Quick reads you can finish in 10-30 minutes
Found 1964 short novels
"I-I'm fine," I lied and wrapped my arms around my ribs like they could stop the cold. "You're not," Maureen said, and her voice had that careless, breathy edge that meant she had already lost interest in the truth. "Come sit. One drink, Gemma." "No." I kept my voice low. "I told you I can't—" "You're the group leader." Maureen slid her phone across the table. "You have to finish the report." "I know." I rubbed my temple. "I'll send my part tonight." The music was too loud for an...
I remember the first night like a bruise—thick and impossible to ignore. "You don't have to be afraid," he murmured, voice low enough that the room kept our secret. "I am," I whispered back. "I'm really scared." He kissed my forehead then, soft and sure. "I'll take care of you. Always." That was how it began. I gave my first time to Ulrich Roy. He was trouble in sneakers and a smile that could stop a room. He fought, collected debts, and slept where it was cheapest. At eighteen...
I met him when I was twenty-seven. I didn't know then that he had come to that first meeting mostly to answer to his family. "We should at least meet," his mother had said over the phone three days before. "You two are close in age, and—" "I'll go," he told her. "If it helps, I'll go." So he came. We talked. Two weeks later we were engaged. Two months later we were married. "I promised myself," I said to a friend soon after, "that if I could not find love by twenty-seven, I'd marry...
I am a woman who loved until her love became hunger. "I am Harriet," I say to myself in the dark, and the name tastes like a promise I once made and later broke. "You always said you wanted him to be yours, Harriet," my mother told me once. "Do not be ashamed. Use what you have." "Use what I have?" I asked. "Yes," she said. "You are a daughter of rank. You know how to take." "Do you think I did not try?" I whispered. "You did," she answered. "Too much." My voice is the...
“Where are you?” I typed, then hit send before I could think. “Sorry,” Daniel Castillo replied. “Something came up. Can we reschedule?” I stood in front of the city registry office in June heat, my dress sticking to my skin, a paper ring box heavy in my palm and a taxi meter running on my phone. Kids’ nap time at the kindergarten would be over in twenty minutes. I could not wait all day. “That’s today,” I typed. “We said today.” “No, I have to—” His message stopped and then a new...
I woke to cold water poured over my head. A bucket of frozen water slammed down and the ice pain tasted like metal. My hands were bound with enchanted cords, my skin a map of whip marks, my once-white robe soaked in blood until the cloth no longer had a color to claim. I coughed, blood thick in my throat. "That pool is sacred," I croaked. "You're wasting it on me." "You know your place, Giulia?" a young celestial lord snapped, his eyes rimmed red. He raised his voice like a bell. "How...
I never planned to go abroad. I was bored in a small town, bored in a cheap internet cafe, bored enough to click the tiny flashing ad that promised work and five thousand a month. The sky that day felt too wide for my life, and the promise sounded like air that might lift me. "Five thousand a month," I told the screen. "That's more than I'll ever make in a year here." "Come to Yunnan for the interview," the girl in the chat said. "We will set everything." "Who's your boss?" I...
I remember the way the birthing room smelled—of wet linen and smoke and a panic that moved like a living thing. "I can't—" Indie Foster said, her hands white-knuckled around the linen. "My lady, the child—" I was on the other side of the curtain, the housemaid who had pulled the curtain aside telling me every small movement as if it were a prophecy. "Indie, tell me plainly. Is he breathing?" "Yes. He's breathing, but—" Indie hesitated, then whispered, "He is very small. He is not...
I opened my eyes and the man beside me still smelled like cigarette and hotel soap. "I need to get out of here," I told myself, then used my hands to push the blanket away. He stirred, blinked, and the sunlight on his face made him look calmer than he had any right to be. I scrambled for my phone on the floor, heart stuttering. "Good morning," he said, low and steady. My throat tightened. "We shouldn't—this was a mistake." He smiled in a way that made my cheeks hot. "You said the...
I lifted the veil and stepped out onto a red carpet I did not want. "Smile for the camera," the stylist said, hands steady on my dress. I forced my mouth into a smile. "Right," I said. "Smile." My head filled with one sentence my adoptive mother had said last night. "You owe us, Ning Xia. You take her place tomorrow." I swallowed. I kept smiling. The altar had a wheelchair at the end. No groom, only silent seats and people murmuring. "Please exchange rings," the priest said,...
