A collection of short stories by Hugh Howey

Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around—and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in . . . for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system. Once their month of service in the prison is completed, they can return to their "civilian" homes. At first, this doesn't seem like too much of a sacrifice to make in order to have a roof over one's head and food to eat. But when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in their house during the months when she and Stan are in the prison, a series of troubling events unfolds, putting Stan's life in danger. With each passing day, Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled. Keep reading and be sure to enter The Heart Goes Last Fiction contest!

**Added on the reading list of @retold @WattpadTimeTravel @WattpadFairytales @HistoricalFiction @WattWitches @Magic @WattpadBookshelves This is book 1 of [STOLEN] SERIES 2015... All her life, Myra Farrow has been obsessed with medieval castles-and the kings and princes who once inhabited them. Now, wealthy videogame designer Steve Bernard wants her to model for a princess character in his new game. Myra can't resist his offer, especially when she learns that Steve plans to film inside the mysterious Hue Castle-a cursed, barren, colorless place forbidden to visitors for centuries. But unknown to Myra, her soul is bound to Hue Castle by blood and sorcery. When she enters its doors, she awakens dark powers that will reach through time-stealing her past, torturing her present, and rewriting her future. 1415... Edward Hue, the last of the Hue royal bloodline, has never stood in the sunshine or held a living flower. Cursed from birth to live in darkness and bring death to all he touches, he is at the mercy of his cruel, tyrannical father, who will not rest until he shatters Edward's soul and makes his son into a diabolical copy of himself. Edward's one hope is the mysterious woman who haunts his dreams-who will either break his curse and bring him out of the darkness, or destroy him utterly. In this modern day retelling of Beauty and the Beast, past and future collide in a tale of love, obsession, betrayal, and the hope for redemption. Once Upon A [Stolen] Time © 2024 by Samreen Ahsan

Excerpt from the newly released book, "Rays of Civilization."

The Freeze-Dried Groom is one of the nine stories in Margaret Atwood's fantastic new collection Stone Mattress. A collection of highly imaginative short pieces that speak to our times with deadly accuracy. Vintage Atwood creativity, intelligence, and humor: think Alias Grace. Margaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace. A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband in "Alphinland," the first of three loosely linked stories about the romantic geometries of a group of writers and artists. In "The Freeze-Dried Groom," a man who bids on an auctioned storage space has a surprise. In "Lusus Naturae," a woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire. In "Torching the Dusties," an elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. And in "Stone Mattress," a long-ago crime is avenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite. In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game.

Tips for writers from Hugh Howey, as shared on his blog.

NOW TO BE A MAJOR MOVIE IN HOLLYWOOD! "Sadia's foray into the romance genre paid off and we get a stunning novel." MARA WHITE, HUFFINGTON POST "My second in the Top Ten romance reads of the year!" BUZZFEED BLOG "Juniper Smoke is an odyssey, a fantastic, sexy, funny, smart and heart-stopping journey that I never wanted to end.There is just so much to love about this book that I want to yell from the rooftops for everyone to read it!" BOOK BELLAS "Juniper Smoke cuts a sweet story of love and nostalgia with the razor edge of modern dating." HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER, Stephanie Johnson "Gosh darn, Sadia Ash created BEAUTIFULLY COMPLEX characters. The ending ruined me and I want more! Sadia ash, you're a goddess." KIKA GOODREADS SUMMARY: A nerdy curator. A worldly inventor. A sizzling affair. Juniper Mills is a sassy, nerdy curator at the History Museum of Ann Arbor. Taking care of her mom and autistic twin, her life has been one big sacrifice for others. Work. Home. Repeat. Raised by her mother to hate men, she worries she will die alone with an army of cats and a lake of books. Kyle Paxton is a handsome, robotic inventor of micro-cameras from San Francisco. To curb the dark memories of his ex-girlfriend who haunts him, he schedules dating and work with mechanical precision. Not looking for love, he only hooks up with Amazonian models. Juniper and Kyle meet-cute when she is dangling forty feet from a museum scaffolding. Juniper falls hard for him, but knows getting him is going to be impossible. She manages to knock Kyle's world off its axis and their galaxies collide in this unfairy tale. And that is when the story really begins... In the age of hookups, can love survive the test of time?