Southern Short Fiction

What do a runaway bride, a free spirit, and a corporate exec have in common? Besides all being down on their luck, Lainie, Jodi, and Becky are Lizzie Cornell's granddaughters. Upon inheriting their grandmother's home and family bait shop, the three cousins return to Catfish, Texas, grieving Lizzie's passing and hoping to find the fresh start they all need.

In Kenan's fictional territory of Tims Creek, North Carolina, an old man rages in his nursing home, a parson beats up an adulterer, a rich man is haunted by a hog, and an elderly woman turns unwitting miracle worker. A retired plumber travels to Manhattan, where Billy Idol sweeps him into his entourage. An architect who lost his famous lover to AIDS reconnects with a high school fling. Howard Hughes seeks out the woman who once cooked him butter beans.

What do church ladies really think? Composed and often so quiet as to be thought invisible, church ladies have secret powers to change the world. What are those special powers? They love well. They give well. They can often cook! And they play an essential role in a great rescue operation for mankind. For although they appear to have Ninja warrior strengths (and can be invisible!), they are helpers to the only Superhero who ever really saved the world and mankind. They know His name and will tell you. And they can show you what it's like to brought to life and empowered to love instead of ...

The last in the Afrolit Now series, The Sins of The Fathers by Zukiswa Wanner is narrated by a man dealing with immense grief. When he’s unable to heal from the trauma of loss, Akani begins to question his and his father’s role as a parent and, in doing so, awakens to the patterns between them. In trying to avoid being like his father as a husband and as a parent, did he inadvertently become exactly the man he wished not to be? And what secrets lie untold? As he grieves, he wonders whether he was ill-advised to keep secrets that may unwittingly hurt his family.

County Sheriff Brody Hayes is in the midst of a missing person's call - for a five-month-old baby. Deep in the mountains of his hometown, Bowie, Wyoming, Brody's desperate search for the helpless child through a worsening snowstorm leads him on an even greater journey - one through his memories of his childhood, his brother, his son, and a life for himself that he thought was lost.

To Margot’s surprise, she's taken a liking to life in small-town Georgia...helped along by a romance with the hot elementary school principal. The two of them have been taking it slow - or they were until Margot gets pregnant. Kyle wants to make an honest woman of her, but Margot's still trying to proceed with caution. After all, she was the best event planner in Chicago before she ever came to Lake Sackett. Her wedding has to be perfect, and perfect includes not having the baby halfway down the aisle.

The collection that established O’Connor’s reputation as one of the American masters of the short story. The volume contains the celebrated title story, a tale of the murderous fugitive "The Misfit", as well as “The Displaced Person” and eight other stories.

The Akashic Noir series’ forensic study of Southern California sharpens its focus on one of Los Angeles’ most recognized neighborhoods.

Close your eyes and you can almost feel the rocking of the chair as you listen. Kathryn Tucker Windham's gentle Southern accent winds its way through these childhood and adult recollections, while her traditional wisdom and sharp sense of humor eventually break the spell she casts like a blanket over her listeners.

Nita, Sharlene, and Billy Joe, all about to turn 80, are tired of waiting their turn for a funeral dinner. They each have a bucket list and are determined to tick off at least a few of the items before they go. So what’s left but to hit the road? They enlist two drivers—Billy Joe’s great-grandson, Ford, who has just gotten out of the Air Force, and Sharlene’s great niece, Joelle, a schoolteacher who has the summer free.

In this warm and moving anthology, a group of best-selling authors and writers pay tribute to legendary, larger-than-life New York Times best-selling author Dorothea Benton Frank and her literary legacy, capturing her unforgettable spirit, joy, and humor in stories of reunions and love. Infused with Dorothea Benton Frank’s remarkable spirit, Reunion Beach is a literary homage and beautiful keepsake that keeps this dearly missed writer’s flame burning bright.

When a church lady falls in love, she falls hard. Sometimes she lands on her knees. Miss Budge does as she moves quietly and powerfully through her daily life in Old Cloverdale, where F. Scott Fitzgerald once courted Zelda, and two miles away Nat King Cole was born. Fitzgerald wrote about love. Nat Cole sang about love, and Mildred Budge knows those words. She can sing along with Nat and has. But Miss Budge lives love too—is always in love. The world wants a certain kind of love. Miss Budge offers a different kind—one that is so rare, so foreign as to be misunderstood…. But make no ...

Vivian, a former reporter and a newlywed, doesn’t know what to do with herself after an incident with her husband forces her to question their partnership and her future. Yearning for the ocean air and a sense of home, she retreats to Tybee Island to clear her head and visit her Nana, a retired PI who now struggles with dementia. The phone rings: Catherine Grant, a housewife living in a private development nearby, woke up to find her husband and their baby girl missing, and she is desperate for help.

Eloise hasn't quite figured out how to move on after the death of her son, Eddie. She makes good money, buys a new apartment, learns the piano, engages in an office flirtation, but nothing seems to brighten her days quite like the occasional letter from one of her accounting clients, Ed B. When, after months of correspondence, Ed invites Eloise to his country home for a visit, she finds herself overwhelmed by the "Eddies" of her life - the one she lost, the one she writes to, and the one she's eternally searching for.

Welcome to Madison, Georgia, where the magnolias bloom, the tea is sweet, and the monsters are real. In this cozy horror anthology, the charming town of Madison hides secrets in its flowerbeds and shadows in its attics. Behind every wrought-iron fence and sun-warmed porch lies something unexpected: a banshee who quilts in the carriage house, a wight who prefers crossword puzzles to haunting, a wendigo who wears sweaters by the fire, and cryptids who just want someone to talk to. But don’t be fooled by the cobblestone streets and Southern charm. The ghouls here are real and love has a ...

Janet Williams is practically invisible. If only she had the pluck to speak up at work, flirt with the handsome barista she sees every day, and realize how special she is. When a magical wig offers Janet a chance to shake things up, will she dare to try a bold new style? The voice in her head - flashy and fierce, with an unbridled southern drawl - tells her to go for it. And once she does, there’s no turning back.

Find out what happens after the epilogue. Matthias and Mack: one needs to face their traumatic past while the other needs to overcome their mistakes.

Three full-length novels. Several hours of listening. Sweet Southern Magic includes the first three books in the Sweet Tea Witch Mysteries series: Southern Magic, Southern Spells, and Southern Myths.

Family meant everything to Ayden Stratton. It always had even when he didn’t always allow it to show. Because of that, he understood the fury in Tobias Blaise’s eyes when they learned that his sister had been dragged out the backdoor of her restaurant despite every effort to stop her from being kidnapped. Fury didn’t begin to describe what he saw in his brother’s face. Cassidy Blaise might be Tobias’s sister, but she was Benjamin’s entire world. This women's romance fiction book will have you wondering what could possibly happen next. Keep some tissues on hand and tag along on a...

Love the creepy charm of old Southern houses? Start here. Four bone-chilling novellas from M.L. Bullock in one haunting bundle. Whispers linger in the heat, and every home has a ghost. Step into the Southern Gothic world of M.L. Bullock—where love turns tragic, secrets are buried beneath the porch, and the veil between the living and the dead is thinner than a thread of Spanish moss. This specially curated set includes four unforgettable novellas: Being With Beau A grieving girl. A mysterious boy. And a love story that might not survive the grave. Death’s Last Darling Hollywood glamor ...