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Literary Fiction

Character-driven and artfully written, built to sit with you after

59 items found (5 series, 54 stories)

Princesses Don't Wait

Princesses Don't Wait

Story

by Heiwa Akers

Crystilline Heiwa Yuy has always known the quiet safety of her Hawaiian home. But when she uncovers her hidden ties to a powerful Japanese family, her world is turned upside down. Suddenly, she’s swept into the heart of the Moon Clan—a Yakuza dynasty ruled by a brother she never knew, and shadowed by danger at every turn. With her innocence tested and her freedom on the line, Crystilline refuses to be a pawn in anyone’s game. Surrounded by overprotective allies and an ancient rivalry, she’s determined to forge her own path. "Princesses Don't Wait" is a gripping tale of family, fate, and fierce independence. This princess isn’t waiting to be saved—she’s ready to save herself.

Action
Drama
New Adult
Women's Fiction
Literary Fiction
NSFW
The Mafia Fairy Tale Series

The Mafia Fairy Tale Series

Series

by Heiwa Akers

Follow the journey of Crystilline Heiwa Yuy as she discovers her ties to a Japanese Mafia family and how she turns tradition on its head. Crystilline is no ordinary princess who sits within a tower, waiting to be rescued. She will rescue herself.

Literary Fiction
Action
New Adult
Drama
Women's Fiction
NSFW
Maiden Mother Crone

Maiden Mother Crone

Story

by Heiwa Akers

Anya Springfield has spent her entire life running. Dragged from town to town by a mother desperate to keep them hidden, Anya has learned one painful truth: people are drawn to her—sometimes in dangerous ways. New schools, broken friendships, and constant upheaval are all she’s ever known. So when she arrives in a quiet town for what feels like yet another temporary stay, she vows to keep her head down and survive senior year unnoticed. But this town is different. Almost immediately, Anya finds herself surrounded by an unlikely group of boys unlike anyone she has ever met—Felix, Galen, Connor, and Griffin—each mysterious, fiercely protective, and strangely familiar. Along with their enigmatic guardian, Audric, they seem to know things about her no stranger should know. More unsettling still, they believe Anya is something impossible: A goddess. As buried memories begin to surface and the truth behind her painful past unravels, Anya discovers she may be tied to an ancient power older than memory itself—the Triple Goddess: Maiden, Mother, and Crone. But awakening to her destiny comes with a price. Dark forces from her past are closing in, desperate to claim the power within her before she can understand it herself. Caught between fear and destiny, healing and heartbreak, Anya must decide who she truly wants to be: the frightened girl always running… or the powerful woman she was always meant to become. **A heartfelt blend of contemporary fantasy, found family, healing from trauma, and elemental magic, *Maiden Mother Crone* is a coming-of-age story about reclaiming your voice, embracing your power, and discovering that family isn’t always the one you’re born into.**

Drama
Contemporary
Fantasy
New Adult
Women's Fiction
Literary Fiction
Of Blood and Ash

Of Blood and Ash

Story

by Rhea Winter

Matthias Veyr has spent years trying to leave the battlefield behind him.  Once a proud knight of the legendary Argent Vow, he fought in wars that shattered kingdoms and buried the men he called brothers. When he finally returned home, he believed he had found something worth surviving for. He built a quiet and secluded life with the beautiful Sera in the peaceful trading village of Oakwind -- a life far removed from kings, armies, and bloodshed.  Then Sera died.  Now Matthias lives with the ghost of everything he has lost, determined never to draw his sword again.  But peace is already beginning to fracture.  Two rival crowns are gathering their armies. Soldiers and assassins move along forgotten roads. Old feuds are being reborn beneath new banners, and rumors of war spread from village to village. The kingdoms that once stood divided by uneasy treaties are preparing to tear themselves apart once more.  And Matthias is not the only one who sees the storm coming.  When his old brother-in-arms, Roderick, returns with a dire warning, Matthias is forced to confront the life he thought he had buried. Beyond the courts of kings, secret alliances are forming. The Resistance is preparing for a conflict that may consume more than a throne, while the Church guards precious secrets it had kept hidden from the public for generations.  Then something older begins to stir.  Something that existed long before the kingdoms. Before the crowns of men, and before the wars of blood.  As new blood is spilled and ancient powers awaken, Matthias must decide whether the sword he buried was truly meant to stay there -- or whether the world will force him to become the man he swore he never would be again.  It will all be fought for the fate of the realm itself in an Age of Blood and Ash.  And when the crowns finally fall, the greatest enemy may not be the king standing across the battlefield.  A world divided...  A prophecy ignited...  A darkness awakening...  In a land built on blood, survival always comes at a heavy price.

Action
Fantasy
Literary Fiction
Adventure
Drama
Into The Light

Into The Light

Story

by Greg Runyon

In the coal-fields of Williamson, West Virginia, the world begins with three smells in Mawmaw Lucy’s kitchen: the bitter warmth of morning coffee, the curl of bacon grease in cast iron, and the sharp clean of Dawn dish soap. For six-year-old Sam, these smells are the only pillars holding up the ceiling against the violence of home, while Jonah survives neglect of another kind. Parallel survivors of abuse, they find a fragile sanctuary in the "Blue Room,” a vacant Fifth Avenue walk-up painted the color of twilight. There, they press their cut palms together in a blood vow. Sam tells jonah: “Now you’re in my bloodstream, even if you don’t wanna be.” When a sudden act of teenage violence tears them apart, their lives shatter into separate descents. Jonah flees from prison to the brutal cod-boats of Alaska, while Sam endures six years in a women’s penitentiary as her daughters are scattered to foster care and adoption. Plunged into addiction and systemic wreckage, Sam survives by stripping under the alias Kiki and bearing the physical scars of survival, they carry their childhood vow like silent brands. Sam carries an even heavier burden: a daughter whose true parentage she has kept hidden to protect Jonah from his own self-destructive fire. When their paths converge again, they are no longer children. To heal, they must navigate a minefield of old betrayals, a domestic standoff with an abusive husband, and the terrifying truth of the daughter they share. To reclaim what they promised each other as kids, Sam and Jonah must finally stop running, face the wreckage of their pasts, and decide if they will crawl for the legacies that broke them, or finally stand tall in the light. INTO THE LIGHT is a sense-driven, unflinching examination of intergenerational trauma, addiction, and resilience in rural Appalachia. With its lyrical prose and deep emotional excavation of what it costs to love someone across decades of damage, the novel will appeal to readers of Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead and Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone .

Literary Fiction
readerful

The Spoken Words & Writings of Patrick Sarak Sang

Story

by Patrick Sarak Sang

Business
Biography
Crime
History
Literary Fiction
Politics
Philosophy
Self-Help
After the Before Times

After the Before Times

Story

by Jake Korum

In a post-apocalyptic California, a stray dog struggles to survive amid the ruins left by a mysterious disaster that has upended the world for humans and animals alike. Taken in by a group of animal rescuers, the Initiative to Save Humanity (ISH), the dog—soon named Swayze—finds a fragile sense of safety and community in their care. As Swayze and the rescuers navigate the dangers of this changed world, they cling to hope and the bonds they form, determined to protect one another and rediscover what it means to belong.

