Short Marriage

What causes a happily married Christian husband to commit adultery? How can the betrayed wife continue to honor her husband after the betrayal? What does a couple do when the other woman doesn't accept that the affair is over?

Deeply humane, in turn wry and humorous, the stories in this collection haunt readers with their searing honesty.Lalitha, abused by her own mother, learns that bullies carry emotional traumas that scar everyone’s lives.Shiva Das confronts the truth of his own culpability when his adult special...

A virtuosic, laugh-out-loud collection of stories that explore the fraught and fantastic nature of human connection—featuring women, men, various couples, and one terribly precocious baby enmeshed in tangled romances of all shapes and sizes. The wide-ranging and inventive stories that make up...

'Vivid, memorable and beautifully crafted’ - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater 'A brilliant collection, from a remarkable talent' - Joseph O'Connor, author of Shadowplay Hearts and Bones is a book about relationships. It explores what love does to us, and how we survive it. A young woman...

What do you do when you want a love marriage but your parents want to arrange your marriage? Do you go with your heart or do your parents really know best? Find out in... The Arranged Marriage.

A New York Times Notable Book of 2019 selection, a New York Times Editors’ Choice book, and longlisted for the Story Prize—from the bestselling, highly acclaimed National Book Award nominee, She Was Like That is a “piercing, intimate, and exquisite” (Publishers Weekly) collection of new...

In “The Pleasure of Her Company,” a lonely, single woman befriends the married couple next door, hoping to learn the secret of their happiness. In "Long Distance," a man finds himself relieved of the obligation to continue an affair that is no longer compelling to him, only to be waylaid by the guilt he feels at his easy escape. And in the incandescently wise and moving title novella, a dentist, aware that his wife has fallen in love with someone else, must comfort her when she is spurned....

In Kenya, when a young American man falls in love with the sophisticated daughter of an African chief, their marriage is strong. But tradition will soon put their union to the supreme test. Gripping and soulful, A Woman's Worth is a tale of cultural divisions, emotional wounds, and a love that struggles to transcend them.

It’s summertime in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ian has lost his job, while his wife, Parker, thrives in her e-commerce career. Parker’s days are frenetic and full. When she’s not in Zoom meetings, she’s doom-scrolling about the virus or hanging out on Houseparty with her friends. Meanwhile, Ian claims to spend his days looking for a full-time job, but he’s mostly goofing around on Tik Tok and taking their dog, Hutch, for longer-than-necessary walks. What he really wants is to start a family, but Parker still isn’t ready.

This selection of stories relates the many experiences and complexities of womanhood; sometimes joyful, sometimes sad but always enriching. With stories by Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield and Elizabeth Gaskell - it includes 'Ladies in Lavender' by William J. Locke, the inspiration for the film of the same name starring Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.

Things aren't what they seem.... As an old man still searches for.... The perfect woman. By the author of "The Killing of Train-Man Brown", "Send Me a Friend", and "And Then Her Wig Fell Off".

This is about the oldest story in the book. A partner betrays his significant other for their closest and most treasured friend by having an affair. The only way to tell this story is to go back to the beginning, to the start of the friendship, the boundaries that were slowly blurred and then crossed, which then resulted in the ultimate betrayal: an affair. The journey to that point starts with friendship, love, and loyalty and ends with a pain that can be described only as a cold, calculated, and direct stab to the heart from both betrayers.

The ceremony itself is just two words: "I do". But lots more has been written about the anticipation, the event, and the aftermath, and The Voices of Marriage gathers the best poems ever written on this most extraordinary moment, at once the most private and the most public, in a person's life. From Shakespeare to our own day, here are poets whose lines sparkle with wit, or hush with mystery.

At thirty-five, independent, tenacious Texan Leah is happy with life as a successful weight-loss expert, but something is missing: her romantic side can’t help dreaming about the perfect wedding. The problem is, she’s missing the two main ingredients: a groom, and a father to walk her down the aisle.

Colum McCann's Everything in This Country Must, a writer of fierce originality and haunting lyricism, turns to the troubles in Northern Ireland and reveals the reverberations of political tragedy in the most intimate lives of men and women, parents and children. In the title story, a teenage...

When your cousin tells you he's gonna teach you about life...Get out of the truck and run as fast as you can. No, it's not what you think. But it's still pretty bad.

When did “parenting” become a verb? Why is it so hard to parent, and so rife with the possibility of failure? Sitcom families of the past—the Cleavers, the Bradys, the Conners—didn’t seem to lose any sleep about their parenting methods. Today, parents are likely to be up late, doomscrolling on parenting websites. In Long Days, Short Years, Andrew Bomback—physician, writer, and father of three young children—looks at why it can be so much fun to be a parent but, at the same time, so frustrating and difficult to parent.

After Phoenix discovers that all of her friends are either engaged or already married, she’s convinced that love is in the air for everyone except her. Cupid’s bow and arrow skip over Phoenix by happenstance as she struggles to accept her chances of walking down the aisle next to the love of her life are officially screwed, no thanks to her best friend Xay and ex-boyfriend Asher, who is keeping a few secrets of his own.

The true story. Within Manhattan’s oldest families, where money marries money and pedigrees have nothing to do with dogs, rebellious children are reeled in with arranged marriages under threat of disinheritance. But what if an arranged marriage brings you the man of your dreams and the girl you’ve always wanted?

"We must all hang together," Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said to his revolutionary peers, "or we will assuredly all hang separately." This is a sentiment that's even more appropriate, and more urgent, when you're lost between the stars in a crippled and out-of-control ship, your...