Quick reads you can finish in 10-30 minutes
Found 1964 short novels
"I can't believe he accepted her," someone hissed nearby, sweet venom in every syllable. "After all the waiting? The ceremony? How dare she stay?" another voice chimed. I smiled, only a small, flat smile. "Let them talk," I told myself. "They say she begged at the gate for seven nights," a woman snorted. "She only wanted his closeness. Everyone knows the Celestial Lord's weakness is beauty." Their words were knives, but they were not new. I had come from a world that already showed...
I was cutting fish when my phone buzzed. "Who is it?" my brain asked before my fingers did. The knife went on, rhythm steady, until the vibration sounded again, sharp and insistent. The screen lit up. A selfie of a girl in a dim KTV, holding a sparkling drink. She smiled like the room belonged to her. Her lips were cherry red. At the corner of the photo, shadowed and half-hidden, was him—my him—leaning with his head down, a white shirt catching colored lights. A pale wrist, a silver...
"I won't do it." I said it loud enough so the whole room could hear. Valentino Schwarz smiled like a man already in possession of a kingdom. "You will," he said. "You always do what you are told." I looked at him, at the elegant span of his shoulders, at the slow amusement in his eyes. The chandelier light sliced across his jaw, and for a moment I felt the old, nausea-making trick: he could make me see shadows and call them truth. "You think this is a performance," I said. "It was...
“I’m fine,” I said, but my voice came out like a dry reed. I was sitting on the small couch in Luisa’s tiny living room, a towel over my hair, bare feet on the cold floor, and Akira Dumont was watching me as if I had grown a second head. “You are not fine,” he said. “I am,” I lied again. “You sound like a frog.” He made a face. I laughed, which was a good laugh because it broke the tightness in my chest. “A frog with a fever,” I said. “It’s very poetic.” He did not smile...
I remember the second year of high school like a sunburn that never really faded. The classroom was hot; the fan above us whirred like an impatient insect. I sat at my desk with an English workbook open, mouthing words I knew by heart. "Why is she still studying during break?" someone behind me whispered with a laugh. "Look at her, playing the good girl again," another voice said, cruel and sharp. I kept my eyes lowered and continued. I had learned how to make silence my...
I was fourteen when I named him. "Call him what you like," my grandfather said, the old man's voice rough with dust and battle. "He's in our house. Let it be a name that fits." I looked at the small thing they had brought home from the border like a found colt. He stood thin and straight, clothes dark and dusty, pear petals caught in his hair like frost. He made the world seem taller. "I'll name him York Dominguez," I said, and the sound was a small joke, but I meant it. "York—like a...
"I can't breathe." I, Bella Sun, said it out loud before I really understood where I was. "Hey, get up. This is not a place to sleep," an old woman snapped, spitting a few angry syllables at me. I blinked into bright sun and smelled vegetables and frying oil. My hand slipped on a cold brick. My last memories were white lights and a wet hospital room and a man named Phoenix Delgado standing over me, smiling like a judge. "Who are you?" the old man with a red armband barked. "I'm—" I...
I woke to the system’s cheery chime like a relentless alarm. "Hello, adorable Pit #213 at your service!" the voice sang, metallic but infuriating. I sat up, heart jumping. "What is this voice? Explain." "Host, this is a bellyband," the system said. "Cute, charming, auspicious." I pulled the bright red cloth from under my pajama top and held it up. It was ridiculous. It was a literal marriage-luck bellyband — a traditional, ridiculous prop. "You put this on the hero?" I said...
"Where are the crash victims they just brought in? Is there a girl named Eliza Cox?" I ran into the emergency entrance like a wind and gasped, "Please, tell me quickly." The nurse blinked, then pointed. "They're fine. One girl—mild concussion. She passed out. We moved her upstairs." "Thank you!" I said, and ran. I was late for a date I hadn’t wanted—arranged by my family—but I still expected a quiet coffee, a stiff handshake and then escape. I did not expect a crash on the way. I...
“Hands off my son!” I tore the cloth from my face and lunged forward. “Silence,” Grey Fournier said, his voice flat as a blade. “You are the one who caused all this. Stay where you belong.” They pushed past me like I was a piece of broken furniture. Daisy Muller laughed soft and false behind them. I felt the prayer beads of my old life slip through my fingers. I hit the ground. A woman I did not know grabbed my hair and dragged me out of the hall. I tasted blood. Outside the gate,...