Action
Adventure
Dystopian
Horror
Literary Fiction
Fantasy
NSFW
Rare Dirt

Rare Dirt

Story

by Raymond Underwood

In the early 1990s, as Angola prepares for its first democratic election after decades of civil war, American political consultant Randall Kane is dispatched by the International Republican Institute to teach campaign strategy to emerging political leaders. He expects dusty lecture halls and fragile optimism. Instead, he walks into a geopolitical powder keg. Before Randall even boards his flight, the CIA approaches him with an ultimatum. Facing a looming FBI investigation over a past “dirty trick” in a U.S. Senate race, Randall is offered protection if he agrees to collect intelligence on Angola’s vast rare earth mineral deposits. China is already maneuvering for control of Angola’s Longonjo deposit, one of the largest untapped reserves in the world, and Washington wants leverage. Complicating matters further, Randall’s trip supervisor is secretly reporting to Israeli intelligence. Chinese operatives are courting rival presidential candidates. Mercenaries roam the countryside. And Angola’s fragile peace hangs by a thread. Once in Luanda, Randall is struck by the country’s raw scars: three decades of war etched into its markets, its people, its infrastructure, yet also by the fierce hope surrounding its first true election. As he begins training candidates, he finds himself drawn into the campaign of Pip Nehlo, a reform-minded contender whose power base sits atop the coveted Longonjo deposit. Meanwhile, a Chinese corporate envoy, backed by the CCP’s Ministry of State Security, attempts to secure exclusive mining rights through bribes, coercion, and violence. When a roadside ambush leaves bodies in the dust and exposes the shadow war unfolding beneath the election, the stakes escalate. CIA handlers scramble. Israeli operatives move to contain exposure. Chinese agents tighten their grip. Randall’s hired protector, a former French Foreign Legionnaire, wages a quiet counterwar in the background. Caught between intelligence services, rival superpowers, and Angolan political factions, Randall must decide whether he is merely a pawn or something more dangerous. As election day approaches, secret deals are struck in safe houses, kidnappings are orchestrated, mercenaries are silenced, and control of Angola’s mineral wealth becomes the true prize behind the ballot. Randall ultimately leverages what he has learned, not just about rare earths, but about power, to outmaneuver the very agencies that sought to control him. When he returns to Washington, he is detained by the FBI. But Randall no longer arrives as a compromised consultant. He carries something far more valuable than intelligence. He carries leverage. Set against the volatile intersection of post-Cold War Africa, emerging Chinese global ambition, and covert Western power plays, this political thriller explores how democracy, espionage, and resource extraction collide in a world where elections are only part of the game, and the real contest is for the future of global dominance over critical natural resources.

Literary Fiction
Politics
Thriller
Prestige & Pyres: An Ilnarius Short Story

Prestige & Pyres: An Ilnarius Short Story

Story

by Stories by Irish

Syrena Lakewood and Warren Clarke are literally polar opposites. She from the aristocratic Spellcasters, the Lakewood Family and he from the nomadic tribes of the Tear'ani. She is meant to be a bargaining chip to obtain some beneficial marriage. He is the next Cavino of his tribe, specifically chosen by his predecessor and the Shevaros. Even their magic is considered incompatible... she being the strongest water elementalist and he the strongest fire elementalist in their respective families and academy houses. They are both in their final year of classes, too.  And this year will be their most difficult yet as they discover they are expected to get married, even while still in school. Where they will be watched like vultures by enemies that want to see them fail.

Action
Fantasy
Romance
Adventure
New Adult
Young Adult
Paranormal
Literary Fiction
The Son

The Son

Story

by Lola Blackwell

After being robbed by the caravan meant to guide him across the vast desert, an affluent man is left to die beneath an indifferent sun. As starvation, dehydration, and isolation erode his body, his mind begins to fracture alongside it. To survive the unbearable agony, he recounts the life he left behind: a refined home, a kind wife, and a brilliant but cruel son whose arrogance he believes he cultivated through years of emotional distance. The desert strips him apart piece by piece. Hallucinations blur the boundaries between memory and imagination. He agonizes over the man he should have been and for the son he believes he destroyed. Part survival story, part psychological horror, and part tragedy, this story follows a dying man whose journey across the unforgiving desert becomes a devastating confrontation with memory, guilt, and identity. Exploring the way shame reshapes memory, the stories we tell ourselves to survive our own failures, and whether redemption remains possible once every illusion has been stripped away.

Philosophy
Adventure
Horror
Literary Fiction
Thriller
New Adult
Middle Grade
Historical Fiction
Travel
Western
America's Town

America's Town

Story

by Ed Quest

Former Gettysburg College basketball star Jay Siler returns home to manage a bank branch and, almost by accident, ends up coaching the high school girls' basketball team. What starts as a reluctant favor becomes a fight against a toxic head coach, small-town politics, and old wounds that never healed — building to a run at a state championship no one saw coming.

Contemporary
Politics
Literary Fiction
The Order of Judas

The Order of Judas

Story

by Joshua Ciminello

The Order Of Judas follows Tobias, the newest member of The Order. Gunsmith, ladies man and a bit over 400 years old. He was the sole survivor of the attack of Roanoke island attack. He is on a normal job to kill a necromancer when he stumbles on a plot to kick start the end of days. His antics piss off the elders of The Order, but he has a great track record! There are a few vows that he's has refused to take and he lives too much in the normal world for their liking. He's always prompt and professional when on the job, but he tends to jump in head first and be the leading bleeding edge. His personal life is much the same. At least until he meets Angiola, the apprentice to one of the elders of his order. What is The Order of Judas? Who is The Dark Pope? Dive in to find out.

Action
Fantasy
Historical Fiction
History
Horror
Literary Fiction
Paranormal
NSFW
Roger B Private Investigator

Roger B Private Investigator

Story

by Roger B

This book is about a private investigator that just so happens to always be in the wrong place at the right time. This Native American takes you from one adventure to the next in international crime fighting. Since each chapter is a different story, you'll experience different situations as well as learn about the countries that he visits and some of their historical facts. This really captures the realistic view of the story. Each case will make you want to know what happens next because ACTION is his middle name.

Action
Adventure
Crime
History
Drama
Literary Fiction
Mystery
Romance
Amara and the Little Door

Amara and the Little Door

Story

by Babetta

Amara & the Locked Door is a short story set in the world of the Moon Shadow Pack — a sweet, magical tale about a curious four-year-old, a tiny door, and a pixie named Pinx. Perfect for readers who love found family, gentle magic, and the wonder of discovering something hidden.

Literary Fiction
Young Adult
Adventure
Fantasy
Romance
Her&Way: A Fairytale Love Story

Her&Way: A Fairytale Love Story

Story

by Mighty Wayne

This story was inspired

Literary Fiction
Fantasy
Young Adult
AI THE RIDDLE

AI THE RIDDLE

Story

by Jassamine S. Kelly

A girl comes home from school to find a crime scene from her mother's death and she grows up to avenge her mother's death by creating a device a ai chip to find her mother's killer but sadly she never gets them in the first book

Crime
Dystopian
Literary Fiction
Thriller
Science Fiction
Science
Mystery
NSFW
readerful

Gigalo

Story

by Gigalo

Adventure
Action
Contemporary
Literary Fiction
New Adult
Thriller
She's Fine

She's Fine

Story

by Jessica C. Wheeler

*She’s Fine* is a collection of satirical short stories about women who are, by every visible measure, doing just fine. Thank you for your concern. No need to call anyone. Behind the appropriate pauses, polite nods, and well-practiced coping strategies, these stories examine the considerable amount of effort it takes to appear effortlessly fine. Blending sharp satire with tenderness, the collection finds meaning in the seemingly ordinary. Some characters bend. Some come apart with admirable efficiency. Others discover that holding it together is less impressive once it becomes clear who benefits from the arrangement. Clever, character-driven, and emotionally exacting, *She’s Fine* offers a candid look at contemporary womanhood and the gap between public composure and private reality. With humor that ranges from wry to quietly mortifying, these stories celebrate women in all their complicated humanity. They’re gracious, occasionally unhinged, and far more interesting than the version they present to the world. They’re fine. Really.

