The Wedding by Herb Hughes begins the night before Brett Hampton, an American journalist, and Anya Laska, a Polish woman, are to be wed. He has snuck into her room, and they blissfully chat. However, their happiness shatters when German bombs rain down on the...

The Fire Inside My Soul by Julia Baeten tells the story of Diana Strauss, a successful advertising executive who survived a painful childhood. She has everything anyone desires: career success, wealth, and a beautiful apartment with terrific views. But even with so much success, she...

In Bob Van Laerhoven’s The Long Farewell, in 1934, Dresden, fifteen-year-old Hermann Becht's family is affected by Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. His father, Hans, serves the Nazi movement with growing devotion, while his mother, Marina, a Belarusian refugee who escaped revolutionary Russia, believes Germany...

Suzanne Parry’s The Communist’s Secret begins in 1941, where former Leningrad radio worker Katya Karavayeva joins a Soviet volunteer labor squad, expecting to dig defensive trenches against the German invasion. After a disastrous attack near the Luga River destroys the group, Katya escapes into occupied...

In Scott Eveloff’s The Golem’s Holocaust, after Jewish teenager Shayna Essenreich survives a mass execution inside a Nazi death camp in occupied Poland, an elderly rabbi gives her sacred clay tied to an ancient legend about a protector created for persecuted Jewish communities. Buried beneath...

James Snyder’s The Brothers Shaughnessy is set in 1880s New Orleans. Detective brothers Dawson and Michael Shaughnessy are pulled into a series of crimes that begin when Melissa Singleton disappears after Sunday Mass, and her severed hand is delivered to her husband’s law office. As...

How does one woman find purpose after heartbreak? This question is at the heart of The Cold Heart of War by Juliann Dorell. The story begins just before the Civil War, and centers on Beatrice Bradley, a strong-willed, thoughtful woman dealing with personal loss while...

In This Fell Sergeant by Adam Dompierre, Lacey Matthews hires private investigator Eddie London to examine the reported suicide of her boyfriend, Johnny Sullivan, who died after falling from a balcony at the Bridgewater Hotel. Eddie expects a routine investigation until details surrounding Room 310...

The Sooner I Go by Heather Cumiskey is the story of Brynn Gallardo, a recent high school graduate who is still devastated by the simultaneous deaths of her boyfriend Cody and her musician parents in separate car accidents on the same night seven months ago....

The Performance Review by Adrian M. Mompoint is an unsettling short story that might just resonate with office workers. Francis has resigned himself to the fact that his migraines mean he will never be a theater actor again. After a series of failed temping jobs,...