Short Family

Veintitrés relatos de amor y violencia secretamente entrelazados por un fino hilo narrativo y un rico lenguaje que recrea azarosas peripecias en un mundo exuberante y voluptuoso. Una niña solitaria se enamora del amante de su madre y practica misteriosas ceremonias rituales; una mujer permanece medio siglo encerrada en un sótano, víctima de un caudillo celoso; en el fragor de una batalla, un hombre viola a una muchacha y mata a su padre.

It’s 1974 in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and 15-year-old Justine grows up in a family of tough, complicated, and loyal women, presided over by her mother, Lula, and Granny. After Justine’s father abandoned the family, Lula became a devout member of the Holiness Church - a community that Justine at times finds stifling and terrifying. But Justine does her best as a devoted daughter, until an act of violence sends her on a different path forever.

In 1956, Updike published a story, "Snowing in Greenwich Village," about a young couple, Joan and Richard Maple, at the beginning of their marriage. Over the next two decades, he returned to these characters again and again, tracing their years together raising children, finding moments of intermittent happiness, and facing the heartbreak of infidelity and estrangement.

Over the past decade, Simon Van Booy has been listening to people’s stories. With these personal accounts as a starting point, he has crafted a powerful collection of short fiction that takes listeners into the innermost lives of everyday people. From a family saved from ruin by a mysterious benefactor to a downtrodden boxer who shows unexpected kindness to a mugger, these tales reveal not only the precarious balance maintained between grief and happiness in our lives but also how the echoes of personal tragedy can shape us for the better.

One of Canada’s most acclaimed horror writers, Gemma Files presents a mosaic of interconnected stories about interconnected families. After fleeing Scotland, five clans settled in the fictional town of Dourvale in northern Ontario. Known as the Five-Family Coven, they are the descendants of witches and witch-children, none of whom were spared persecution in their native country. Now shamans, spellcasters, singers, and thieves, the members of the Devize, Druir, Glouwer, Roke, and Rusk families survive by trading their occult powers and talents.

A Christmas Carol is undoubtedly the most famous supernatural story in English. However, it was not the only supernatural story of the season that Charles Dickens wrote. In Victorian England, Christmas was the time to explore the supernatural in stories, and Charles Dickens was one of the best at it. Included in this volume are a full-cast dramatization of A Christmas Carol, plus three more of Dickens' best stories of the season.

In one of her strongest works of fiction yet, Nicole Krauss plunges fearlessly into the struggle to understand what it is to be a man and what it is to be a woman, and the arising tensions that have existed from the very beginning of time. Set in our contemporary moment, and moving across the globe from Switzerland, Japan, and New York City to Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, and South America, the stories in To Be a Man feature male characters as fathers, lovers, friends, children, seducers, and even a lost husband who may never have been a husband at all.

Many writers used Christmas as a backdrop for their stories: among them none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This delightful Sherlock Holmes story is one of the first that he authored, appearing in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It is, fittingly, a wild goose chase through London!

Maggie loves to sing, but her mother keeps telling her to sing more softly.

Here is the preface to 12 magnificent stories, originally part of The John Cheever Audio Collection, in which John Cheever celebrates - with unequaled grace and tenderness - the deepest feelings we have.

A striking new collection of ten short stories and two novellas that explores the idea of property in every meaning of the word, from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international best seller We Need to Talk About Kevin.

A high-security luxury housing estate in the Thames Valley is the setting for a disturbing outbreak of violence in this compelling novella from the acclaimed author of ‘Cocaine Nights’ and ‘Super-Cannes’. Pangbourne Village housing estate is exclusive, expensive and protected from the outside world by the very latest in security systems. It should be the perfect place to bring up a child.

Jason Manning is content with his life as a bachelor, a slob and a sports fan. Then a precocious teen named Carrie Weston decides to play matchmaker, introducing him to her mother. To his relief, Charlotte is as uninterested in marriage as he is. But Jason’s feelings start to change once he gets to know his Bride on the Loose. James Wilkens was almost a Manning groom—because he almost married one of the Manning sisters. With that broken engagement behind him, he spends New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas...where he meets Summer Lawton.

John Updike's 21st novel, a bildungsroman, follows its hero, Owen Mackenzie, from his birth in the semi-rural Pennsylvania town of Willow to his retirement in the rather geriatric community of Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts. In between these two settlements comes Middle Falls, Connecticut, where Owen, an early computer programmer, founds with a partner, Ed Mervine, the successful firm of E-O Data, which is housed in an old gun factory on the Chunkaunkabaug River.

In A Family Affair Shorts: Love, book three, Charles is determined to let duty prevail over desire and breaks off his relationship with Miriam. But he soon realizes his real life is with Miriam, even if it is only four days a month. When he confesses this truth, she shares a truth of her own; She’s pregnant. Together, they will form a new family, one that, while not conforming to society’s standards, is nonetheless filled with love and commitment.

"Canadian Family Adventures" follows the tale of 10 Irish siblings who immigrate to Canada in the late 1880s. Their mother, Maggie Collins, wants her children, between the ages of 10 years old and 30 years old, to have a good life, and she arranges for them to sail to Canada. The ten siblings arrive in Canada by ship, and each one settles in a different area of Canada and pursues a different career.

It wasn't easy for Phillip Lark to single-handedly raise his rambunctious teenage daughter. But the girl had hatched a plot to find her father a wife, and lovely Carrie Weston seemed to fit the bill. Phillip claimed he wasn't interested in remarriage, but would the magic of the holiday season - and Carrie's wonderful charms - help him change his mind?

Sean Ferro is my addiction. I can't tell him no, no matter what he asks for, and I know there are so many dark questions behind those blue eyes, so many things he wants me to do with him. When I watch him go down on one knee, with his sexy body covered in sand, and hold up a glittering ring, I can barely stand. It looks like he's going to propose, and I know exactly what I'm going to say.

In A Family Affair Shorts: Heartbreak, book four, Gloria finally decides to confront her suspicions that Charles has been having an affair and hires a private investigator. It is one thing to suspect, but what she discovers is so much more than a simple affair. And for those who remember Gloria’s ability to exact revenge, you won’t want to miss this!

In A Family Affair Shorts: Peace, book five, Charles visits Miriam and Lily, as he’s done for the past several years. Their time is ordinary and enjoyable, and passes too quickly. There’s already talk about the next visit and Lily’s 14th birthday in a few months. Such grand plans and dreams that will die on the icy road with Charles and create what can only be called fate as his two families converge.... And that’s where A Family Affair begins!