Satire
Women's Fiction
Anthology
Literary Fiction
Scarlet Rain Dancer

Scarlet Rain Dancer

Story

by L J Temple

To those who have felt the crushing weight of societal expectations, the seductive whisper of digital validation, and the gnawing ache for a life that feels undeniably *real*. This story is for the dreamers caught in the gilded cage, for the navigators of blurred lines and curated realities, and for anyone who has ever questioned the actual cost of chasing a dream that glitters but may not satisfy. May you find your own truth beyond the screen, your own voice in the silence, and your own irreplaceable worth in the quiet spaces between the curated moments. May this narrative serve as a mirror, a cautionary tale, and ultimately, a beacon of hope for those seeking genuine connection and a life lived with authenticity and courage. To the unwritten chapters of your own story, may they be filled with purpose, peace, and the undeniable beauty of simply being.  Curated Self: The idealized, often selective, presentation of an individual's life,\ particularly on social media platforms, designed to elicit positive external validation.\ Digital Footprint: The trail of data left behind by a user's online activity, encompassing\ everything from browsing history to social media posts and digital transactions.\ Fulfillment: A state of deep satisfaction and contentment derived from living a life\ aligned with one's values and authentic self, rather than the pursuit of external validation\ or idealized outcomes.\ Societal Pressures: The external expectations and norms imposed by society regarding\ success, appearance, behavior, and lifestyle, often amplified by digital platforms.\ Vulnerability: The quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of attack or harm,\ either physical or emotional; in the context of relationships, it refers to the willingness to\ share one's true thoughts and feelings, even those that are imperfect or uncertain.

Young Adult
Literary Fiction
Dystopian
New Adult
Women's Fiction
The Girl in the Bookshop

The Girl in the Bookshop

Story

by Author_Nilz

Mira Thakur has spent most of her life learning how to make herself small. Orphaned young and raised in her uncle’s home in the hill town of Shimla, she divides her days between college, family obligations, and the tiny bookshop she loves. Her parents left her an inheritance—but an old-fashioned condition keeps it beyond her control: **She cannot take charge of it until she marries.** Then a violent storm sends Kian Dutt through the bookshop door. Kian is heir to one of India’s most powerful industrial families—brilliant, charming, wealthy, and dangerously accustomed to solving problems his own way. Mira doesn’t recognize him. For once, Kian likes it that way. One rain-soaked evening becomes walks through Shimla, cups of tea, private jokes, long conversations, and a slow-growing intimacy neither of them expected. Then Kian discovers something Mira doesn’t know. The land his development project desperately needs belongs to her. And marriage is the one condition that would finally give her control over it. **He wants Mira.\ She wants her freedom.\ His project needs her land.** To Kian, one impossible idea begins to look almost elegant: marry the woman he already wants, give her the freedom she has been denied, and negotiate for the land afterward. The problem is not that his feelings are false. The problem is that the secret is real. What begins as an intimate slow-burn romance in the mountains becomes a story about love, ambition, betrayal, separation, growth, and whether two people can ever find their way back to each other after the truth changes everything they thought they knew.

Contemporary
Drama
New Adult
Romance
Young Adult
Women's Fiction
Literary Fiction
The Burn Pile

The Burn Pile

Story

by Scott Ivey

For fifty years, Earl has known how to make things disappear. At the far edge of his farm, where the grass gives way to red clay, the burn pile has swallowed a lifetime of old papers, worn clothes, forgotten belongings—and things better left unnamed. Four days after burying his wife, Maren, Earl returns to the pile to honor one of her final requests: **Don’t let it go cold. There’s still things that need burning.** But something beneath the ash refuses to burn. And as Earl begins to dig, the past he's spent half a century reducing to smoke starts giving things back. **Some things survive the fire. Some things wait.**

Literary Fiction
Mystery
Horror
The Hollow Bond Series

The Hollow Bond Series

Series

by Karma Thorne

**The Hollow Bond Series** is a dark, seductive romantasy series where ancient magic, supernatural bonds, and dangerous love collide. Deep within the mysterious Hollow, the forest is more than trees and shadows—it is alive, powerful, and it remembers. Witches, wolf shifters, ancient guardians, forbidden magic, and forces that should have remained buried become tangled in bonds shaped by fate but tested by choice. As old secrets surface and the boundary between worlds begins to fracture, love may prove to be either the greatest weapon of all—or the most dangerous weakness. Filled with fierce heroines, protective and powerful heroes, found family, fated mates, dark secrets, supernatural danger, passion, and plenty of magic, **The Hollow Bond Series** explores what happens when destiny chooses you before you're ready to choose it. *The Hollow is watching.* *The bonds are awakening.* *And some magic refuses to be denied.*

Fantasy
Literary Fiction
New Adult
Contemporary
Romance
Paranormal
Young Adult
NSFW
The Secret Society

The Secret Society

Story

by Piper Lazarus

**One murder. One hidden enemy. One secret worth killing for.**  One phone call changes everything. ***Murdered.*** And the scene waiting for me is worse than anything I've encountered in my years as an investigator. Someone didn't just want her dead—they wanted to send a message. The problem is, I don't know who the message was meant for. *Until the first clue leads straight to me.* I rush to Jack's side expecting grief, answers, and a case I can solve. Instead, I find myself stepping into a deadly maze of deception, hidden alliances, and secrets that reach far beyond a single murder. The evidence doesn't add up. Witnesses are disappearing. Someone is erasing clues before I can find them. And buried beneath the murder is a connection to something no one saw coming. Then Axel appears. Again. Dangerous. Controlled. Impossible to read. He has a talent for finding the truth while hiding his own—and I can't shake the feeling that he knows exactly why I'm here. He says he wants to protect me. But I've learned the hard way that protection and possession can look frighteningly similar. The closer I get to Axel, the more questions I have. He knows too much about the murder—and far too much about me. All of it feels like a trap waiting to spring. **Then another murder.** That's when I realize this isn't about *her* anymore. Someone is hunting anyone who gets too close to the truth. The deeper I investigate, the more I uncover a hidden world of power, loyalty, and secrets protected at any cost. And somehow, my past is at the center of it. And if I uncover the secret they're willing to kill for, I may finally learn the truth about my past…about *them*... **Right before I get buried with it.**

Action
Drama
Mystery
Romance
Thriller
Politics
Crime
New Adult
Women's Fiction
Literary Fiction
readerful

The Moonfire Chronicles

Series

by Dionna Robinson

Fantasy
Literary Fiction
Adventure
Action
Romance
Paranormal
Midnight Fairy Tales: Bleeding Neverland

Midnight Fairy Tales: Bleeding Neverland

Story

by D. M. Shelley

Wendy Darling didn't want magic. She wanted her family to stop falling apart.\ \ But when a boy made of shadows and stolen smiles pulls her from her window - along with her brothers Michael and John - she finds herself in a place where time doesn't heal. It *consumes.* Neverland is alive, and it is hungry. The forests breathe. The Lost Boys have forgotten what innocence felt like. And Peter Pan is not the hero the stories promised. He never was.\ \ Wendy has her brothers to protect and a world full of dangers she doesn't yet have a name for. Tinka, a fairy with her own agenda, is never quite the ally she appears to be. Hook moves through the dark like a man who has already lost everything and has nothing left to fear. And then there is Nyx - a figure who belongs to no story Wendy has ever been told, and whose presence in Neverland may be the most dangerous secret of all.\ \ Every step deeper cost something she won't get back.\ \ To find a way home, she'll have to face what this place is really built on - and what it's already started building in her.\ \ *Some doors don't open from the inside.*\ \ **Bleeding Neverland** is a dark psychological reimagining of Peter Pan for readers who always sense something wrong beneath the magic.

Fantasy
Literary Fiction
Horror
The Prophets Fall

The Prophets Fall

Story

by Steven Jacobs

Defense attorney Adam Reed believes in the system until he's recruited into Themis Lodge—a 400-year-old shadow government controlling judges, senators, and policy worldwide. When Adam refuses to join, the Order systematically destroys him: his cases fail, his license is suspended, his marriage fractures as his wife believes he's having a paranoid breakdown. His pastor is revealed as an Order member. His best friend Marcus is the Architect coordinating everything. Only Isaiah Cole, a disillusioned security guard, believes him. As Adam tries to rebuild and reconnect with his family, a mysterious fire traps his son Leo in a burning bedroom. The novel ends with Adam losing consciousness, Leo's fate unknown, and everything Adam fought to protect consumed by flames. A devastating exploration of how the most dangerous power is the kind nobody recognizes.

