Quick reads you can finish in 10-30 minutes
Found 1964 short novels
I still remember the sharp, cold scent the summer air carried the first time I met him. It smelled like grapefruit—the kind my family teased me about when I was a baby—so people started calling me "Grapefruit." I am Annabelle Weiß, a freshman in the Advertising Department at Shenghua University, and this is the story of the winter I stood on a stage, got slammed by rumors, and then found myself pretending to be the girlfriend of the boy who had, without meaning to, become my whole small...
I woke up one morning and the whole campus treated me like a brand — hot, scandalous, and clickable. "You're number one," Jaime said without looking up from his phone. "Top three scandal queens, and you're the queen." "Very flattering," I said. "Who organized the poll?" I laughed, but my laugh landed flat. I had better things to waste my time on than trophies that smelled like gossip. "You're not even hiding how proud you are." Jaime tapped the screen again. "Someone wanted drama. You...
"I never thought I'd see him again," I said, and my voice came out smaller than I meant. "Why? You weren't exactly hiding," Jess Simmons said, nudging my elbow with a grin. "Come on, Norma. It's been seven years." "I know," I said. "But I checked the guest list twice. I checked that he wouldn't—" I stopped and pressed my fingers into the cloth of the table. The restaurant buzzed around us. The elevator had delivered a neat stream of classmates, each face a little older, a little...
I woke up with a hand on my throat and a wine breath that smelled like a wolf den. The first face I saw was too handsome to be sane: black hair crowned with feathers, a collar half-open, and eyes like knives. He tightened his grip and hissed my name like a verdict. "Mariah Pierce, you are dead meat." "Let go," I said, spiteful and half-asleep. "Who are you, and why are you choking me?" He sneered, blood at the edge of his lids, the air between us twitching with danger. "You dare touch...
"I am telling you the truth," I said, and the restaurant lights listened like a jury. Vincent looked at me with cream still on his jaw. "Genevieve," he tried, and I could hear the hesitation like a cracked record. "This," I said, and pressed the cake box between my palms, "is the truth." He blinked, and his pupils were the color of someone who had been caught mid-legend. "You can't just—" "You can't just," I repeated, and leaned forward so the white frosting dripped like the last of...
They threw me into the street like a broken puppet. "That's her—drag her out," one of them barked. The hands that held me were rough, the air around me smelled of sweat and street smoke, and my body—this borrowed body—tasted of old bruises. "Throw her clothes off. The Spirit Sprout must be on her," another voice hissed. I lay curled, a useless noble's daughter on the cobbles, and listened to them talk. I could have laughed then—laughed until my lungs hurt—because I remembered a...
I remember the rain like a drum, hard and single-minded. I remember running, water soaking the hem of my dress, hair glued to my cheeks. I remember the door being locked, and the voice on the other side laughing like it was entertainment. "Open the door!" I pounded until my knuckles hurt. "I won't. What are you going to do about it?" the voice mocked. "Do you think Walter will come all the way home for you? He's overseas." "Don't you—" I stopped because his laughter caught my ears....
"I dare you to touch me." Rain hit my face like fists. I spat mud and sat up, feeling the weight of a body gone wrong and the sharp taste of someone else's anger in my mouth. "You'll die if you keep talking," one man hissed. I blinked and the world snapped into focus. Two thugs. A wedding dress soaked red with rain. My heart hammered, not with fear but with a clear, cold plan. "You found the wrong corpse to bother," I said, and moved. The first man's head cracked under my hand....
"I can't breathe," I said, though the room smelled like smoke and alcohol and someone else's success. "You're overreacting," Tyler Reynolds laughed, his voice thick with cheap whiskey. "Relax. It's all in good fun." I forced a smile I didn't feel. "Mr. Reynolds, I really should—" "Save it," he cut me off and grabbed my wrist. "You fly in from overseas and act so innocent. Come on, Emilia. Don't be that frozen statue." "Let go of me," I said. He tightened his grip, and his hands...
They carried me to the great house at the hour the town clock called unlucky, and I felt no fear of men anymore—only a patient, hollow sort of cold that matched the dusk. "Open the cover," a voice said. I kept my eyes closed. If they wanted me dead, fine. I could meet death like a tired traveler. "Kaia?" someone whispered. I blinked. The name left me raw. "Jonas?" Jonas Espinoza stood there, stunned, the lamplight catching on his damp hair. He looked exactly like the boy who had...
