Book picks similar to
Gateway to Paradise: Stories by Matthew Vollmer
short-stories
fiction
southern-us
adult-lit
Flashes of War
Katey Schultz - 2013
soldier and pragmatic jihadist, Afghan mother and listless American sister, courageous amputee and a ghost that cannot let go—appear in Flashes of War, which captures personal moments of fear, introspection, confusion, and valor in one collection spanning nations and perspectives. Written in clear, accessible language with startling metaphors, this unforgettable journey leaves aside judgment, bringing us closer to a broader understanding of war by focusing on individuals, their motivations, and their impossible decisions.
A Cathedral of Myth and Bone
Kat Howard - 2019
A desperate young woman makes a prayer to the Saint of Sidewalks, but the miracle she receives isn’t what she expected. A painter spies a naked man, crouched by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, transform into a beautiful white bird and decides to paint him, and becomes involved in his curse. Jeanne, a duelist and a sacred blade for God and Her holy saints, finds that the price of truth is always blood. And in the novella “Once, Future” Howard reimagines the Arthurian romance on a modern college campus as a story that is told, and told again, until the ending is right.
The Man Who Found Out
Algernon Blackwood - 2009
Laidlaw knew him in his laboratory, was one man; but Mark Ebor, as he sometimes saw him after work was over, with rapt eyes and ecstatic face, discussing the possibilities of "union with God" and the future of the human race, was quite another. "I have always held, as you know," he was saying one evening as he sat in the little study beyond the laboratory with his assistant and intimate, "that Vision should play a large part in the life of the awakened man-not to be regarded as infallible, of course, but to be observed and made use of as a guide-post to possibilities-" "I am aware of your peculiar views, sir," the young doctor put in deferentially, yet with a certain impatience.
The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake
Breece D'J Pancake - 1983
In 1983 Little, Brown and Company's posthumous publication of this book electrified the literary world with a force that still resounds across two decades. A collection of stories that depict the world of Pancake's native rural West Virginia with astonishing power and grace, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake has remained continuously in print and is a perennial favorite among aspiring writers, participants in creative writing programs, and students of contemporary American fiction. "Trilobites", the first of Pancake's stories to be published in The Atlantic, elicited an extraordinary immediate response from readers and continues to be widely anthologized.
Santa's Claws
M.J. Ware - 2012
Recipe for death – Sam learns an important lesson about ticking off the lunch lady.Monitor Mayhem – There's something strange about the new baby monitor, but will Stephanie figure it out before it's too late?Free Five Chapter Extended Preview of Super Zombie Juice Mega Bomb:When life gives you lemons, kill zombies—turns out lemon juice neutralizes the undead. Best friends Nathan & Misty return home to discover the military has destroyed the bridges out of their rural town & everyone's fled—except a small horde of zombies.Even with the help of the town geek, they'll need more then lemonade-powered Super-Soakers; they'll need the Super Zombie Juice Mega Bomb. These stories are not recommended for kids under 8.
Sparks Fly
Nicole Falls - 2017
A simple touch sending currents of electricity flowing through a body. The feeling of coming home. Friends become lovers. Strangers become soulmates. The chemistry ignited when two people are falling in love is undeniable. Over the course of five short stories, follow these couples on journeys of passion and discover what happens when they decide to let sparks fly…
The Mansion: A Jack Nightingale Short Story
Stephen Leather - 2017
But he discovers that there is more than a ghost causing mayhem. The Mansion is a fast-paced supernatural story about 10,000 words long.
Christmas Tales with the Schwartz Sisters
Hannah Schrock - 2018
Katie, Elizabeth and Hannah Schwartz are three sisters that love their Amish lives, but one by one they are tempted by the outside world and love. When their mother died Katie, the eldest, took it upon herself to take care of her sisters and her father. At the age of twenty-six Katie yearns to love and to have a family of her own but she isn’t sure her sisters will manage without her. In a twist of events, Elizabeth and Hannah plan a trick to prove to Katie that they can. Will Katie find love this Christmas after all? Elizabeth had always enjoyed the company of her bible but when the Bishop’s wife is in a brutal buggy accident, she offers to find their son. Jacob and Elizabeth had been friends before he left the ordnung, when Elizabeth finds him and takes him to see his mother, she can’t help but wonder if they will ever be friends again. Will the bishop’s wife recover, will Jacob revisit his decision to leave the ordnung? Hannah had always been the curious one, younger than Katie by almost ten years, she is excited to go on rumspringa. When Hannah disappears without a word, Elizabeth and Katie are grief-stricken. But what they don’t realize is that Hannah had returned and was hiding out in their barn with the help of their farmhand Paul. What happened to make Hannah hide from her family? Can Hannah reunite with her family in time to enjoy an Amish Christmas?
Dawn: Stories
Selahattin Demirtaş - 2017
A cleaning lady is caught up in a violent demonstration on her way to work. A five-year-old girl attempts to escape war-torn Syria with her mother by boat. A suicide bombing shatters a neighborhood in Aleppo. And in the powerful story, 'Seher', a young factory worker is robbed of her dreams in an unimaginable act of violence.Written with Demirtaş’s signature wit, warmth, and humor, and alive with the rhythms of everyday speech, DAWN paints a remarkable portrait of life behind the headlines in Turkey and the Middle East – in all its hardship and adversity, freedom and hope.