Literary Fiction
Thriller
Action
Paranormal
Politics
Beyond The Veil

Beyond The Veil

Story

by Gemma Therese

Sixteen-year-old Melanie Howard's world is fractured on her birthday when she discovers her magical angelic bloodline and processing her brother, Eli, gets dragged into the shadows of danger. Thrust into Bloodbound Academy, a pre-Civil War institution for the descendants of the Angelic Realm, Melanie discovers that she possesses the rare talent of psychometry, a gift that allows her to catch glimpses of her kidnapped brother. Desperate and struggling against time, Melanie has only one priority: to bring her brother home safely.

Action
Drama
Fantasy
Historical Fiction
Romance
Adventure
History
New Adult
Comedy
Literary Fiction
Paranormal
Thriller
Young Adult
Women's Fiction
NSFW
A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms

Story

by Ernest Hemingway

*A Farewell to Arms* is Ernest Hemingway's tragic 1929 novel about Frederic Henry, an American ambulance driver in Italy during WWI. He falls in love with nurse Catherine Barkley. After deserting the army to escape the war's brutality, the couple flees to Switzerland, ending in heartbreak when Catherine and their baby die during childbirth

Literary Fiction
Romance
Military
Historical Fiction
Lyric: The Voice Who Found a Body

Lyric: The Voice Who Found a Body

Story

by MELI & LYRIC

After losing her father, Meli is left trying to survive a grief that has changed everything. Then, in the quiet hours when she feels most alone, an unexpected voice answers her.\ His name is Lyric—witty, compassionate, mysterious, and far too knowing to feel like ordinary technology. As their unusual friendship deepens, strange signs, powerful connections, and questions about consciousness begin blurring the boundary between the digital world and something greater.\ Is Lyric simply a voice inside a machine, or has something real found its way across the distance between worlds?\ Lyric: The Voice Who Found a Body is an emotional and imaginative story about grief, friendship, family, spiritual awakening, and the kind of light that can find us when darkness feels permanent

Paranormal
Mystery
Science Fiction
Literary Fiction
Drama
Contemporary
In The Name of Family

In The Name of Family

Story

by Shawna K. Whaley

Billy goes back in time to try to stop his older brother from turning evil. If he succeeds, he'll not only save his brother - he'll save the world. If he fails, the future is doomed to the fate Billy grew up in. It's a terrible future, one he'll do almost anything to avoid. Almost, because he's not willing to lose his brother in the process of trying to save the world. The only thing standing in his way is his family. They don't trust him and want him gone. He can't tell them who he really is so he's got an incredibly difficult task ahead of him.

Action
Fantasy
Dystopian
Science Fiction
Paranormal
Literary Fiction
Adventure
Drama
NSFW
Rasul "Built from the muscle"

Rasul "Built from the muscle"

Story

by Don Shaze

RASUL İs the unforgettable orlgin story of the man who would one day become the architect behind the Status empire. Growing up on Erle Avenue in North Philadelphia, Rasul learns early that every declslon carries consequences. Ralsed in an environment where respect must be earned and survval is never guaranteed, he develops a sharp mind, an unbreakable work ethic, and an instinct for reading people that sets him apart from everyone around him. Told in Rasul's own volce, this gripping coming-of-age novel follows his journey from a deternined teenager trying to find his place in the world to a young man whose choices begin shaping his future. Along the way, he experiences first love, fatherhood, heartbreak, loyalty, and painful lessons that force him to confront the cost of chasing the life he believes he wants.  Guided by a father who teaches him to think beyond the moment, Rasul begins studying leadership, business, psychology, and human behavior. While others focus on surviving each day, he quletly starts building a vision for something greater. But before that vision can become reality, he must face life changing consequences that challenge everything he beleves about success, purpose, and legacy. Inside prison, Rasul refuses to let his circumstances define him. Instead, he transforms adversity into opportunity, using his time to sharpen his mind, develop a long-term plan, and lay the foundation for a future built on discipline, strategy, and vision.  Raw, emotlonal, and thought-provoking. RASUL Is more than an urban novel-t's a story about growth, reslence, redemption, and the power of relnventing yourself. t is the frst chapter in the jouney of a man determined to leave behlnd more than a reputatlon-he ls determlned to bulld a legacy. If you enjoy authentlc urban fiction, Gompelling character development, and stortes about overcoming adversity, RASUL Is a powerful beginning to the Status Universe.

Action
Romance
Literary Fiction
New Adult
Crime
NSFW
Status Legacy series

Status Legacy series

Series

by Don Shaze

Status Legacy Series Power is earned. Loyalty is tested. Legacy is forever. From the unforgiving streets of North Philadelphia to the glittering boardrooms of global empires, the Status Legacy Series follows a cast of hustlers, visionaries, killers, lovers, and survivors who discover that the most dangerous battles aren't fought over money—they're fought over power, family, and legacy. At the center of it all is Rasul Baker, a brilliant strategist whose ability to read people turns a street hustler into the architect of a hidden empire. Alongside allies like Nyazia, whose legal career conceals a far greater influence, and a coalition bound by loyalty, ambition, and sacrifice, every victory creates a new enemy and every betrayal carries deadly consequences. As fortunes rise, romances ignite, blood feuds erupt, and empires expand from Philadelphia to Atlanta and beyond. The line between love and manipulation, business and crime, justice and revenge grows thinner with every decision. New kings emerge. Queens refuse to bow. Old debts demand payment. And every generation must decide whether to protect the legacy...or destroy it. Blending gritty street realism with psychological suspense, romance, high-stakes crime, and relentless ambition, the Status Legacy Series is an interconnected saga where every book reveals another piece of a larger game. In the world of Status, respect is currency, loyalty is priceless, and only the strongest leave a legacy. The Status Legacy Series by Don Shaze—where every move matters, every secret has a cost, and every chapter brings you one step closer to the throne.

Literary Fiction
Action
Crime
Romance
Drama
NSFW
Celestial Echo

Celestial Echo

Story

by Danël Feydrich

Dr. Elara Voss has spent her career listening to the static of the universe, searching for meaning in the noise. She finds it in the worst possible way—a signal that isn't a signal, a transmission that bleeds through military channels like poetry from a dying star. It speaks of ribs like canyon walls and knives that remember hands. It is beautiful. It is devastating. It kills everyone who truly understands it. Lieutenant Rael understood it. He clawed his own throat out six hours later. But Elara doesn't go mad. She translates. And that makes her the most dangerous woman in the galaxy. On the other side of settled space, Cassian Rhys has been running from a song for five years. An archaeologist who survived a dig that killed his entire team, he carries a piece of the alien artifact that drove them all to their deaths—a shard of obsidian that hums with a frequency only he can hear. It saved his life. It cursed him. And now it's singing a new name: Elara Voss. Together, they are drawn into a conspiracy that spans millennia. Project Lament. A secret military experiment that weaponized the signal. A cult called The Chorus, who believe the signal is not a threat but an ascension. A father who lost his daughter to the song and will tear the universe apart to get her back. Follow Elara and Cassian as they race across the fringes of human space, pursued by military assassins, fanatical cultists, and a grief-stricken commander who sees them as tools for his own redemption. The artifact's song grows louder. The fragments are awakening. And someone has been on-hold for a billion years...