I woke up to lanterns and screams, to silk and blood and a thousand eyes that had only ever seen me as a joke. "Help! The bride's dying!" somebody shouted, and the wedding music cut like a snapped string. Someone lifted me out of the carriage—eight men had carried the palanquin—and I tasted metal and fear. My wrist was a wide, black wound. A knife lay on the boards, slick and cruel. "Bring her inside! Call the medic!" the steward barked. They dumped me on the bridal bed and left the...
I remember the cold first, a blade of wind that seemed to cut right through my heavy cloak and straight into my bones. "Margot," Ella hissed, pressing a warming brazier into my hands. "Stay back. Don't—" "I will not leave," I said. "Let me see them." "Your blood will run ice," she whispered, and wrapped my cloak higher. Her voice trembled, but her hands were steady. That steadiness had saved me countless times. I held the brazier and watched. Before me, on the raised platform, my...
I remember saying it like a dare. "Buy the top floor. Trust your wife," Estrella said, eyes bright like she had some secret. "Buy the top floor?" I laughed. "Are you serious?" "Yes. Top floor comes with the roof terrace," she said. "We could grow things up there. We could — I don't know — be safe." I argued. I listed heat problems, roof leaks, ladder troubles. I listed everything I could think of against the top floor. Then everything happened the way I'd already lived it once,...
I remember the slap of the earth beneath my palms, the stupid clack of a heel against a stone, and then nothing like logic at all. One moment I was late for a night shift at a convenience store in the city; the next I woke up as the village girl everyone called "the fourth." My name here was nothing. My name here was the shoulder for everyone else to lean on. My thoughts were mine, but my body belonged to a family that would rather feed their pigs than feed a child. "You're awake," my...
I opened my eyes to dirt and dark, and a voice I had never heard before arguing about money filled the night. "Two meters is enough. Hurry—if we don't finish before dawn, she won't pay," one man hissed. "Fifty? Ridiculous. A hundred—or she can keep the mess," the other answered, laughing. I blinked at blackness. My head throbbed. "Where am I?" I tried to move and pain shot through my chest like someone had lit a fuse. The village smells—wet mud, old straw—hit me, but the words the men...
I watched my own body on the pavement as if it belonged to someone else. It looked like a rag doll. My legs were folded into impossible angles, blood steaming in the hot sun. My long coat had been shredded into ribbons. People had already gathered, phones out. Someone swore and said a Bentley had stopped. The Bentley’s hood had little red splashes on it. I should have shouted, "It wasn’t my fault." I should have told them it was an accident. I had so many half-written emails, so many...
"Don't call me 'uncle.'" Those were his first words to me that night, and the way he said them burned into my memory like a brand. "I know," I whispered, because I couldn't say anything else. My hands were cold. The room smelled like coffee and the kind of books he kept on his shelves — quiet things. He looked at me like he wanted to erase the word from my mouth forever. He was Elias Romero. He never accepted the title. He'd always said it like a wound. "I am not your uncle," Elias...
The leather was cold under my palms and his shirt was a mess. Forest Jorgensen sat back on the sofa like a man who had broken the weather for himself. I smelled whiskey and something like iron on his collar. “Stop,” I said, and my voice sounded steadier than I felt. Forest blinked, a deep, slow blink. “Why?” “I need you to read these.” I tapped the stack of folders on his desk. “Before anything else.” He laughed once, low and surprised. “You’re serious.” “I’m your secretary, not...
"I can't—" I gagged into my palm on live TV. "Joanna, are you okay?" the host leaned closer with a fake smile, the camera cutting to my face like a blade. I saw the red light. I saw the chat flood. I saw my agent's hand in my pocket shaking. I tasted metal and fear. "Pregnancy," I said, and the word popped out loud on its own. My thumb hit like a fool on a stupid tweet—an accident, a stupid tap—and the world exploded. "You're joking, right?" Felicity hissed in my ear in the green...
"I won't be anyone's shame," I said, and slammed the door. The glass rattled. Rain hit the marble like drums. I kept my jacket tight, my hair wet, my eyes empty. I did not look back at the hotel. I had no right to look back. "Marie?" a voice called. "You okay?" "No," I said. "I'm not okay." "Then come home," my father's voice had sounded that night. "Go meet Mr. Crane. Fix our money. Fix us." I had walked into a room I did not know and found a man who smelled like whiskey and...
