Short Marriage

Though she cannot entirely discount the effects of the head injuries they were both suffering at the time, Mary Russell is delighted by Sherlock Holmes' proposal of marriage. After all, they have become partners in crime, and she has recently come into her inheritance: What remains but to confirm the union with her mentor-turned-partner with the piece of paper?

From the story of a young bride whose fairy-tale vision of California is shattered when her husband is murdered and she must face the future on her own, to a proud middle-aged divorced woman determined to succeed in San Francisco, Divakaruni's award-winning poetry fuses here with prose for the first time to create 11 devastating portraits of women on the verge of an unforgettable transformation.

"You don't know me yet, but in a few hours that's going to change. You see, I'm inviting you to my home and my town of Cedar Cove, because I want you to meet my family, friends, and neighbors. Come and hear their stories - maybe even their secrets!"

This collection includes The Alien's Mail Order Bride, When She's Married, Pretty Human, and When She's Bold.

Buffalo Valley, North Dakota. A few years ago, this was a dying town. Now it's come back to life! People are feeling good about living here again - the way they used to. They're feeling confident about the future. Stalled lives are moving forward. People like Margaret Clemens are taking risks on new ventures and on lifelong dreams. On happiness. Margaret is a local rancher who's finally getting what she wants most: marriage to cowboy Matt Eilers.

From the world's number one best-selling writer - three pulse-pounding novels in one audiobook! This collection includes The Family Lawyer, Night Sniper, and The Good Sister.

From the New York Times best-selling author of Circle of Friends and The Glass Lake comes This Year It Will Be Different, a stunning work that brings us the magic and spirit of Christmas in 15 stories filled with Maeve Binchy's trademark wit, charm, and sheer storytelling genius. Instead of nostalgia, Binchy evokes contemporary life; instead of Christmas homilies, she offers truth; and instead of sugarplums, she brings us the nourishment of holidays that precipitate change, growth, and new beginnings.

Zadie Smith has established herself as one of the most iconic, critically respected, and popular writers of her generation. In her first short story collection, she combines her power of observation and her inimitable voice to mine the fraught and complex experience of life in the modern world. Interleaving 11 completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from The New Yorker and elsewhere, Smith presents a dizzyingly rich and varied collection of fiction.

As identical twins, Bothan and Calum MacNachton share a bond stronger than most brothers, one forged by a terrible secret. Rumors and dark tales have been whispered about their clan for centuries. For they roam the Highlands at night, driven by a savage hunger that can never be sated. Their only hope lies in marriage to Outsiders, mortal women whose pure blood will weaken the hold of their eternal curse.

All marriages are hard. Many of them fail. Brock Lewis, an evangelical businessman turned self-published author, has the answer. Follow his international bestselling book’s 12-point “Atomic Doctrine” - make eye contact with your spouse? Always! Use the bathroom in front of them? Never! - and you, too, can build a marriage that thrives.

The Sand-Man (German: Der Sandmann, 1816) is a short story written in German by E. T. A. Hoffmann. It was the first in an 1817 book of stories titled Die Nachtstücke (The Night Pieces). The story is told by a narrator who claims to have known Lothar. It begins by quoting three letters.

"Little Surrenders" is a dark, mesmerizing short story about a marriage that’s reached its breaking point, and just how far a woman will go to reinvent herself after one too many compromises.

Born into riches and groomed in English luxury, Margot Armstrong didn't belong in a Scottish chieftain's devil-may-care world. Three years ago she fled their marriage of convenience and hasn't looked back - except to relive the moments spent in wild, rugged Arran McKenzie's passionate embrace. But as their respective countries' fragile unity threatens to unravel, Margot must return to her husband to uncover his role in the treachery before her family can be accused of it.

A short story on forbidden love. The society may frown on their relationship, but sometimes we do not choose who we love.

Mary Moon explores the landscape of long-married life - the hidden hurts and disappointments that lead women to consider leaving, and the tender weight of shared history that prompts them to stay. In "Into the Light," a wife and mother finds the idea that she might legally choose the moment of her death comforting, but how will she balance the finality of that choice against the little joys and inevitable tragedies of living?

In A Short Guide to a Happy Marriage, Sharon Gilchrest O'Neill challenges you to understand and live by the tenets of a committed relationship through an inviting, simple, and sensible approach to embracing marriage.

Meet the women of American Housewife: They wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it's cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. They pump the salad spinner like it's a CPR dummy. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies out of the oven. These 12 irresistible stories take us from a haunted prewar Manhattan apartment building to the set of a rigged reality television show, from the unique initiation ritual of a book club to the getaway car of a pageant princess on the lam.

always wondered, How does she do it? Defying gravity is no easy trick. Neither is motherhood. Now that her mother is leaving New York for bigger skies in New Mexico, it’s a new stage in life for both of them in an ever-evolving relationship that reveals the true magic of being a mother.

Motherhood isn’t always what’s expected. One woman may delight in navigating the unknowable, while another may look to the past to chart the course ahead. Still another may have the urge to redefine the relationship between mother and child. For each, the journey can be heartwarming and heartbreaking, ever changing and challenging. In these provocative stories, acclaimed authors probe the growing pains that can change the lives of both mother and child in ways they never imagined.

In Other People We Married, Straub creates characters as recognizable as a best friend, and follows them through moments of triumph and transformation with wit, vulnerability, and dazzling insight.