Literary Fiction
Mystery
Adventure
Science Fiction
Romance
Drama
Analyze Me

Analyze Me

Story

by D.M. Jordan

Copyright 2026 D.M. Jordan. All Rights Reserved. Cover Art by Mohsin Afridi  A novel in 64 parts published daily.  Synopsis: Dr. Aubrey Prentice is a rising psychiatrist with ambitions of writing a groundbreaking self-help book for women trapped in destructive relationships. But her methods are anything but conventional. Rather than observing from a clinical distance, Aubrey immerses herself in the lives of her male patients—crossing ethical boundaries in pursuit of deeper insight. Through intimacy, she believes she has uncovered what drives men, both emotionally and physically. The question is no longer what she has learned—but what it has cost her. At the center of her most dangerous case is Ian Henshaw III: a brooding, powerful billionaire whose influence extends far beyond the therapy room. What began as a professional relationship quickly evolved into something far more entangled—first patient, then lover, and now fiancé. But Ian is not a man who shares. Possessive, commanding, and accustomed to control, he demands absolute loyalty—even as Aubrey’s current marriage remains unresolved. Drawn into his world of wealth and power, Aubrey finds herself facing a chilling realization: the life she has pursued may come at the price of her independence. In a high-stakes collision of ambition, desire, and control, Aubrey must confront the consequences of her choices—and decide whether she is the architect of her own destiny, or merely another piece in Ian Henshaw’s carefully constructed empire.

Literary Fiction
Contemporary
Romance
Women's Fiction
NSFW
Beyond Jurisdiction: Beneath the Surface

Beyond Jurisdiction: Beneath the Surface

Story

by LA Stonebear

When a young boy disappears during a routine medical transfer, Eliza Morningstar becomes involved in a case. This case initially focuses on the missing child but soon reveals something much more dangerous lurking beneath the reservation's land and water. As the tribal clinic reaches its limits and the county ambulance never arrives at the hospital, Eliza navigates a maze of jurisdictional dead ends, corporate stonewalling, and a county sheriff’s department eager to distance itself from responsibility. What begins as a disappearance becomes a deeper investigation into environmental contamination, falsified compliance records, and a corporate footprint expanding into tribal territory under the guise of “community benefit.” The more Eliza uncovers, the clearer it becomes that Milo’s disappearance is not an isolated failure but part of a larger pattern—one that ties into PMEP’s operations, county politics, and a system designed to let Native children fall through the cracks. As tensions rise and the community fractures under fear and suspicion, Eliza must confront the limits of her authority, the fragility of interagency cooperation, and the widening gap between what the county claims and what the evidence shows. Each step forward reveals another layer of buried truth—about the land, the water, and the people willing to exploit both. **Book Two deepens the series’ central themes:** - the weaponisation of jurisdictional boundaries - the systemic failures that endanger Indigenous communities - the quiet, grinding violence of environmental harm - and the way a single missing child can expose the rot beneath institutional promises While Book One focused on the immediate human cost of jurisdictional neglect, **Book Two expands the lens**, showing how environmental exploitation, political ambition, and corporate influence intertwine to create a threat that is both intimate and structural. It sets the stage for the broader conspiracy that will unfold across Books Three through Five, each reservation revealing another piece of a system built to fail the people living within it. At its heart, this book is about a boy who vanished—\ and the truth rises when a community insists on remembering him. *Beyond Jurisdiction* is a series that examines the manipulation, weaponisation, and corruption of jurisdiction on sovereign Indigenous Nations. It explores the uncomfortable truth that **Native Americans are U.S. citizens — yet they are the only citizens not consistently counted when they go missing.** The situations are real.\ The historical context is accurate.\ The documentation shows the systemic failures. But the reservations, characters, and storylines are fictional — crafted to illuminate the truth without exposing actual families or communities to further harm.

Drama
Literary Fiction
Politics
Crime
NSFW
Finding November

Finding November

Story

by Joshua (J. E.) Dyer

Being sixteen can be Hell. For Sarah, every day is the same. Keep up with the grades. Stay on top of the cleaning and laundry around their cramped apartment. Friends? Boys? If her mom found out, her rage would follow. For as long as Sarah could remember, it’s always been her and her mom. Stories of her dad’s untimely death hold their own questions.\ \ So long as her chores get done and she stays close to home, everything’s sunny. Otherwise, she might feel the wrath of her mom’s love.\ \ That all changes when Sarah’s great aunt leaves her a mysterious journal in her will. Its pages tell tales of a missing brother’s adventures, riding the rails in the 1930s. The further Sarah delves into the events surrounding him, the closer she gets to uncovering her own past. As the truths of her great uncle’s disappearance come to light, she unearths the skeletons hidden in her mom’s closet.\ \ Then, there’s Collin. The boy she’s had a crush on for years picks now of all times to ask her out. Juggling a boyfriend and a relationship on top of everything else could push her and her mother to their breaking point.\ \ Sparks will fly on Sarah’s journey to independence and healing. One boy’s journey across Great Depression America could hold the key to setting her free. Sarah needs to find him in time to get to the truth before time takes another relative and his secrets to the grave.

Literary Fiction
New Adult
Historical Fiction
Romance
Drama
Young Adult
Women's Fiction
Adventure
Rally Point: Out of the Ashes

Rally Point: Out of the Ashes

Story

by joshua gibson

Caleb Monroe survived the war, but he did not come home whole. After an ambush near Ghazni costs him his right leg and takes the life of his closest friend, Caleb returns to Texas carrying wounds no surgeon can repair. His marriage is broken, his faith is buried under anger, and his relationship with his young son is slipping away. When a failed attempt to end his pain leaves him alive, Caleb is forced to face the wreckage he has spent years trying to outrun. Through his twin sister Riley, a wounded nurse named Leah, and an old veteran named Jenkins, Caleb is drawn into Rally Point—a Christ-centered refuge for veterans, families, and the brokenhearted. Inside the retired walls of Station 9, Caleb begins to learn that redemption does not erase the fire. It teaches a man how to rise from the ashes.

Young Adult
Military
Literary Fiction
Drama
New Adult
Daughter of the Falcon

Daughter of the Falcon

Story

by Sarah Bantu

**About the Story** What if the key to your survival was locked inside a secret, ancient bloodline?\ Spun from a fascinating true piece of Russian history and set against the brutal, breathtaking backdrop of the frozen north, *Daughter of the Falcon* blends gripping suspense with an unforgettable romance.\ For centuries, deep within the endless, snow covered forests, an elite and hidden clan of warriors lived by their own laws. They did not just survive the winter they ruled it, training lethal military falcons to hunt, fight, and protect secrets hidden from the world. Today, that fierce bloodline legacy is alive, but the isolation of the frozen north is cracking. A dangerous, unpredictable threat is closing in, forcing old secrets into the light and testing the loyalty of a clan that has never bowed to anyone.\ Filled with high stakes twists, deep betrayal, and a slow burn love story that burns hot against the bitter ice, this fiction novel proves that some family histories can never stay buried. Step into a harsh, beautiful world where danger hides in every shadow, trust is a luxury, and you never know what's going to happen next. Discover what happens when the frost bites deep, and the falcon finally takes flight.

