Quick reads you can finish in 10-30 minutes
Found 1964 short novels
"I'll pay." I stood up and reached for the small plate, but my hand stopped when I saw him. "Ervin?" Dayana's voice tilted like she wanted to be proud and surprised at once. "Long time." The man who had walked into the coffee shop smiled with a face I had not seen in seven years and yet knew by memory. I felt Dayana's fingers close on my sleeve. "That's my boyfriend," she said fast, and then, "Oh—" Her voice cracked into the air when he turned. Alvaro Adams looked at me as if...
I was nine the first time I pulled a boy out of a tangle of laughter and ink. "You two, stop!" I shouted, stomping toward them with both small fists on my hips. They froze, brushes still wet with black strokes, and one of them sneered, "What's this? A little woman scolding us?" "Leave him," I said. "Or I'll tell your master." They traded glances, then ran like the wind. I crouched and wiped the ink from his cheek with my handkerchief. "Are you all right?" I asked. He sniffed...
I did not wake up to sirens. I woke up to the weight of an arm across my waist. "Morning," he murmured into the hollow at my neck, voice still thick from sleep. "I—" I tried to move, tried to remember how to breathe without sounding like a prisoner. My hand lay flat against the cold metal of the alarm clock; the band on my finger caught the light. "You asleep last night?" he asked, lips finding the soft skin there. "Yes," I lied, because the truth would be more honest than I could...
I woke up to someone shouting in my head and the smell of coffee that had gone cold hours ago. My forehead burned where I had leaned on my desk. For a strange, sleep-wet second I still tasted last night's wine. Then my phone buzzed and Emily barged in like she owned the air. "Cat, your old flame is back in town," she said, flinging her coat onto the chair. "Isn't he dead?" I rubbed at my eyes and tried to make the world stop spinning. Emily sat, folding and unfolding her long fingers....
They call the app CaptureHouse. I called it trouble. "I don't want to do this anymore," I said the first time I deleted it. "You mean forever?" Drew Pierce asked, pouring a can of soda into a paper cup like nothing heavy was happening. He sat across from me in a sparse room that smelled faintly of oil and canned coffee. "I mean for a while," I corrected. "I need to be a mother. I need to watch him grow." Drew smiled, but it was the smile of someone who had learned to hide how much...
I remember the first time the world noticed him without meaning to notice me. "You've been trending," Eliza said, tapping my phone. "Who?" I managed, because the studio smelled like charcoal and turpentine and his shoes—Eliot Marques always left an oil-smudged trail. "Your boyfriend. The video is everywhere." I held the phone in front of him. He had his leg thrown over the easel, a piece of paper crushed between his long fingers. He looked up at me the way he always did—like I was...
I first noticed him the day I almost fell into the courtyard fountain. "Hold on—don't let go," a voice said, flat and steady. A pair of hands closed around my wrists. I looked up and the world rearranged: sharp jawline, clear eyes, a wind that smelled faintly of cold lemon. He didn't smile. He simply steadied me. "Thanks," I said. "No problem," he answered, and then turned away as if it had been nothing. They all called him Denver Fontaine. I should have known then that a quiet...
I pressed my back to the cold bathroom tile and stared at the stick in my hand. "It’s positive," I whispered to myself, and the word felt too loud in the tiny room. Adrian Carter's car keys clattered in the hall. I shoved the test into the trash, tried to smooth my face, and walked out. He stood in the doorway with his coat on, hair still damp, eyes flat as winter glass. "You're home early," I said. "Don't touch my briefcase." He stepped back and his voice clipped. "And don't...
I never thought a single blank exam paper could change everything. I folded mine with casual amusement and handed it in like it was a dare. I thought my father's money would always be a parachute. I thought I could play with fate. "Got you a taxi, Kynlee," the driver said as I closed the test center door. "No, thanks," I told him, and I walked out into a life I had never learned to live. The first night outside my family's house, I discovered the small mercies I'd always ignored. I...
I still remember the day Donovan asked me to “get engaged.” "I thought it would be funny," he said, his voice flat, like he was reading a text message out loud. "Funny?" I touched the cold silver ring he slid onto my finger that night. "This is a joke?" He laughed. "It was a prize, Chiyo. I thought we'd laugh about it later." "I don't want a joke," I said. "There you go being dramatic again," Donovan shrugged. "Girls have to be more coy. You can't be the one to say these...