I celebrate my birthday with a supermarket cake and a fake watch. Then I learn my boyfriend, the man I thought was a penniless startup dreamer, has been hiding a life of Ferraris and hospitals. He confesses. I refuse. He proves everything. Then he punishes the people who humiliated me in public — loudly, with witnesses. "Happy birthday," Jack said in the dark, his voice small and proud. He had stuck a candle into a little pre-packaged cake from the grocery store and turned off the lights....
“I’m not dead,” I croaked, tasting blood and dust. “Good,” a woman’s voice said outside. “If she’s dead, we’re done with risk.” “Good? Don’t say that like it’s a blessing,” another voice sneered. I forced my eyes open. Cold wind hit my face. My head felt split. I touched my temple and pulled my hand back bloody. “What happened? I was making dinner—” I muttered, then heard the two women walk away. Their voices faded. I blinked. A low stone wall. A torn paper window. A broken door...
I pushed open the heavy doors of Night Jade and the light hit me hard. "Who let the moonflower in?" a voice called from the crowd. "Moonflower?" I heard another laugh. "More like second best." They closed in around me. Hands found my waist, my arm, the hem of my dress. I stepped back. "Get your hands off me," I said. "What's the rush, moonflower?" one of them purred. A manager's voice cut through. "Room 702, now. Move." They spat and scattered. I smoothed my dress and...
"Host," the white cat said, floating like it owned the ceiling, "you have crashed six worlds. Try to behave this time." I rolled the black umbrella between my fingers and blinked at the little cat. "Try? I prefer to experiment." The cat's whiskers twitched. "Experimentation has consequences. This is your last chance." "Last chance," I echoed, and let the umbrella tap the floor like a metronome. "You keep saying that." "It is not a joke." The cat's voice went silky. "If you fail, you...
I remember the wedding day by three images: the projector's light, the red paper rose in Rafael's pocket, and the sound of a chair cracking against glass. "I want to show the guests our story," the master of ceremonies said, voice warm and slow. "Let us watch the happy moments of Lauryn and Rafael." Rafael squeezed my hand so hard I felt his knuckles bruise my palm. He smiled—one of those rare smiles that promised people nothing but danger. "You know we have our good memories," he...
"I almost fell," I said, breathless, my hand clamped to the blistering edge of the corrugated metal shed. "I saw," Maxwell said, his voice low. "Hold on." I let him guide me back behind the crate. Sweat prickled along my jaw. The August sun in A‑City felt like a hairdryer set on high. The metal walls radiated heat. My palms were sticky. My chest pinged with a small, useless panic. "You've got burns here," Maxwell said, tapping the inside of his forearm. He was shirtless, heavy with...
I woke with the taste of hot spring steam in my mouth and a stranger's voice like a cello lowing right against my ear. "What's your name?" I opened my eyes to water rippling and a pair of hands—belonging to someone who smelled of steam and stone—locked around my waist. The rest of his body was sculpted in bronze and shadow; I could not see his face through the fog in my dream, but I could feel the weight of him. For half a year, that same man visited my sleep, the exact body I had written...
“Carry him inside!” I shouted before I even knew who I was anymore. Snow hit my face and tasted like metal. I followed Finch Deleon and two burly guards through the courtyard toward a boy kneeling in the white. He was thin under a too-large robe, one hand buried in snow, the other wrapped in filthy bandages. Blood bled through the wrap and freckled the drifts. “He’s losing feeling,” Finch said, breath steaming. “Miss, should we—?” I straightened. My whole chest felt like it had been...
"I slammed my phone shut," I say, because that is the only way I cope. "I slammed it shut and promised tomorrow would be different." I laugh at myself in the mirror. "You always say that, Olivia," I tell the reflection. "You always lie to yourself." I am Olivia Henry. I live on instant noodles and late trains. I work office jobs that eat my evenings. I read romance novels to soak whatever small joy the week leaves me. Tonight I fall asleep on a chapter called "The Bitter Rose and the...
"I need to see you in ten minutes." Marshall's voice was flat through the line. "I'll be there," I said, and I was already packing the folder. I had been Marshall Yamashita's chief secretary for seven years; I knew the sound of his impatience like the pattern on my palm. "I only have twenty minutes," he added. "Then you'll get twenty minutes," I answered. I worked like that for years—fast, accurate, invisible until needed. I also loved him in a way that had nothing to do with...
