This dynamic collection of 27 stories offers a wealth of fantastical and horrifying settings. Life after death, digital personalities, alien invasion, and Lovecraftian horror. It includes “Life on the Preservation,” the basis for Skillingstead’s Philip K. Dick nominated novel of the same name. In the title story, a parapolice detective in hot pursuit of a serial killer receives help from a responsive memory module of the killer’s mother, but soon discovers that he might be falling in love with the module. Edgy and surreal, each tale reflects on familiar, emotional issues and complex relationships from new and imaginative angles.

Experience the power of masterful storytelling with "Pandemic Love and Other Stories". This compelling book invites you to step into the vividly drawn world of four short stories, each depicting people facing crises in their lives. Gaurav tries to save the life of his friend in "Pandemic Love". Nirav is haunted by separation from daughter, who has been taken away by his estranged wife. In "Voices", a surgeon struggles with a debilitating condition and must choose between her work and risking her patients' lives. "His Secret" explores the painful reality of a mother grappling with her son's hidden struggles. "M4M Seeking LTR" follows a middle-aged gay man who has spent his entire life seeking a long-term relationship, now facing old age and mortality. Meanwhile, in "The Curse of the Astral Body", Ramya's family falls apart as she seeks to escape strange coincidences and vicissitudes, wavering between faith healing and psychiatric help. Through the captivating storytelling of these unforgettable characters, you will be transported into their world, grappling with the complexities of love, loss, and the passage of time. With a writing style that is at once spare and lyrical, the author conveys deep emotion with just a few well-chosen words, leaving a lasting impression on the reader. https://www.ananyaseo.com/pandemic-love-and-other-stories/

​What does it mean to be human in a universe of shifting, sometimes terrifying realities? Eighteen stories from Jack Skillingstead’s second decade of publishing feature intense and surprising explorations of who we are, who we wish to be, and who we can’t be. In “The Whole Mess” a genius math professor solves a multiverse equation only to find himself pursued by ancient Masters across the many iterations of his could-have-been lives. “Straconia” gives us a Kafkaesque world where all the lost things go, including people who must first find themselves before they can find a way back home. “Tribute” looks at a post-NASA space race that goes nowhere—until an unlikely pair of marooned astronauts find each other and the future. ​Also included in this collection is “The Writing Life,” a self-reflection on memory, ambition, and imagination in the formation of one writer’s journey.

Sara, the American wife of a French aristocrat, has had two encounters with her compatriot Cedric Killian, one a youthful idyll in North Carolina and the other during the First World War, when he was a soldier about to go to battle. When, years later and after the death of her husband, Cedric contacts her out of the blue, Sara finds herself eager to see him again - against the wishes of her in-laws - and to find out the secret of this man she loves yet knows so little about. A poignant tale of thwarted love, 'The Intimate Strangers' explores many of Fitzgerald's favourite themes, such as the constraints of social pressure on romance and the American fascination for Old Europe. This volume also includes other lesser-known stories he wrote from the mid-1930s until the end of his life, revealing new facets to the author of The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night.

In these six exciting stories, Branwell, the Bronte boy who ruled an imaginary childhood world, has failed as poet and painter and slips down the road of drink and despair; passionate Alice, searching for a man she can love as she once loved her father, ignores the desperate struggle of her daughter Maudie to make a life of her own; idealistic Mr Berry, trapped in a dead-end job in a failing boys' school, discovers the secret of an illiterate 11-year old, and is forced to re-examine his own life; John Poulson, corrupt Yorkshire architect imprisoned for bribing his way to success, determines to write a book to clear his name and identify the guilty men; simple-minded Mel recalls his best pal Adrian, killed in an accident, but fails to grasp the relationship between Adrian and his own wife Beatrice; and 50 years ago in Dallas, John F Kennedy narrowly escapes an assassin's bullet - and goes on to change the course of history.