A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You: Stories
Amy Bloom - 2000
Amy Bloom writes great short stories. Her first collection, Come to Me, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and here she deepens and extends her mastery of the form.Real people inhabit these pages, the people we know and are, the people we long to be and are afraid to be: a mother and her brave, smart little girl, each coming to terms with the looming knowledge that the little girl will become a man; a wildly unreliable narrator bent on convincing us that her stories are not harmless; a woman with breast cancer, a frightened husband, and a best friend, all discovering that their lifelong triangle is not what they imagined; a man and his stepmother engaged in a complicated dance of memory, anger, and forgiveness. Amy Bloom takes us straight to the center of these lives with rare generosity and sublime wit, in flawless prose that is by turns sensuous, spare, heartbreaking, and laugh-out-loud funny.These are transcendent stories: about the uncertain gestures of love, about the betrayals and gifts of the body, about the surprises and bounties of the heart, and about what comes to us unbidden and what we choose.A blind mand can see how much I love you --Rowing to Eden --Lionel and Julia (Night vision, Light into dark) --Stars at elbow and foot --Hold tight --The gates are closing --The story
A Different Bed Every Time
Jac Jemc - 2014
Children invent a nursery rhyme to make sense of their fate. A band of girls rot from the outside in. These characters stumble through joy and murder and confusion, only to survive and wait for the next catastrophe to arrive. Moments so brief and disturbing you can't afford to look away. Jac Jemc's affecting stories mine the territory between what is real and the stories we tell to create understanding.
Tales of Falling and Flying
Ben Loory - 2017
I devoured this book in one sitting." --Ransom Riggs, author of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children A dazzling new collection of stories from the critically acclaimed author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for The DayBen Loory returns with a second collection of timeless tales, inviting us to enter his worlds of whimsical fantasy, deep empathy, and playful humor, in the signature voice that drew readers to his highly praised first collection. In stories that eschew literary realism, Loory's characters demonstrate richly imagined and surprising perspectives, whether they be dragons or swordsmen, star-crossed lovers or long-lost twins, restaurateurs dreaming of Paris or cephalopods fixated on space travel. In propulsive language that brilliantly showcases Loory's vast imagination, Tales of Falling and Flying expands our understanding of how fiction can work and is sure to cement his reputation as one of the most innovative short-story writers working today.Praise for Ben Loory's Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day "This guy can write!" --Ray Bradbury"[A] wild, dreamy debut . . . These stories are full of wit, humor, and heart." --The Boston Globe
Amish Romance: Tessa's Baby (Tessa's Story Book 2)
Brenda Maxfield - 2018
She had to do it-she could no longer live with herself. But how is she going to explain the sudden appearance of a baby in Hollybrook? How will she answer the probing questions sure to come? Tessa is tired of lies. Tired of deception. But her mother refuses to destroy their chance for a new life, a new beginning. So, the sham continues. When Tessa's affection for Levi Riehl grows into something unexpected, she knows it will never work. She struggles to stifle their growing love, but Levi isn't so easily deterred. But how can Tessa hold any hope for a relationship when she can't reveal the truth? And even worse, how can she hold any hope for peace or a normal life when she can't forgive herself? "In the tradition of the works of Beverly Lewis, Cindy Woodsmall, and Wanda Brunstetter, Brenda Maxfield continues to bring you gripping Amish tales of love, struggle, and restoration." Enjoy this inspirational Christian romance today!
Amish Neighbors: Stories From The Heart Collection
Tattie Maggard - 2019
10 Stories of Love, Faith, and Family "Like Amish soup for the soul."From the author of the bestselling Amish romance series Forbidden Amish Love comes Amish Neighbors, a short story romance collection from the heart.Ten stories under one cover.
Family Furnishings
Alice Munro - 2011
Subtly honed with her hallmark precision, grace, and compassion, these stories illuminate the quotidian yet extraordinary particularity in the lives of men and women, parents and children, friends and lovers as they discover sex, fall in love, part, quarrel, suffer defeat, set off into the unknown, or find a way to be in the world.Peopled with characters as real to us as we are to ourselves, Munro’s stories encompass the fullness of human experience—from the wild exhilaration of first love, in “Passion,” to the lengths a once-straying husband will go to make his wife happy as her memory fades, in “The Bear Came Over the Mountain.” Other stories suggest the punishing consequences of leaving home (“Runaway”) or leaving a marriage (“The Children Stay”). The part romantic love plays in one’s existence is explored in “Too Much Happiness,” based on the life of the noted nineteenth-century mathematician, Sophia Kovalevsky. And in stories that Munro has described as “closer to the truth than usual”—“Dear Life,” “Working for a Living,” and “Home” among them—we glimpse the author’s own life.As the Nobel Prize presentation speech says in part: “Reading one of Alice Munro’s texts is like watching a cat walk across a laid dinner table. A brief short story can often cover decades, summarizing a life, as she moves deftly between different periods. No wonder Alice Munro is often able to say more in thirty pages than an ordinary novelist is capable of in three hundred. She is a virtuoso of the elliptical and the master of the contemporary short story.”