1 "I will die in your bed someday," I told him without thinking. "Then lie down. Take your pants off," he said, calm, hands already in gloves. I blinked, surprised into obedience. "One foot out," he added, frowning like it was instruction in a recipe. I pulled my trousers down to my knees. He paused, looked up, and then—"Put your pants back on." "What?" I whispered. "I already—" He shoved the speculum back into the tray and, with perfect professional deadpan, listed my check...
1 I found him first by the echo. The cave swallowed the group’s chatter and left just two breathing bodies and a steady heartbeat. "I thought I lost you," I said, voice shaking. He paused, fingers on my hair, then rubbed my head like it was the most natural thing. "You wandered off. I went to the bathroom and—poof—gone." "Bathroom?" I blinked. "You left me." He smiled that half-annoyed half-soft smile. "Yeah, I left you." I sat on the cold stone thinking the world was unfair. He...
"Stay with me." Those four words were the first thing I heard when I woke up on a hard chair in the ER, my stomach still rolling from the drip, my head buzzing from pain. A man's voice — calm, close, a little rough. "I am here," I answered, because it was the only thing that felt true. He was shorter than I remembered in photos but taller than my memory wanted. He had a dark coat, tired eyes, and a hand that took mine like it had always belonged there. "I'm Lucas," he said, and then...
I heard my brother call a handsome man "hubby." I stopped tying my shoelace and froze. "Hubby, push the tower, push the tower," Forrest said, voice bright in the living room. "You're back?" I called, easing into the doorway. "Forrest, hurry!" a man's voice answered from the couch. I walked around them. Forrest was slumped on the sofa, controller in hand. The other man—tall, face sharp, eyes dark and amused—leaned forward, focus on the screen. "I heard that right," I said...
1 The summer after the college entrance exam, I took a strange little job. "I'll pay eight hundred a month," the ad said. "Tell bedtime stories on the phone nightly. No video, no meeting. Just your voice." "It sounds small," I told my mother, "but it's easy. I'm a night owl." She laughed, "If WeChat had a 'nagging' feature, you'd be a top user." At 9:57 p.m. I locked my door, pulled the blackout curtains, and made a routine of it: a chilled tea bottle in one hand, half a cold...
"The cup hit my arm." I jerked awake, my arm burning, and the memory hit me harder than the pain. "The cup hit me," my father had said, and then the hall went silent. "You know your crimes?" his voice had filled the great hall like thunder. "I did what was right," I said then. "He stole the white elder's pill. He deserved it." "You beat him until he could never walk again." He spat the words. "You broke laws, child." "I did not break the law," I said. "I broke a thief." They had...
I remember the day the order came like a bruise under the skin—hard and sudden. "My father says we must choose by lot," I heard my sister whisper while we bowed our heads in the courtyard. "Who would want to marry Prince Sebastian Corbett? He breaks more hearts than hats." "I'd rather marry the dead than him," Gabriela said, but she laughed like someone who didn't mean it. I wiped my eyes with the same handkerchief I had sewn that morning. I had sewn many things for many people; none...
I never thought a handchain could hold so many promises and so many lies. The night Felix first knocked on my door, moonlight laying thin on the floor, he smiled like the sun had never set on him. He smiled like he belonged to the world. "Elizabeth, are you dating someone?" he asked with that tilt of his head that made my heart slide the wrong way. I closed the door a fraction. "What are you talking about?" He stepped forward, calm as always, and then his hand landed on my shoulder...
I run an inn on the border where humans and spirits meet. I say "I," because I am Jayden Foster, though most call me the locust-tree spirit from the low hills. I run a small, crooked place that takes in traveling pilgrims, lonely merchants, and the occasional lost soul. I take coin, I mend noses, I curse bad weather for a price. I have never begged for power — until the day a black-clad man tossed a round, dark bead into my palm and said, "Bring him to me." "He will pay?" I asked, fixing my...
I had driven into spring the way someone chases a late train — too many stops, not enough patience. The street was full of magnolia blossoms. The city smelled like wet earth and new things. I was already tired from five hours on the road when Ensley called. "Where are you?" Ensley asked, voice bright as a bell. "Half hour," I said. "Slow down. Don't be reckless," she teased. "Shut up, Your Royal Highness," I answered. "Good. Your loyal subject is waiting." We met at Carlotte....
