Quick reads you can finish in 10-30 minutes
Found 1964 short novels
“I need to know—did she come?” I heard Knox Goto’s voice before I saw him. His assistant’s reply floated through the mirror in the dressing room as if from far away. “No,” Yale Davis said. “She’s not here.” Knox turned slowly, looking at himself. He was in a dark custom suit. He looked like the whole room belonged to him. “Are the invitations already out?” he asked. “Sent. Every single one,” Yale said. I tightened my fingers on the hem of my jacket. I could feel that same...
I never expected my birthday to change everything. "You promised a surprise," I said, voice soft in the kitchen light. "You deserve it," Enzo said, smiling like a photograph. "Just wait." The plan was simple and sweet: family, the small crowd that still loved to call our house warm, cake, balloons. He'd always been astonishingly romantic for a man in his forties, and after two broken marriages between us, romance felt like a fragile, cherished currency. "You look beautiful," he told...
I sat swaying on the scarlet carriage, heavy-lidded and half-asleep, listening to the streets' voices like a tide washing over old hurts. "They married the princess to that monster," someone spat. "No blessing, only spite," another answered. "I would rather be forgotten than traded," I whispered to myself. "You're Jocelyn George," I heard Dorian say once, many days earlier, and that single sound—soft, clipped, unexpected—had lodged like a stone in my chest. My name is Jocelyn...
1 "I drew a name," I said, holding the scrap of paper like it might bite. "Valentin Gonzalez?" "Valentin Gonzalez?" the senior at my side repeated, and his laughter was half a scoff. "You got Professor Gonzalez? That's everyone’s nightmare." "He's old," I said, and felt like I should know more than that. "They said he's... retired. Lives alone." "Exactly," Brecken Reynolds said. "He’s exactly the kind of old professor people avoid. Just go, get the signature, don’t ask questions." He...
“Move your hand.” I yank harder and the sleeve rips louder than I expected. “Are you insane?” Everett Bittner hisses, voice flat as ice. “Let go.” “I’m not letting go until you tell me why you hate me,” I say, crying a little because the system keeps giving me choices and the choices keep being ridiculous. He glares. The garden laughs. “Why do you like tearing people’s clothes?” someone snickers. Everett’s servant mouths something, offended for him. A circle of students...
I got two envelopes on my twenty-fourth birthday. One had glittery paper and a neat embossed name. The other smelled of disinfectant when I opened it in the bathroom and found the two words that made everything tilt. "They sent me his wedding invitation," I told the sink like it could help, and then, softer, "and my diagnosis." "You're joking," the voice on the phone said. "It's not a joke," I said. "One says 'congratulations' for a life that's beginning. The other says 'we're sorry'...
I came home because he said, "Wait until I'm back, we'll get married." I came home because I believed him. I am Susana Sullivan. I studied like my life depended on it. I turned five years of work into three. I came back early to give Marcel Xu a surprise. Instead I found a woman who looked like me standing by his side. "She looks like you," someone said to me at the charity auction. "Not quite," I answered, but I did not mean it as comfort. "Susana!" Marcel's voice cut through...
"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...
I rode a white mare into the capital like the wind, and I remember the way the city seemed to tilt a little to look at me. "It is not the right place for a show-off," someone had said that morning when I tightened my braid. I only laughed and drove my heel into the mare's flank. The streets were full of wheels and banners. Carriages parted. People recognized a band of escorts by the way they sat: tidy, disciplined, nothing wasted. When the big carriage did not slow, I did. "Hey!" the...
"I want to sleep with you, Graham." He looked at me like I had said something impossible. "Lenore," he said softly, "you can want anything. But not because of someone else." I heard the words and they made a cold place open inside me. I had been married to Lincoln Lawson for two years. Our life together was a secret that lived in darkness—curtains closed, lights off, like people who were afraid of being seen. He loved someone else. Everyone knew, or almost everyone. They had gone to...
I took the job because I needed the money. Plain and ugly reason, said like a cashier handing change. "I'll be paid to sleep," I told my mother, and she laughed like I had told a joke worth a million. "You're joking," Legacy said, wiping the gardening dirt from her hands. "Who pays someone to sleep?" "A very rich boy who can't sleep without being held," I said, and the two words felt like the title of a bad novel. "He'll pay twenty thousand for one night." Edric Barnes said that to...
"I took the picture." I was holding the camera like a weapon when the hotel door cracked open. "You promised to marry Alexis, Miles," a sneering voice said. "Why are you still seeing me, Claudia? Alexis won't know." "Heh," came another voice, rough and drunk. "I'm marrying her for the project money. When it's done, I'll throw her away." Click. Click. Click. "I told you to stop!" they both cursed as I snapped more shots. "I signed the wedding off," I said aloud to myself....
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...
I first noticed Finn's presence because the living room light had been left on. "I thought you were at work," I said, wiping my wet hair with a towel and squinting at him on the sofa. He didn't answer right away. He was staring at my laptop like a man who had just spotted a treasure map. "Whose computer is that?" I snapped, moving faster than I meant to. "It's yours," he said softly. "What are you writing at midnight?" I lunged forward. "You can't—how much did you read? Where did...
I remember the sun that wouldn't stop burning. "I can't believe I'm still in these heels," I muttered, fanning my face with a stray receipt as I hurried under the trees. Someone called, "Jaelynn?" and my phone buzzed like a trapped insect. "It’s Aurelio?" I said, trying to steady the umbrella with my neck and fishing my phone out of my bag. "Jaelynn, I'm sorry. Work ran late. Dinner—I'll make it up to you," his voice came, polite and rushing like a train pulling away. I smiled...
"I told him everything and he said no." My thumb hovered over the send button like it weighed a hundred pounds. I hit send anyway. "You were brave," Julianne said from across the desk. "I was drunk," I corrected. "And stupid." "Either way, did he reply?" "Yes." I scrolled. The message glared back at me: sorry, I don't think this will work. Then another line: "Do you remember the bad review you left three months ago? I'm the owner." My mouth went dry. "He said he's the shop...
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...
I still can't decide whether the supermarket was unlucky or honest fate. Either way, our hands met over a single box of razors. "Buying that? New man already on the horizon?" he said. "Mind your own business," I snapped. He smiled cold and slow. "This is my lifelong business," Dmitri said, the way he always used dramatic words like furniture. People nearby glanced. I felt my cheeks heat. I tightened my grip on the box. There was one box left. He tugged like we were playing...
I remember the alarm that morning like a shout in a quiet house. It rang, and I hit mute without thinking. I kept my eyes closed, listening to the thin quiet of the apartment while sunlight moved across the floor. “Gunnar, you awake?” my mother called from the kitchen. “Yep.” I pulled the blanket over my head for another minute. The city felt slow and soft at dawn. When I walked into class half-sleep and half-hungry, the first two periods were already over. The third period was Mr....
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...
