani begins to question his and his father’s role as a parent and, in doing so, awakens to the patterns between them. In trying to avoid being like his father as a husband and as a parent, did he inadvertently become exactly the man he wished not to be? And what secrets lie untold? As he grieves, he wonders whether he was ill-advised to keep secrets that may unwittingly hurt his family.

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.

Rich Manning and Jamie Warren have always been friends - and nothing but friends. However, that changes when she asks him to father the child she so desperately wants. Rich agrees - if she'll marry him. Because he thinks their Marriage of Inconvenience could become a real marriage instead.

So if your child, nephew, family-friend or anyone you know can't get enough of WWII, this audiobook is perfect for them to not only discover some brand new history; but they'll also learn important morals of kindness, friendship, bravery, and doing the right thing.

The Mason Family Series is a heartwarming series featuring strong alpha males and the heroines that bring them to their knees. With both heart and heat, the Mason family enjoys listener-favorite tropes such as office romance, enemies to lovers, second chance, millionaire heroes, and more. Fall head over heels in love with this family by USA Today best-selling author Adriana Locke. This set includes two full-length novels—Relentless and Resolution.

When Jules first meets the handsome artist Kirin, she’s still mourning her husband’s death, but a fairytale romance soon sweeps her off her feet. Now she and her daughter Scout are moving out of the city and into Kirin’s once-lonely mansion. He’s thoughtfully updated and adapted the home to match their personalities. But Scout is determined to keep her father’s memory alive by rejecting the new life her mother and Kirin have spun for her.

Assembled here are stories new and old, spanning from 1960 to today. Meet the death-defying motorcycle trick riders in the carnival's Devil's Tub, a man who keeps an alligator in his bathtub, a Chinese launder in Coney Island in search of love, a frontiersman who saves himself from a mauling grizzly bear by hiding in a beaver dam, three men from a circus looking for trouble at a rodeo, a washed out boxer trying to hang onto his career, and dozens of others rich characters.

Margaret Atwood is acknowledged as one of the foremost writers of our time. In Moral Disorder, she has created a series of interconnected stories that trace the course of a life and also the lives intertwined with it, those of parents, of siblings, of children, of friends, of enemies, of teachers, and even of animals. As in a photograph album, time is measured in sharp, clearly observed moments.

Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.

In his three novellas, In Short Measures, Strong Conspirators, and Sally Forth, Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love - and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades. Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity - what are one's obligations toward one's spouse, one's family, and one's heart?

Whether or not you believe in fate, or luck, or love at first sight, every romance has to start somewhere. Meet Cute is an anthology of original short stories featuring tales of "how they first met" from some of today's most popular YA authors.

A collection of Christmas stories written by African American journalists, activists, and writers from the late 19th century to the modern civil rights movement. This landmark collection features writings from well-known black writers, activists, and visionaries such as Pauline Hopkins, Langston Hughes, and John Henrik Clark along with literary gems from rediscovered writers. Originally published in African American newspapers, periodicals, and journals between 1880 and 1953, these enchanting Christmas tales are part of the black literary tradition that flourished after the Civil War.

This is a mini-sequel to The Other Son, a little gift for all those listeners who have been begging to know what happens next. Alice has been lying to herself for years, holding fast to the belief that the needs of her family far outweigh her own. But her outwardly successful marriage hides dark secrets, and for much of her life, the children were the only reason she stuck around.

In this warm and moving anthology, a group of best-selling authors and writers pay tribute to legendary, larger-than-life New York Times best-selling author Dorothea Benton Frank and her literary legacy, capturing her unforgettable spirit, joy, and humor in stories of reunions and love. Infused with Dorothea Benton Frank’s remarkable spirit, Reunion Beach is a literary homage and beautiful keepsake that keeps this dearly missed writer’s flame burning bright.

In this haunting short story of loyalty and betrayal, a young woman in early 1900s Massachusetts discovers that in navigating her treacherous coming-of-age, she must find her voice first. For fatefully observant Adeline, growing up carries an ominous warning from her adulterous mother: don’t say a word. Adeline vows to never speak again. But that’s not her only secret. After her mother takes a housekeeping job at a lighthouse off the tip of Cape Ann, a local woman vanishes. The key to the mystery lies with Adeline, the silent witness.

The strong but flawed women of Mothers, Tell Your Daughters love and betray one another; their richly fraught relationships can act as anchors, lifelines, or deadly poison. Bonnie Jo Campbell's working-class protagonists are at once vulnerable, wise, cruel, and funny, and they are always getting into or out of trouble.

This collection includes three charming and festive holiday novellas spiced with humor, frontier action, and sweet romance.