Quick reads you can finish in 10-30 minutes
Found 1964 short novels
April 1 arrived like a rumor that got louder and louder until it became roar. The clock turned midnight and someone pushed a post onto WB that exploded the small world I had been trying to keep steady. "One hundred percent true! Former DreamChasers pro Isla Hayashi is back as DreamChasers' coach for the Summer Split!" I watched comments spin like a storm. "Is this real? Wasn't she—" someone wrote. "She was in a car accident last year!" another replied. "She became a vegetable,...
I never meant to be anyone’s treasure. I meant only to be a clerk who could eat three meals and not freeze in winter. "Write it down," Uri said on my first morning in the palace, and his voice was already a command I had to obey. "I will," I answered, and meant it for the books, not for him. They called me a起居郎 in the records — the man who tracked the emperor’s waking and sleeping and every word that slipped out at inconvenient hours. In truth, I was a woman named Emmalyn Colon who had...
I am Leilani Conti. "I am the foot-washer's daughter, the one who knelt before our mistress and called her 'Miss' when the sun was harsh and the soles of my feet were raw," I say, and the memory tastes like cold water. "Kirsten," they told me once, "you are my dog." She spat it like a curse. "Know your place." "You'll be married to a good family one day," she promised in other tones—threats braided into false comfort. "If you step out of line, I'll have you paired with a mangy hound....
I found the video first, then the silence in my body. "It’s just a joke, right?" I whispered to the phone with trembling fingers. The clip kept looping—two people I thought I knew in a bed, reckless and unsteady, kissing like they belonged to each other. "Stop watching," my sister had texted; then she sent the clip. "No." I pressed my thumb against the screen until it hurt. "No, no, no." My stomach tightened like a fist. "Baby," I said aloud to the child inside me—my small, steady...
I woke up in a silk dress with a red veil over my face and a stranger's name already in the air. "Blakely," someone said behind me, low and sure, "come out, my bride." I could feel the weight of a hundred sets of eyes, and even through the veil I heard the city celebrate. I tasted something like panic, like the aftertaste of too much baijiu, and then some stubborn, private part of me laughed. "You are ridiculous," I muttered into the veil, talking to myself the way I always did. "I did...
I did not go to meet Reed Caldwell to beg him back. I went because I found out, by accident and sweating, that the man I was promised to had two plans at once: one plan for me, one plan to burn everything down. "I won't stand with a conspirator," I told myself as I wrapped the letter I meant to deliver. The idea of Reed carving his way into rebellion and pulling everyone I loved into the fire made my stomach knot. The garden room smelled of old paper and plum wine when I stepped inside....
I remember that study room like the back of my hand: neat desk, tidy shelves, nothing extra. He sat at that desk, focused, as if nothing else existed except the pages in front of him. "Morning," someone called at the door. I stood up. Declan had come to drop something off for me and, of course, to see his old friend. "Happy New Year," he said as he stepped in, light on his feet like always. "Happy New Year," I answered, holding a cup. "Why are you here so early?" "Couldn't...
I never thought a pink rabbit head would redraw my life. "I can't believe you opened her stream," my father said that night, and his laugh smelled of wine and shame. "I told you she was a small channel," my mother mumbled, flipping a tea towel. "But your friends wanted to see." "She looked ridiculous," my father insisted. "Dancing with those ears—" "Ridiculous?" I heard myself say. "Dad, I have a million followers now. That is not ridiculous." "You embarrassed me," he said. "You...
“I spat blood.” “Elora, what are you doing?” Mina’s voice broke the snow and my ribs. “I’m done waiting, Nicolas.” I tasted metal and the words came out like a vow. “Nine lives. Nine times. I’m done.” Mina knelt, trembling. “Miss—don’t say that.” I laughed without joy. “Do you know what it is to stitch a wedding dress with your own hands while your heart sews itself to a man who does not love you?” My fingers were numb from the needle. “Do you know what it is to let him go eight...
I am a side consort. I tell people that straight away because being honest about your title makes life easier, and because I have bigger priorities than palace etiquette. My priority is food. "You're marrying the crown prince," Father said once like it was nothing more than a piece of news. "Your 八字 suits him. It will be good for our house." "I care about the kitchen," I told him. "Is the cook good?" "Salvador," my father — Chancellor Salvador Hall — answered without looking up. "We...