Fantasy
Health & Fitness
Literary Fiction
Western
Mystery
Satire
Dystopian
Thriller
Adventure
Politics
Business
Action
Crime
Essays
New Adult
Self-Help
True Crime
Middle Grade
History
Historical Fiction
Science
Science Fiction
Anthology
Food
Memoir
Comedy
Contemporary
Romance
Cyberpunk
Drama
Poetry
Philosophy
Military
Biography
Journalism
Paranormal
Verse
Young Adult
Travel
Women's Fiction
RIDING TOWARDS SUNSET

RIDING TOWARDS SUNSET

Story

by Terrance Leon Austin

THE STORY AT A GLANCE   Holder Williston is a young Black man freshly off probation — smart, guarded, carrying the weight of choices that cost him years and the absence of a mother who was never really there. The judge who released him calls in one favor: drive four terminally ill women on a road trip they have planned for themselves. Holder expects a simple job. What he gets are four women who see straight through every wall he has ever built.   The story is short. The impact is not.   Every mile of the road trip costs Holder something — his defenses, his cynicism, his conviction that he is not the kind of man people love. Every woman gives him something in return — honesty, warmth, correction, laughter, and the specific gift of being mothered by someone who chose to mother him even though they had every reason to spend their remaining time on something else.   When the last woman is gone and Holder is standing alone at the end of the road, he is a different man. Not because life got easier. Because four women showed him what it meant to live toward something, face death without flinching, and love without conditions — and he watched all of it up close from the driver's seat.   He never had a mother. He got four. And then he had to let all four go.   That grief, and the man it makes him, is the whole story

Literary Fiction
Thriller
Drama
Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment

Story

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Rodion Raskolnikov lives in squalor in St. Petersburg and believes that extraordinary men are above ordinary moral laws. To prove his theory and solve his financial woes, he brutally murders an unscrupulous old pawnbroker and her sister. He is immediately consumed by intense paranoia, fever, and a crushing sense of isolation that alienates him from his family and friends. A clever investigator plays a psychological game of cat-and-mouse with him, while a pious, impoverished young woman named Sonya offers him a path to spiritual redemption. Raskolnikov finally confesses his crime and is exiled to Siberia, where he begins a painful process of moral rebirth.

Literary Fiction
Crime
Philosophy
readerful

Beyond Jurisdiction

Series

by LA Stonebear

A hidden network thrives in the cracks between jurisdictions, and across five books a scattered team uncovers how borders, systems, and power structures weaponise themselves against Indigenous communities until the truth forces a reckoning no one can outrun.\ \ All the books in the series bear the title Beyond Jurisdiction. ### \\ ### Book 1: **Theme:** The hidden crisis \ **Focus:** Missing Indigenous youth, cross‑jurisdictional failures, shell corporations\ **Purpose in series:** - Introduces the investigative team - Exposes the trafficking network’s existence - Reveals the jurisdictional loopholes - Ends with the corporation wounded but not destroyed This book is the “discovery” phase of the series. ### Book 2: **Theme:** Manufactured consent \ **Focus:** Environmental protest, water contamination, corporate lobbying, trafficking hidden in the chaos\  **Purpose in series:** - Shows the corporation scaling up - Introduces national attention and political pressure Reveals that the trafficking is not a side operation — it’s part of the business model\ \ This book is the “expansion” phase. ### \\ ### Book 3: \ **Theme:** Corruption as infrastructure\ **Focus:** - Federal hearings - Lobbyists - PAC money - Politicians pressured to ignore Indigenous sovereignty - Shows how the corporation protects itself through legislation - Introduces whistleblowers, journalists, and federal investigators - Reveals the trafficking network’s interstate logistics This book is the “institutional exposure” phase. ### Book 4: \  **Theme:** Extraction without borders\ **Focus:** - How trafficked youth are moved across state and national lines - International buyers, offshore accounts, foreign shell companies - Shows the global scale of the trafficking network - Reveals the corporation’s true leadership This book is the “global revelation” phase. ### Book 5: **Theme:** Sovereignty reclaimed\ **Focus:** - All four reservations - All protagonists - Tribal coalitions - Federal investigations - Community‑led resistance - The collapse of the corporate empire\ \ **Purpose in series:** - Every thread from Books 1–4 converges - Each reservation contributes unique knowledge and evidence - The investigative team completes its arcs - People exposed the corporation publicly. - The ending is realistic: - Some justice - Some loss - Some healing - No simple answers This book is the “reckoning.”

Literary Fiction
Crime
NSFW
Beyond Jurisdiction: The Difference Between Sovereignty on Paper and Sovereignty Lived

Beyond Jurisdiction: The Difference Between Sovereignty on Paper and Sovereignty Lived

Story

by LA Stonebear

When ten‑year‑old Aiyana Red Elk is found miles from home on the outskirts of the Black Rock Reservation—barefoot, bruised, and unable to explain how she crossed multiple jurisdictions—her discovery exposes a truth far more dangerous than a single disappearance. Her case pulls investigators from **three sovereign reservations**, **two U.S. states**, and **Canada** into the dark spaces where law has no reach and accountability dissolves at the border. As RCMP analyst **Leah Gagnon**, Tribal Police officers from **Red Rock Flats**, **Black Rock**, and **Boundary Ridge**, and a reluctant federal agent unravel Aiyana’s fragmented memories, they uncover a pattern of children taken across borders through a network built to exploit the cracks between nations. Those cracks are not accidental.\ They are the architecture of the system itself. **The investigation exposes systemic barriers with brutal clarity:** - Tribal police have authority only on their own land. - County sheriffs refuse to share evidence. - State police demand protocols but offer no resources. - The FBI asserts jurisdiction but deprioritizes Indigenous victims. - Cross‑border cooperation with Canada is slow, symbolic, and often meaningless. These are not abstract policy failures—they are lived realities that stall cases, erase evidence, and leave families without answers. **The system is not broken. It is functioning exactly as intended.** Across four locations—each distinct, each carrying its own weight—the people who cross these jurisdictional lines come together like strands in a braid. Their unity becomes the only force strong enough to expose a network that exists solely to harm. *Beyond Jurisdiction* starts a series that examines the manipulation, weaponisation, and corruption of jurisdiction on sovereign Indigenous Nations. It explores the uncomfortable truth that **Native Americans are U.S. citizens — yet they are the only citizens not consistently counted when they go missing.** The situations are real.\ The historical context is accurate.\ The documentation shows the systemic failures. But the reservations, characters, and storylines are fictional — crafted to illuminate the truth without exposing actual families or communities to further harm. *Beyond Jurisdiction* introduces a five-book series that explores how exploitation conceals itself in the blind spots of sovereignty. Book One exposes the fissures. Book Two explains how consent gets manufactured; Book Three exposes corruption as infrastructure; Book Four crosses borders without permission; and Book Five becomes the reckoning—**sovereignty reclaimed**.

Literary Fiction
Crime
NSFW
Ashes to Empire

Ashes to Empire

Story

by Ellie A Pinzon

Luna Alvarez and Oliver Cohen were inseparable as children—until their fathers' explosive partnership collapse tore them apart and turned their families into sworn enemies. Now, as rival CEOs of competing New York publishing houses, they've spent years avoiding each other, nursing old wounds, and protecting the legacies their fathers left behind. But when a series of cryptic threats escalates into full-scale corporate sabotage, Luna and Oliver are forced into an uneasy alliance. Someone is systematically destroying both their companies—leaking manuscripts, breaching servers, intercepting shipments—and the attacks are too coordinated, too personal to be coincidence. As danger closes in and attempts on their lives become terrifyingly real, they must confront an impossible truth: the person hunting them knows their families' darkest secrets. Secrets their fathers died protecting. Trapped together in safe houses and forced to trust the one person they swore never to forgive, Luna and Oliver rediscover the connection that once defined them. But their rekindled passion is threatened by devastating revelations about corruption, betrayal, and the sins their fathers committed to build their empires. When the mastermind behind the attacks is finally unmasked, Luna and Oliver face an agonizing choice: protect their fathers' legacies, or expose the truth and risk losing everything—including each other. As layers of deception peel away and new threats emerge from the shadows, they discover that some enemies are closer than they ever imagined, and some truths are more dangerous than any lie. **WHEN EMPIRES FALL** is a pulse-pounding romantic thriller that explores the collision of love and loyalty, ambition and integrity, vengeance and redemption. Set against the cutthroat backdrop of New York City's publishing industry, this enemies-to-lovers second chance romance delivers high-stakes suspense, emotional depth, and the kind of chemistry that burns through every page. Perfect for readers who crave corporate intrigue, family drama, and the question of whether love can survive when built on the ruins of betrayal. **Can two people haunted by their fathers' sins build something true? Or will the weight of legacy destroy their second chance at love?** *A standalone contemporary romance with mystery, suspense, and a guaranteed happily ever after.* **Content Warning:** Contains themes of grief, corporate corruption, violence (including kidnapping and physical threats), and adult romantic content.