The novel "A Widow's Tale" was written by means of Margaret Oliphant below the name Mrs. Oliphant, who become a success Scottish author inside the 1800s. The tale is ready the main man or woman, Mrs. Catherine Vernon, who reveals herself dealing with the difficulties of being a widow. Catherine has currently lost her husband and now has to address social expectations and financial problems even as additionally coping with her grief. The book takes location in Victorian instances and looks at how tough it is to be a widow in a society that often limited girls's roles and alternatives. Mrs. Oliphant effectively weaves a story that delves into the social and emotional elements of being a widow. She gives readers a transferring and insightful take a look at one woman's adventure thru loss and adjustment. Catherine modifications as she deals along with her new fact, and the unusual gives us a hazard to observe resilience and personal growth in an extra complex way. Mrs. Oliphant's memories are regarded for the way sensitively they show how human beings feel and the way well they display how things had been in society on the time. "A Widow's Tale" is an outstanding instance of Mrs. Oliphant's writing competencies; it indicates what it become want to be a widow in Victorian England with expertise and story-telling talent.

Martin Greenfield, the middle-aged professor in “A Teacher of the Holocaust,” enters into a romantic relationship with Rachel Klein, a therapist with children and a Holocaust survivor. Gradually, Greenfield confronts the unhealed wounds of the survivor and—more disturbing—the limits of his own compassion. In another story, Michael Arnold, returning to Jewish observance after an aimless life, fills his days with acts of loving kindness, and then makes a decision that costs him the wife he loves. Indifference to human suffering, guilt and repentance, the loss of a son in war and its impact on family, the failed attempt to repair broken intimacy—these are some of the themes that receive moving expression in this collection of stories. Teichman’s characters feel the pull of Jewish values. They have good intentions and want to lead good lives but, like many of us, often lack the inner strength to become their best selves. “Milton Teichman speaks to us as a modern day Bernard Malamud. . . . In these stories,Teichman raises issues of shame, fear, love, failure and courage, and the deep personal challenges that lead to understanding and growth. . . . A Teacher of the Holocaust is a thinking person’s page turner.” --Kathleen Spivack, author of With Robert Lowell and His Circle and Unspeakable Things.

Fairy tales. Prince Charming fights evil, wins the princess, lives happily ever after. Three sons, three wishes, witches, dragons, a quest, and happily ever after. These stories are part of our cultural fabric. The stories change in retellings to reflect contemporary culture, such as Princess Charming, or heroes and heroines as people of color. In this collection, queer characters take center stage in stories that grew out of questions: What if the prince falls in love with Cinderella's gay stepbrother? What if Rumpelstiltskin doesn't really want the Queen's child but rather the King himself? What if Beauty and the Beast are two men? These stories explore metaphors of magic and the magical, this time, with a gay perspective. What price must be paid for happily ever after? Duty or love? Is love worth great sacrifice? Once upon a time ...

Writing in a new and different mode, John Hersey, who has enriched us with such memorable novels as A Bell for Adanoand The Wall, now gives us his first collection of short stories. A superb and witty storyteller, he invents a variety of voices… A boy remembers his childhood summer on the North China sea and the typhoon that punished the fire-and-brimstone preacher for the sin of pride. A scullery maid tells of the time she took her master’s prize catch with her on a blind date. An apprentice on a lobster trawler is an uncomfortable witness to the humiliation of his captain—known to be the best lobstering skipper out of either Menemsha or New Bedford… In the title story, Venus, an insouciant septuagenarian, recaptures in a dazzling tone-perfect recitation the world of the rich and spoiled Lost Generation as she and her “Michelangelic” husband are adventuring in Willa Cather land and indulge in what turns out to be their last fling… In these beautifully crafted stories Hersey proves himself to be a master of the form, and his eleven tales will delight all who love a good short story.

This carefully selected collection of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer s short stories are characterised by a variety in theme and tone. He has enshrined in them every kind of experience from the pangs of hunger and sex to the rapture of mystic vision. Its range includes stark realistic pictures of the material world as well as the realm of fantasy haunted by ghosts and spirits. Basheer has written on love and hate, on politicians and pickpockets, on the fancies of childhood and on the disillusionments of adult life with an intense sense of the tragedy of life and at the same time an irrepressible sense of humour.