American English Fiction

Wanted: Midwife/nurse practitioner in Virgin River, population 600. Make a difference against a backdrop of towering California redwoods and crystal clear rivers. Rent-free cabin included. When the recently widowed Melinda Monroe sees this ad, she quickly decides that the remote mountain town of Virgin River might be the perfect place to escape her heartache and to reenergize the nursing career she loves. But her high hopes are dashed within an hour of arriving - the cabin is a dump, the roads are treacherous, and the local doctor wants nothing to do with her.

Join Garth McFarlane, the ex-therapist turned dungeon-crawling team captain, as he wrangles his mismatched squad of lethal, flirtatious, and utterly chaotic teammates. From Frost Troll battles to goblin claps echoing through the crypts, the Phoenixes must outwit their rivals in a league where victory isn't just about tactics—it's about surviving complicated relationship dynamics, snarky reporters, and the occasional embarrassingly timed skill activation.

Garth had been the favorite for the number-one draft pick in the next season of the USA's top sport. His college career was supposed to end on a high note… but it didn't. Sabotaged in his final game, he found himself shut out of the Dungeon League of America, forced to retire his jersey in shame. With no other options, he leaned on his university degree and became a licensed psychiatrist and therapist. That should have been the end of his dungeon-crawling days. But then, a new dungeon appeared in his city.

With great originality and wit, Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to the nature of Socialism, from a comic yet profound discussion of naughty seaside postcards to a spirited defense of English cooking. Displaying an almost unrivalled mastery of English plain prose, Orwell’s essays created a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and continue to challenge, move, and entertain.

Weaving a vibrant tapestry of fact and fiction, Into the Wilderness sweeps us into another time and place...and into the heart of a forbidden, incandescent affair between a spinster Englishwoman and an American frontiersman. Here is an epic of romance and history that will captivate readers from the start.

As the Socialist Party battles Coolidge to retain the presidency in 1924, it seems as if it can do no wrong. The stock market soars, and the USA prospers. Although victors in the War of Secession, the CSA still reels from its loss of the Great War while the Freedom Party promises new vigor and pride. But should these gray-shirted fascists seize power, they may prove dangerous. Sharing world supremacy with Germany and bloated with prosperity, the USA fails to notice ominous events inside the weakened CSA.

American heiress Sophia Wilson leaves Old New York for a Season in London. Her goal: to marry into the English aristocracy and help improve her family's social standing in America. Sophia knows her marriage will be a business transaction - her father will provide a generous financial settlement in exchange for a title - but secretly, what she desires most of all is to marry for love.

Claudia Rankine's bold new audiobook recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in 21st-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV - everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive.

Once, the name Macalister Hale was uttered in the boardroom with respect. Now, it’s whispered in disgrace at cocktail parties hosted by Boston’s elite. Scandal nearly destroyed me, but the one thing larger than my infamy is my bank account, and I’ve learned money can solve anything. Well - almost anything.

The four Grace sisters love their quiet life in the country village of Chevis Green. To some, their insular world might seem dull, but the sisters never seem to run out of conversation, jokes, and pleasant ways to pass the time together. They truly are the happiest of families. That is, until Aunt Rona comes to town. Rona intends to stay with the Graces indefinitely, and her meddlesome attitude immediately sets the sisters' teeth on edge. Throw in another unexpected houseguest, some potential suitors and a case of mistaken intentions, and the members of the Grace family suddenly find themselves quite out of their element.

Faced with an overwhelming infestation of living dead on the US mainland, the US Pacific Fleet manages a strategic withdrawal of civilians and supplies. Aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, Dr. Henry Damico advises the remnants of the civilian government and military leadership on how to survive in a world overrun with zombies.

On the eve of her wedding to Nicholas Young, heir to one of the greatest fortunes in Asia, Rachel should be over the moon. She has a flawless Asscher-cut diamond from JAR, a wedding dress she loves more than anything found in the salons of Paris, and a fiancé willing to sacrifice his entire inheritance in order to marry her. But Rachel still mourns the fact that her birthfather, a man she never knew, won't be able to walk her down the aisle.

“There have never been as many exquisitely built stories in existence than there are now,” proclaims guest editor Lauren Groff in her introduction. This abundance led to a volume of robust stories with the nerve to push against narrative expectations. The Best American Short Stories 2024 boasts a collection of twenty stories that “buzz with their own strange logic.” Daring and resonant, the stories in this volume invite in Groff “a feeling that both the author and I were simultaneously discovering something together.”

"Brother, you have often declared that you would not end your days in slavery. I see no possible way in which you can escape with us; and now, brother, you are on a steamboat where there is some chance for you to escape to a land of liberty. I beseech you not to let us hinder you. If we cannot get our liberty, we do not wish to be the means of keeping you from a land of freedom."

A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer and series editor Heidi Pitlor.

White Rabbit, an Ojibwe Native American, helplessly watches as her village begins to suffer from a deadly winter disease. When her brother Running Wolf falls ill, she plans to bring back more healing herbs from a neighboring village. When White Rabbit races through the snow, she ends up leaving behind a new flower that appears in the spring.

In this story from the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest, you’ll learn how the trickster raven brings light back to the world from a greedy chief.

Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans - though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the "Transition". Now, eating human meat - "special meat" - is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.

“Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos.

The third book in the bestselling American Royals series is here, and a meeting of monarchs will test everyone's loyalty to the crown…and their own hearts. Beatrice is queen, and for the American royal family, everything is about to change.