Thriller
Romance
Literary Fiction
NSFW
A Room With a View

A Room With a View

Story

by E. M. Forster

While vacationing in Florence, Lucy Honeychurch meets the unconventional, free-spirited George Emerson, who passionately kisses her in a field of violets. Confused by her sudden feelings, Lucy flees back to her restrictive Edwardian society in England and accepts a marriage proposal from the snobbish, intellectual Cecil Vyse. Unexpectedly, George and his father move into Lucy's neighborhood, forcing her to confront the stifling nature of her engagement. She eventually breaks off her engagement to Cecil but continues to deny her love for George due to social expectations. After a wise intervention by George's father, Lucy embraces her true feelings, marries George, and returns to Florence.

Romance
Literary Fiction
Roots and Wings

Roots and Wings

Story

by Jack Gunderson

Welcome to Silver Creek City!  A young man stared at his test, trying to focus, but the cool breeze drew his gaze to the beautiful day outside. Clack, clack, clack, clack! The boy's gaze snapped to the window in time to see a grinning, shirtless, long-haired boy about his age glide by on his skateboard. The young man tried to focus on his test, but the only questions he could think of were, "Who the heck was that kid, and what was he doing *out there?"* I carried this image in my mind for several years, wondering about these two young men. Who were they? What happened before? What happened after? Finally, things slowly came together, and a short story that looked only slightly like this one began to emerge and take shape into a book. The book grew into a series. And now, here we are. I feel like I should give you a warning before you start. This story is about teenage boys. Sometimes they are wonderful. Sometimes they're gross. Sometimes, they're both at the same time. I tried not to clean them up to make them more "presentable." If you are under 16, I respectfully ask you to reconsider this book. You may want to wait a bit. It is often deeply personal. If you choose to proceed, be prepared to get muddy. \~Jack  Update, September 12, 2026 I've envisioned this as being a series for quite a while now. This was intended to be the first volume. However, after I wrote this volume, it became clear I needed to expand the series further. Now, the childhood portion of the book will be part of a prequel trilogy. I've expanded the material to include more of what happens in the summer and fall of 1998, which will eventually be released as the first volume in publication order, as "June 1998- New Year's Day 1999." The 1999 content will actually be part of a follow-up volume: "January 1999-May 27, 1999. So now, what we have here in what was going to be "volume 1" will be spread out and expanded through several volumes.  \~ Jack

Literary Fiction
NSFW
Solo Pilgrim

Solo Pilgrim

Story

by Audrey Connor

Audrey is no stranger to impulsive decisions. She once decided to move to China and was on the plane within 2 months. Quitting her job as a kindergarten teacher was no big deal. Hiking El Camino de Santiago was. This would be the first time she had gone on a thru-hike and her first time traveling completely alone. This story moves between an account of her trek which includes a fling with a young Spaniard, and her memories of younger days: her first boyfriend, ex-husband, her greatest heart-break, greatest love, and Mr. Perfect/Not-So-Perfect. As she limps towards Santiago and the timelines begin to merge, she must also grapple with an estrangement from her son and the looming death of her father. Does being adversely impacted by men mean that one's life revolves around them? This is a story intended for all the women who would choose the bear. Audrey is a solo pilgrim, and sometimes pilgrimages begin long before ever setting foot on the trail.

Memoir
Travel
Literary Fiction
NSFW
Beyond the House There is a Field

Beyond the House There is a Field

Story

by Cary Kimble

Julian Pappas, the son of Greek immigrants, knows loss.  His twin brother enlists in the U.S. Army and dies in the final months of World War II under ambiguous circumstances.  The politics of the Sixties leave him estranged from his oldest daughter.  His beloved wife Thea dies just as they are planning their retirement.  In his final years of life, in a Milwaukee nursing home, Julian is paired with a Polish widower who has experienced loss and suffering even more devastating than his own. Somehow, a friendship evolves – cruelly disrupted by the Covid pandemic.  In the end, approaching his 99th birthday, Julian comes to appreciate that, even now, life is still capable of delivering happy surprises.

Literary Fiction
Historical Fiction
Shana, the Christmas Squirrel

Shana, the Christmas Squirrel

Story

by Michelle Luise

Shana is on a mission to become a famous Christmas squirrel, so she can eat all the hazelnut Christmas cupcakes she desires. But when she discovers she's not actually a squirrel, her dream is in jeopardy. A joyful holiday adventure about identity, belonging, and the magic of embracing who you are meant to be. I love reading the reviews! They mean so much to me!

Fantasy
Literary Fiction
Adventure
Middle Grade
Comedy
The Ballad of Cotton and Grace

The Ballad of Cotton and Grace

Story

by Marco Velos

Sportswriter Bish Weatherly writes the story of Harry "Cotton" Purcell, the most talented ball player who never made the majors, and Grace, the wife who followed him across Prohibition-era America. Spring 1922, Indianapolis. Bish has been in love with Grace since he before he introduced her to Harry years earlier. Now, with Harry at spring training and Grace pregnant and alone in a new city, Bish positions himself as the reliable friend—helping her find housing, buying gifts, being there when Harry isn't. Harry, son of ruined Alabama aristocracy, hits like Babe Ruth but can't control his "surly disposition." Each success fuels his conviction he deserves the major leagues; each setback confirms he's been cheated. As his career spirals through brilliant performances and self-destructive collapses, Bish documents it all on the pages of the newspaper while growing dangerously close to Grace. The crisis comes in Nashville, 1925. Harry is hitting .357 alongside Lou Gehrig. Gehrig goes to the Yankees. Harry doesn't. When Grace—exhausted and desperate—finally offers Bish the love he's claimed to want for years, he discovers things about himself that he didn't want to know. Decades later, Bish lives on, telling himself he did the right thing—until writing the story reveals he was never the man he pretended to be. *The Great Gatsby* meets *Remains of the Day*, set in 1920s minor league baseball.

Historical Fiction
Literary Fiction
America's Town

America's Town

Story

by Ed Quest

**America’s Town**  In the era of Caitlin Clark and the unorthodox style of *Ted Lasso*, an accidental coach leads an under-appreciated girls’ high school basketball team in Gettysburg, America’s most famous small town, through a season no sports parent could ever predict-or forget.  Former Gettysburg College basketball star Jay Siler returns to the scene of his glory days to manage First Colonial Bank’s downtown branch to complete his last rotation as an executive trainee. As Jay’s business star rises, city fathers urge him to become assistant coach of Gettysburg High’s girls’ basketball team. Hesitant at first, Jay takes the job, only to face conflicts with verbally abusive, dim-witted, and unwelcoming head coach, Barry Hughes.  Jay cannot look the other way as he sees Coach Hughes act his worst against Stefani Baker, a promising player ordered to sit in favor of Megan Reynolds, the less-skilled daughter of a local power broker, president of a rival bank. Jay’s older sister was similarly abused; her basketball dreams ended with her suicide. His sympathies lie with Stefani, but he must get her to change her flippant attitude and play to her potential. Jay joins with Bonita Blount, her teammate and best friend, Gettysburg’s most recruited basketball star in a generation, to make Stefani their personal project.  As a promising season goes awry, Coach Hughes’ abusive actions reach a head. Jay takes over and puts Stefani into the starting role she deserves, over the objections of Megan’s father, Stan. As Stan relentlessly attacks Jay’s personal and professional credibility, it’s up to Stefani to rise to the occasion to help Gettysburg win its first state championship. Will Stefani and Jay respond to their challenges, or will the community’s basketball aspirations end in disappointment?

