American English Fiction

At once fiercely immediate and complex in their implications, “The Shawl” and “Rosa” succeed in imagining the unimaginable: the horror of the Holocaust and the emptiness of its aftermath. They were written in 1977 but were first published in the early 1980s in The New Yorker. Both “The Shawl” and “Rosa” won first prize in the O. Henry Prize Stories and were chosen for Best American Short Stories.

From the author of The Christmas Hirelings comes this Audible Exclusive production of Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s classic sensation novel Lady Audley’s Secret. English actress Olivia Poulet gives an assured and captivating narration; a cornerstone of the genre and a scandal at the time of its publication, Lady Audley’s Secret is an entertaining and shocking tale of high drama and shifting perceptions.

India, 1986: Mukta, a 10-year-old village girl from the lower-caste Yellama cult, has come of age and must fulfill her destiny of becoming a temple prostitute, as her mother and grandmother did before her. In an attempt to escape her fate, Mukta is sent to be a house girl for an upper-middle class family in Mumbai. There she discovers a friend in the daughter of the family, high-spirited eight-year-old Tara, who helps her recover from the wounds of her past.

It is the late summer of 1814, and Hannah Bonner and her half brother Luke have spent more than a year searching the islands of the Caribbean for Luke's wife and the man who abducted her. But Jennet's rescue, so long in coming, is not the resolution they'd hoped for. In the spring she had given birth to Luke's son, and in the summer Jennet had found herself compelled to surrender the infant to a stranger in the hope of keeping him safe.

As the Russian contingent and government tyrants begin to lose power, they turn to bioweapons in their fight against the resistance. Infected mosquitos carrying a modified strain of Malaria are released into the rural water supplies and the results are devastating. Battling a growing Russian military presence along with displaced gang members, the patriots now must suffer the ravages of this ancient disease. Can they survive and more importantly, can they win?

In a hood loaded with sex, brutality, and crime, three friends are at a turning point. They can surrender to the streets - and the murderous men who rule there - or walk a totally different path. But nothing is simple for women addicted to life on the edge. And everything has consequences.... Angel, Jaz, and Kyra are all leading double lives, torn between working hard to leave the ghetto behind and being dragged back in by the lying, pimping, drug-dealing men they can't seem to let go.

Identity thief Lauren Kelly thought she was safe. The millions she stole from her double-crossing accomplice and ex-lover Matt Connors bought a quiet upscale life for her; her unsuspecting new husband, Drake; and their precious baby. But betrayal was just the beginning. When both Drake and the baby go missing, it's courtesy of a vengeful Matt. Lauren has less than 24 hours to give him back the money. She's prepared for any payback - but nothing can keep this exchange from going all-the-way wrong.

Southern China, 1923. Desperate to secure her future, Mei Ling’s parents arrange a marriage to a widower in California. To enter the country, she must pretend to be her husband’s first wife - a paper wife. On the perilous voyage, Mei Ling takes an orphan girl named Siew under her wing. Dreams of a better life in America give Mei Ling the strength to endure the treacherous journey and detainment on Angel Island. But when she finally reaches San Francisco, she’s met with a surprise. Her husband, Chinn Kai Li, is a houseboy, not the successful merchant he led her to believe.

It's 1969 and Palm Springs socialite Maxine Simmons is planning a Thanksgiving feast to rival Nixon's stealthy maneuvers in the White House and Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon. With a catered menu to die for and a dining room that looks like it's been ripped from the glossy pages of a magazine, her entrance to high society is all but assured. Then comes the humiliation of being dumped by her husband of 17 years. Banished to Arizona, the disgraced Maxine languishes in exile. But then she suddenly gets an idea of how she can win it all back.

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.

"Apeirogon", n.m. : figure géométrique au nombre infini de côtés. Rami Elhanan est israélien, fils d'un rescapé de la Shoah, ancien soldat de la guerre du Kippour ; Bassam Aramin est palestinien, et n'a connu que la dépossession, la prison et les humiliations. Tous deux ont perdu une fille. Abir avait dix ans, Smadar, treize ans.

The battlefield was soaked in blood. Screams of injured soldiers rang through the air. Eleven-year-old Nathaniel Knox knelt behind a rock, his gun clutched in his shaking hands. Nate had been heading to New York City to find his father. But now he was trapped in a terrible gunfight between American and British troops. This Revolutionary War had started as a thrilling fight for freedom. The 13 American colonies were breaking apart from England, away from King George III.

Winifred has lived in the apartment above the cemetery office with her father, who works in the crematorium, all her life, close to her mother's grave. With her sixteenth birthday only days away, Winifred has settled into a lazy summer schedule, lugging her obese Chihuahua around the grounds in a squeaky red wagon to visit the neglected gravesides and nursing a serious crush on her best friend, Jack.

The time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike. His weapons are human courage, unblinking understanding of human weaknesses, and total willingness to exploit every opportunity to enlarge his power and corrupt or destroy anyone who stands in his path.

She was hell-bent on making her father disown her. Her rebellious attitude and the color that marred her snowflake skin was proof of that, so I used that knowledge to my benefit. I promised her hate and blood. Instead, she got my heart and a weak man on his knees in front of her. She was never supposed to be my bride. She was the daughter of a rival family, not even of Italian descent. She was from a different culture. Sasha Nikolayev was my vice. I was an addict for her. I would have said and done anything to chain her to me—so that’s what I did.

“Without stories, we cannot live well,” shares guest editor Min Jin Lee, describing how storytelling affects and nurtures readers. The Best American Short Stories 2023 features twenty pieces of short fiction that reflect a world full of fractured relationships, but also wondrous hope. A lifelong friendship may become a casualty of the Russia-Ukraine war. Rejected by his lover, a man seeks to reconcile with his family. Twitter users miraculously muster enough empathy to help a lost cat find a forever home.

Carson Bradley is the CEO of Bradley Pharmaceutical Corporation, a powerful and influential multi-billion dollar drug empire. His wealth spans beyond anyone's imagination, but is useless to his lonely soul, which has been dormant since the death of his first love to cancer. Every day he strives for the sake of his research because he's determined to eradicate that vile disease forever. Lillian Ly is a young, humble medical student whose compassion for people is boundless.

Among the autobiographies of great military figures, Ulysses S. Grant’s is certainly one of the finest, and it is arguably the most notable literary achievement of any American president: a lucid, compelling, and brutally honest chronicle of triumph and failure. From his frontier boyhood, to his heroics in battle, to the grinding poverty from which the Civil War ironically rescued him, these memoirs are a mesmerizing, deeply moving account of a brilliant man told with great courage.

What if the last man in the world she could be prevailed upon to marry...is her husband? In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet tells the proud Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy that she wouldn't marry him if he were the last man in the world. But what if she never said the words? What if circumstances conspired to make her accept Darcy the first time he proposes?

Theirs is a fight to right the wrongs inflicted on them by "the white settlers." They know they are too small to take on the entire country, but they don't need to. Over a few tension-filled days as the battles rages over abundant energy resources, the frantic prime minister can only watch as the insurrection paralyzes the country. But when energy-dependent Americans discover the southward flow of Canadian hydroelectricity, oil, and natural gas is halted, they do not remain passive.