Novellas

Jake Talbot focused on the darkness for six years, but now, he’s trying his best to focus on the light. He’s finally cleaning out his mother’s house getting it ready to sell, when he finds an old pair of trousers in the corner of his bedroom. It’s the pair of pants he wore at his mother’s funeral, and in the pocket he finds a folded slip of a paper with an address. An address of a girl he hasn’t thought about in six years. Now, he can’t stop thinking about her. So he sits down to write her a letter. Please Be Mine is a story of healing and reconciliation between two former friends who find one another after years apart. Between personal tragedies, heartbreaks, cross country moves, and battling mental illness, these two marching band nerds are reacquainted with joy…and possibly something more. But while sharing your heart in a letter can seem easy, moving it off the page is a completely different story.

Two good neighbors make the best of a bad Valentine’s Day in a funny and improbably romantic short story by the \#1 New York Times bestselling author of Just for the Summer. It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and Charlotte and Seth are not looking for romance. Armed with emotional\-support bear spray, Charlotte is in self\-imposed isolation and on guard from men. Having a stalker can do that to a person’s nerves. Just across the hall and giving off woodsy vibes is Seth, a recently divorced arborist. As in today recently. Heights, he’s fine with. Trust? Not so much. But when disaster traps them one flight up and no way down, an outrageously precarious predicament forces a tree\-loving guy and a rattled girl next door to embrace their captivity. Soon their defenses are breaking away. Considering how close they both are to the edge, Charlotte and Seth could be in danger of falling—in love.

The repercussions of an illicit affair unfold in this short story by bestselling author Taylor Jenkins Reid. Dear stranger… A desperate young woman in Southern California sits down to write a letter to a man she’s never met—a choice that will forever change both their lives. My heart goes out to you, David. Even though I do not know you… The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here. Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.

It’s Christmas Eve and Stella Hansen is broke. She is so broke that despite working two jobs, she can’t even afford a present for her husband on their first Christmas as man and wife. But then a mysterious storekeeper at a pawn shop offers Stella an intriguing trade. Stella wants more than anything to buy her husband the Christmas gift of his dreams. But will it come at a terrible price?