Quick reads you can finish in 10-30 minutes
Found 1964 short novels
I remember the club room like a cold, sealed glass box. The air conditioner hummed and could not warm me. I smiled on schedule. "Ulysses," I said, letting the name land light and careful. He did not crack. His handsome face was a stone cut from winter. He stirred his coffee with one long finger and laughed a laugh that was not kind. "You threaten me?" he asked. "I don't dare," I answered, and then I let the truth slip in like a pebble. "Only I know you took me without consent. Only...
I arrived at the Sunshine Home at one in the afternoon with a bag in one hand and Ida Braun in the other. “Ida, sit down,” I said as gently as I could. “Let me put your things here.” Ida laughed with the soft, tired smile of a woman who has run a shelter for thirty years. “Melissa, you’re a whirlwind. The children already call you ‘Director Mom’s big helper.’” “You’re the director, Ida. I’m just the troublemaker who can carry two bags at once.” I tried to sound light. “How’s your...
I remember the first time someone called me "green tea" like it was the sound of a distant bell. "You green tea?" Colby asked me once, the word laced with genuine confusion. He blinked, entirely innocent, and then added, "Do you think I'm green tea, too?" "No," I said too loudly, because my mouth always betrayed my heart before my brain could get in line. "Of course not." He narrowed his eyes at me, mischief softening his face. "Then why are you so sure about me?" "Because you...
I was eating breakfast when the text came: "Transferred you the money. Move out tonight." The message was from Heath Williamson. I didn't drop my chopsticks. I looked up at the newspaper spread on the table. The headline photo took up the page: him with a woman I had only seen once, leaning on his shoulder and smiling the way his mouth did when he was not pretending. The caption said they were "official." "Did you see?" Henley Krueger asked behind me, worry making her voice small. "I...
I am terrible at starting fights, and I am worse at finishing them with dignity. "You stole my zongzi, didn't you?" he said, and the whole cafeteria seemed to fold into his voice. "I did not!" I said, which was probably obvious because what kind of thief fights a basketball team over a holiday rice dumpling? I am Gwendolyn Brewer. That morning the campus dining hall was giving away zongzi for Dragon Boat Day. Free food—who can resist? I ran there after class because Jaylin Powell had...
"I opened my eyes and my hands were tied." I tasted orange on my lips and panic behind my teeth. "Who are you?" the man across from me asked, eyes flat like a knife. "I'm Kaylie." I spat the word out. "Kaylie Almeida." "You look exactly like Marina Fisher." He touched his forehead as if the world hurt. "But your file—your fingerprints—don't exist here." "I didn't mean to—" I started. "You mean to what?" he said, and his voice was calm. "Break into my house?" "I didn't break...
I held the form my mother had rewritten and felt my hands tremble. "Mom, are you serious?" I asked, voice gone small. "I could get into Tsinghua or Peking. Why are you signing me up for a local second-tier college?" Isabella Graves chewed her sunflower seeds and watched me like she watched a chessboard. Her smile was strange—too calm, too knowing. "Listen to me, Everly," she said. "Trust me. You cannot go to those schools. If you go, you will ruin your life." "Ruin—how?" I demanded....
I woke up to a slap, a sound like a broken ruler against bone. "Ow—what the—" I tasted blood and disbelief together. A woman in gaudy red—a true show-off—lofted her hand as if she had every right to hit a stranger on a film set. I pushed up from the beaten mat and grabbed her wrist, because old habits die hard even after centuries. I slapped back before my brain finished naming the offense. "How dare you hit me!" she screeched. People around us halted mid-breath. I blinked and...
"Will you take the kiss?" "Don't be nervous. Close your eyes." I should have known better than to trust a crew that called me Cinderella for my eyeshadow skills. I am Matilda Dudley, a small-time stand-in who spends more nights awake drawing commissions than sleeping. Somehow, a viral makeup imitation caught the attention of a real actress—Esperanza Dunlap—and I ended up on a big set as her body double for a close-up love scene opposite Gage Wallin, the nation’s reigning idol and the...
I threw myself into Lailah's arms and let the exhaustion break open like a dam. "Ugh, I don't want to try anymore," I said, forehead warm against her shoulder. "You don't have to," Lailah murmured, and then, with the kind of grin that always made trouble seem like an adventure, she added, "I have a shortcut." "A shortcut to what?" I asked, wiping my face with the heel of my hand. "To not working for money all your life," she said, eyes bright. "Take my uncle. Be his wife. Be my...