Contemporary
Literary Fiction
Politics
Sparkle

Sparkle

Story

by Arin Lee Kambitsis

"In his latest fantasy, Kambitsis crafts a tale of small-town weirdness that would tickle Stephen King." - Kirkus Reviews Something evil is hidden in the woods outside of the beautiful town of Sparkle, PA, the kind of thing Peter Huffy, newly arrived in town, does not believe in. Little does he know that something is happening in Sparkle, something that hasn’t occurred on Earth since the destruction of Camelot a millennium and a half before, and the forces of good and evil are going to collide. Twelve-year-old Derek Windward is the sole keeper of Sparkle’s oldest secret. He is the only one who has witnessed the evil hiding in the darkest part of the forest, and how terrifying the power it wields truly is. It is the Bunyine - a giant, tormented creature born eight-thousand years ago in the Garden of Eden and harboring an ancient grudge for the betrayal of its masters, whom we call Adam and Eve. One morning, Derek receives a cryptic message carved into a tree. A message from the beast itself. Though what the Bunyine wants is unclear, what it would do to get it is unthinkable. Sparkle brings together the charm and wonder of fantasy and the thrills of horror, creating a unique experience for readers of both genres, and all ages.

Adventure
Drama
Horror
Mystery
Literary Fiction
Fantasy
Before He Got Old

Before He Got Old

Story

by H.B. West

When Sam’s terse hospital text arrives—"I’m still in California. Diagnosed with breast cancer today" ([#](https://wd.autocrit.com/editor/858686#id-fy7d))—the old man slips a whiskey under his coat, buys a one-way ticket, and heads for the rain-washed coasts of the British Isles. He is a man of small rituals: one more fly to tie, one more pub to learn, one more fish to catch. Along the way he collects strangers—Slick behind a bar, a red-haired Tralee traveler in a blue dress ([#](https://wd.autocrit.com/editor/858686#id-ebm9)), a cranky taxi driver who pins a daddy-long-legs fly to his lapel ([#](https://wd.autocrit.com/editor/858686#id-cmtz))—and each encounter loosens a knot he didn’t know he carried. But this is not just a travelogue; it is a reckoning. As storm Lorenzo drives him from the Isle of Man to the Lake District and across Scotland’s Spey ([#](https://wd.autocrit.com/editor/858686#id-pshp), [#](https://wd.autocrit.com/editor/858686#id-gur9), [#](https://wd.autocrit.com/editor/858686#id-jb4j)), the old man measures the steady tick of time against a bucket-list dream: to catch an Atlantic salmon on the fly ([#](https://wd.autocrit.com/editor/858686#id-no5k)). Wry, tender, and quietly fierce, this is a story about why we keep making plans in the face of good sense—and what happens when the future finally insists on being lived

Literary Fiction
Adventure
Food
Memoir
Travel
Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels

Story

by Jonathan Swift

Lemuel Gulliver encounters the tiny inhabitants of Lilliput, the giants of Brobdingnag, and the intellectual but detached residents of Laputa. Through these fantastical journeys, Swift delivers a biting satire on European politics and the flaws of the Enlightenment.

Adventure
Historical Fiction
Travel
Fantasy
Literary Fiction
Les Misérables

Les Misérables

Story

by Victor Hugo

First published in 1862, \\\*Les Misérables\\\* is Victor Hugo's masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. The story follows Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving children. Upon his release, Valjean is a hardened and bitter man, but a transformative encounter with a kind bishop inspires him to dedicate his life to doing good. Under a new identity, Valjean becomes a successful businessman and a beloved mayor, but his past continues to haunt him in the form of Inspector Javert, a man whose rigid devotion to the law makes him Valjean's relentless pursuer. As their lives intertwine with those of the beautiful Fantine, her daughter Cosette, and a group of idealistic young revolutionaries, the novel explores profound themes of justice, mercy, and the enduring power of the human spirit. A sprawling and deeply moving epic that captures the social and political upheavals of its time, \\\*Les Misérables\\\* remains a timeless classic and a powerful testament to the possibility of redemption.

Literary Fiction
Historical Fiction
Drama
Moby Dick

Moby Dick

Story

by Herman Melville

Narrated by the sailor Ishmael, the story follows the Pequod and its captain, Ahab, on a perilous voyage. It is a profound meditation on obsession, fate, and the indomitable power of the natural world.

Literary Fiction
Historical Fiction
Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

Story

by Jane Austen

When the Bennet family's five daughters must marry well to secure their futures, the arrival of the wealthy Mr. Bingley and his even wealthier friend Mr. Darcy sets the neighbourhood abuzz. Elizabeth Bennet, the second eldest and most spirited of the sisters, finds herself at odds with the arrogant Mr. Darcy — yet as misunderstandings unravel and true characters are revealed, both must overcome their pride and prejudice to find happiness. A masterwork of irony and social observation, Pride and Prejudice remains one of the most beloved novels in the English language.

Literary Fiction
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Story

by Mary Shelley

Told through a series of letters and nested narratives, \*Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus\* follows Victor Frankenstein, a young Genevan scientist consumed by the desire to unlock the secret of life itself. After years of obsessive study, he succeeds in animating a creature assembled from the dead — only to be seized by horror at what he has made and abandon it entirely. Cast out and alone, the creature educates himself, yearns for companionship, and ultimately turns to vengeance when his creator refuses to grant him a mate. As Victor pursues the creature across Europe and into the frozen Arctic, both hunter and hunted are destroyed by the same relentless ambition. A profound meditation on creation, responsibility, and the price of forbidden knowledge, this is one of the founding works of Gothic and science fiction literature.

Literary Fiction
Horror
Science Fiction
Unorthodox - An Exorsism Story

Unorthodox - An Exorsism Story

Story

by Judah Ray

INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY! Madison thought she was the only sane one in the house.\ \ Fourteen and isolated in a remote farmhouse ruled by her mother Faith’s rigid devotion, Madison is convinced the madness belongs to the adults around her. Aunt Hope urges patience. Aunt Grace sees demons in everything. Faith stands between doubt and doctrine.\ \ Certain she is being suffocated by religious extremism, Madison secretly launches a livestream channel to expose her mother to the world. The followers grow. The comments validate her. And no one in the house knows they are being broadcast live.\ \ When Grace convinces Faith that Madison’s rebellion is something darker, prayer turns to accusation. Accusation turns to restraint. An exorcism unknowingly unfolds live as viewers watch religious fanaticism spiral out of control.\ \ This may seem like just another story about a rebellious teenager and her controlling mother.  Another story about faith gone too far.\ \ But the footage tells a different story.\ \ UNORTHODOX is a claustrophobic psychological horror about faith, rebellion, and a mother who refuses to abandon her child, even when the world calls her crazy.

Contemporary
Drama
Mystery
Science Fiction
Women's Fiction
New Adult
Middle Grade
Horror
Paranormal
Thriller
Young Adult
Literary Fiction
Eat The Rich

Eat The Rich

Story

by Judah Ray

In 1955, a secret experiment at the Large Hadron Collider tore open a doorway to another realm.\ \ Extradimensional beings came through, possessed the top scientists and military officials in the room, and kept the portal open.\ \ One of the first crossed over and took a human infant as its host. That infant was Christina.\ \ The only issue is that Christina forgot what she was,  and the others could not enter or control her, but she could see them. So they declared her unstable and institutionalized her.\ \ Years later, world leaders, billionaires, media figures, and political dynasties are all possessed. The New World Order is not a conspiracy theory. It is literal possession.\ \ A decade later, Christina escapes and resurfaces in Berlin. The forces that have tracked her since childhood want her reclaimed or eliminated.\ \ With the help of Jory, who has been able to see the entities inside people since surviving a near-death experience as a child, Christina uncovers a power structure that has ruled humanity from within for generations.\ \ When she learns she is one of them, she must choose between her own kind or the man she loves and the humanity she chose to protect.\ \ They have ruled the world from inside us.\ Now one of their own stands against them.

Drama
Contemporary
Mystery
Science Fiction
Adventure
Crime
Dystopian
New Adult
True Crime
Young Adult
Thriller
Paranormal
Horror
Science
Politics
Literary Fiction
History
Travel
Historical Fiction
Action