I opened my eyes to a blur of straw, a face full of tears, and a voice ripping the sky. "My girl, my girl, why would you do this?" my "mother" wailed. "Don't! Don't cry like that!" another voice pleaded. "She might still—" I tried to speak. My throat felt raw, like I'd swallowed hot iron. "Pa... Ma..." I croaked. No one heard me at first. Then Miles Brooks froze with all the stiffness of a man who had been punched in the chest. He rubbed his wet eyes and then he saw. "Janiyah?"...
"I'll sing it. Right here. Right now." The words left my throat like a confession. My knees were raw from the pavement. The city lights blurred into halos and people’s faces were just dark shapes and flashes of phone screens. Logan Picard stood under the club canopy, a shadow inside a shadow, watching me as if I were an animal he had trained. "You will sing it," he said. "And you will beg for mercy while you sing." "Logan..." My voice cracked. "Please." He smiled like the verdict...
"Cut! Cut! Cut!" "I said—change the extra. That one's overacting." I blink against the hot light and the fake smoke, sit up straighter in the hard cinema chair and force a smile that looks like a woman's, not the tired boy I had been all night. "You. You, change seats," the AD shouts, pointing at me like I'm a bug. I stand, my waist tight in the skirt, hair heavy with a wig that itched my scalp. I walk forward and pretend to be the kind of woman they want on screen: soft, available,...
I pinched a cabbage leaf and froze. "I'll tell Master when he comes back," I said, but my voice was all small and steady like a sparrow. Isaac Andrade looked at me over his bowl. "You can't sell the herbs. We need them." "I'll tell him we used one," I lied and grinned, because lying about herbs sounded braver than saying I had a glowing ball of light talking to me in my sleep. The light bobbed on the tatami like a tiny moon. It was not moon, it was not spirit. A voice came from...
I woke to a sound I didn't recognize: a short, clean electronic chime that kept repeating. "Do you hear that?" I whispered in the dark. "Mm?" Marcus Castle's voice floated up from below. "Sleep." "I heard a sound." I tried to keep my voice light. "A computer?" "It's probably the oven timer. Don't worry." He laughed, like he always laughed when he wanted to make me stop worrying. I swung my legs off the bed and padded across the carpet. The laptop on his desk was alive with little...
I was twelve the first time the world split open beneath my feet. "Tell me where your parents live," the man with the goat-whisker beard said. His breath smelled like old cigarettes. "I… I don't know," I lied. "Please." "You little liar," he laughed, then hit my face. "You can make dumplings?" "Yes," I said, because the only thing that felt like a rope left in a storm was a memory of flour on my mother's hands. "Make dumplings then," Bowen Clark ordered, and three rifles swung up...
I woke to a voice that crawled under my skin. "What's wrong? You still want to play with the idea?" he said, low and rough. The sound of it hit me harder than a slap. I froze. The name that rose in my throat felt like a rusted key turning: Hudson Daniels. I remembered the night. I remembered everything down to the ache in my bones. I remembered the way it ended last time. I remembered the promise that never got kept. My heart lurched. I had been given a second chance. I had been...
I woke at four a.m. to the phone. "Don't open the door. No one. Whoever comes—don't open it!" Lakelyn Gray's voice, sharp, then a wet, choking scream. Then tearing sounds, crushing sounds, the kind of noises that eat hope. Tearing? I froze. "Lakelyn—don't—" I didn't finish. The line went dead. I looked at my phone. 4:01 a.m. I lay back down. I was tired. I let my eyes close. Then: "CRASH!" The ceiling above me answered with violence. I sat straight up. The clock said nine. I...
I remember the hospital like a kept photograph: stainless light, the thin scent of disinfectant, and him kneeling beside my bed, suit tailored to extreme, bowing as if the floor could redeem him. "Davina," he whispered, voice cracked like ice, "don't— don't go." "I smile," I tried to say. "You like my smile." My teeth tasted of blood and the words were small. My hand found his cheek. He was gorgeous even then—Knox Ali, my husband, like a dark statue come alive. "Promise me one thing,"...
"This broth is perfect," I said, and my spoon made a small, happy sound against the bowl. "You're the only person who eats noodles like it's a ceremony," Maki laughed from across the table. "I'm Kaylie," I said, and then I paused, because the man by the window turned his head as if the name had been a bell. He had a look that belonged to magazine covers and late-night interviews. He had a faint scent like bamboo tea. "Reid?" Maki mouthed. Camila blinked and covered her mouth. I kept...