I remember the smell of ink and blood before I remember anything else. "I can't feel my legs," I said one morning, my voice a dry rasp that surprised even me. "You must hold on," Justine said, her hand trembling in mine. "Master Tomas told us the herbs would come." "Where are they?" I whispered. "They're in the hands of Helena," she answered. "Helena Eaton has them. She won't return them." I closed my eyes and felt my child's small kicks, the one thing that kept a sliver of...
I never expected a single dinner to turn the simplest things into a war zone. "I like rough-housing," Alec said from the head of the table, grin too wide. "She likes to hit people. That you still dare to marry her?" "Shut up." I was about to tell him to shut up, but Archer reached over and eased his arm around my shoulders. "Maybe I'm just good enough," he said, smiling where men usually kept poker faces. "My sweetheart only gives me kisses." Alec's face went the color of crushed...
I still remember the little bell over our front door when someone came in. It was a cheap bell, but every time it rang my heart seemed to hop. Today it rang and I was editing a short video for my feed while Colton stood by the doorway with a grown-up expression on his small face, clutching his collection book. "Mom, I'm quizzing you," he said solemnly. "Again?" I sighed, not looking up. He flipped the card book open and pointed to a random Ultraman. "Who is this?" I blinked. "I......
"Ignoring an imperial summons is not an option," the steward shouted as he slammed the screen. I sat up. "The Flower Festival invitation?" I asked, rubbing sleep from my eyes. "Yes. For Miss Julissa," the steward said, showing a red wax seal. "From the emperor." "I'll go," I said, because what else could I do? My father was a general. Invitations arrived like rain. I pulled on a plain dress and let Akari braid my hair. "Don't forget talent," Akari warned. "The palace might pick a...
The summer my brother graduated, he brought five boys home. They crowded my hallway like a small commotion, hot and loud and careless, and their chorus of "Sister!" still makes me smile when I remember it. "Hey, sister!" they shouted as they piled into the living room. "Hello," I answered, smiling too easily. "Dean said it's okay, right? We're celebrating." Wolfgang Bernard grinned like he'd stolen something. "Of course," I lied. "It's hot. Come in. I'll order food." "You're the...
I woke to a white ceiling and my own blood cooling on my skin. "Sign this," my father said, like he was asking me to pick a chair. "It's for the hospital file." "Why—" I tried to stand. The guards holding my arms tightened. "Why would you make me sign after you bailed me out? You said you believed me." My mother, Laurel Bond, sat on the couch with the kind of smile that had no warmth. "Grace, you should know by now—everything has a price." My brother Julian Boone tossed a paper onto...
I sat at the exam desk, the new English paper crisp under my palm, and the wall clock pointed to three in the afternoon. My whole body trembled. "Is something wrong?" the female proctor asked. I stared at the bald invigilator near the front with his wide mouth and yellow teeth. The shape of his grin was a sight I knew too well. I knew the exact second the world would tilt again. "I'll be fine," I said. I was not fine. I swallowed, let calm sink in, and then I planned. Two hours. Two...
I woke to rain on glass and a sound like a body giving up. "Camilla, don't be dramatic," a fat man's whisper crawled across the dark room like mold. "You've been a good sport. Why make trouble now?" I tasted metal and old fear. I knew that voice. Dirk Christian. I knew every greasy inch of his courtesy smile, the way he called favors "investments." I knew the grip on my wrist, the way he mapped my face with the same hunger he used to map contracts. "Eric promised he'd be here," I said,...
I was waiting in the dark, the apartment quiet except for the faint hum of the tablet on my lap. "Why didn't you turn the light on?" Cedar Liang's voice came through the doorway, casual, as if he had every right to step into my silence. I had been listening to two recordings—two tiny minutes each—on a voice app I shouldn't have opened. I had told myself I'd only listen once. I had told myself I'd be brave. I had told myself it was okay to know. But the fingers holding the tablet were...
I wake up to the smell of laundry soap and the bright, impossible face that I know too well. "Hey," she says, blinking at me with the exact curve of my mother's eyes. "You finally woke up. Are you okay?" "It's—what year is it?" My voice comes out thin, because my head is full of echoes. "1999," Genevieve Engel answers, already fanning me with a magazine. "Did you faint from the heat? You looked like a ghost." I sit up too fast and get a handful of hair. "Nineteen ninety—what? That...