“Don’t fall asleep, stay with me!” I heard his voice, clear and low, while the world blurred into red. I remember his hands—strong, warm—lifting me out of the wreck. I remember the clean smell of him, like summer sun. I remember thinking, I will live just to make him mine. I woke in a hospital bed. He was gone. I also woke with a choice: a life mapped by my grandfather and a man I hated waiting three months away. I had one plan. I would find the boy who saved me and bend him around my...
"I want a divorce." "Why now?" Franklin Craig asked like the words were a cold measurement he couldn't accept. He stood in the living room with his hands folded, the same posture he took when negotiating a client. The sunlight slid across the floor and did nothing to warm him. "It doesn't feel right anymore," I said, and meant it the way you mean a bruise you no longer want to press at. I had given ten years to a life with him. That sounded like a small fortune until it stopped buying...
"I won," I shouted into my phone, breath still shaking. "Who else could have done this?" I laughed to the empty car. They had called my name on stage. Five awards. I had touched the sky. The next moment there was glass and metal and a bright, wrong light. "I need to delete my messages," I told myself, even as the world tipped. "I can't let them read that," I tried to wipe the screen. Then everything faded. I woke to a low ceiling and the smell of wood smoke. "Where am...
I remember the first time I heard them call me a gift. "Gia Long," my father had said, voice like a cracked bell, "this is the only move we have left." "I know," I had answered. I was thirteen then, a child wrapped in silk who had already learned knives and secrets. "I will be what you ask." Years later, riding in a closed carriage, the capital of Qin passing like a long, indifferent river, I unwrapped the new name they had given me. I folded my fingers around the paper and felt the...
I remember the heat that summer night like a bruise. "Bethany, hurry," my stepmother barked from the kitchen doorway, and Khloe laughed at something on her phone. "If you're not packing, you'll miss the taxi." "I said I'm almost done," I answered, clutching a small tote of folded clothes. I heard my father's boots on the stairs and hoped this chore would end tonight — hoped it wasn't another debt he couldn't face. "Three million," I overheard my stepmother say into the phone, voice...
"I’m at the hospital," I said, my hand pressed to the roundness of my belly. There was a long, thin silence on the other end. Then Luciano’s voice came back, cool and small, like a shard. "Did you get it done?" "No," I whispered. "They say it's dangerous. The doctor wants me to wait." "Then we are divorced," he said. The words dropped like ice. I stared at the ultrasound printout in my fist. The curve of it was proof and proofless at once. "Why must it be divorce?" I asked. My...
I remember the exact way the room went quiet when the bottle pointed at him. "Truth," Hugo said, as if the word itself were a cool drink. I spat my drink onto the carpet like a volcano. "What did you say?" I croaked, and immediately wished I could dig a hole large enough to swallow me. "Been in a relationship?" someone else asked, half a dare. Hugo looked at me very slowly, like he was scanning a page he'd read many times before. "Yes." "Do you still—" a bearded guy started, then...
“You’re not the lead,” he said. I blinked. The room felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the air conditioner. My name is Dani Richards. I am a writer who woke up living a life I had read before. I knew the plot, the turns, who loved who. I also knew one brutal fact: in that book, the man I loved — my small-uncle, Gaspard Wright — ended up with someone else. He loved the other woman. I thought that knowing would save me. “Gaspard,” I said. “You promised.” He looked at me as if...
I never planned to be brave. I planned to survive. That was the difference. "You smell like smoke," Bram Luna said the first time I tried to comfort him. "Good," I answered, because lying was easier than explaining. "Someone's gotta be worse off than me." He stared at me the way frost stares at a winter river — cold, sharp, and as if any warmth was an insult. He had a wheelchair then, a halo of pity around him, and the look told me to keep it at arm's length. "Move," he said, and...
I woke up with my cheek pressed into something soft and utterly unfamiliar. I sat up. The blindfold over my eyes blurred as the world tilted. My hand tore the red cloth away. A yellow floral blouse. A red skirt that swallowed my knees. A big fake flower pinned to my chest. I touched the fabric like it might be a trick. “This can’t be right,” I murmured. A small mechanical voice answered, not from the room but from inside my head. “Host, welcome. I am the system. Call me Small...
