Just Plain Fiction

This is a novella about family and resilience, set in the Pennsylvania coal country. George Ferris has worked hard to build a good life for himself and his family, but there's a coal fire burning underground, and it threatens all that he has built. The story follows him as he tries to figure out how to respond and struggles to protect his family from the slow-moving disaster. It was inspired by actual events in Centralia, Pennsylvania, and provides a gripping dramatization of how an external catastrophe can shake the foundations of your life.

This is the story of a boy in rural India who tries to break the boundaries imposed by his caste and attend school. The cost of this decision is beyond what he or anyone else in is family expects. This story has a clear message, but it is an important message and the storytelling is good enough to support it.

This is a short story about a man struggling to figure out what he wants from life, and what happens when meeting a young woman in his field upends his routines. I was skeptical when I read the summary, because so often this sort of premise is little more than an excuse for a middle aged male writer to fantasize about having a young woman fall in love with him. But this book avoids that trap, and is a multi-layered story looking at what we control in life and what we don't.

This is a deceptively simple story about a woman whose comfortable life is disrupted when an old childhood friend builds a vacation home in the beach community where she lives. But there's more under the surface. Even the protagonist recognizes that the disruption she feels may be entirely of her own making, and both the protagonist and the maybe-antagonist are sympathetic characters. The story made me think about how far childhood can reach into adulthood, and how hard it is to feel truly comfortable in your own skin.

This is an interesting short story about a past-her-prime actress who is contacted by the family of her former stepfather. He is dying, and wants to see her. The story follows her response, and the emotions and memories it stirs up. It is a really well-written story. When I finished it, I first wished it would have resolved a few more things, but as it "settled" in my mind, I think that perhaps leaving those things unresolved was central to what it says about family and what we can expect from them.

This well-written novella is set in seventh century England, when the borders with Wales were still dangerous and a new religion called Christianity was starting to gain prominence among the ruling class. It is at its heart a coming of age story, about a young man sent from the borderlands to learn the ways of the court and the new religion. But it is also about how to find your way in a time of great change, and I always have a soft spot for stories set in times of great societal change.

This charming story is a fairly standard post-divorce "finding yourself" story, but the unusual characters and strong sense of place make it a standout example of the form, and also something a little more. Throughout the story, there are themes of the meaning of community and identity, and how these two things interrelate. In short, this is a good story, that you can read and enjoy just for the surface story, but if you're so inclined, it will leave you things to think about when you're done.

This is a slightly surreal story, set on an island paradise that was "discovered" by the global 'in" crowd... then abandoned when a disease hit. Now, one islander is trying to find the lost dog of one of the rich former guests so that he can collect the reward money and maybe put his life back together, but a hurricane is coming. It is a thoroughly entertaining story that sneaks in a couple of things for you to think about while you're distracted by the action.

This is a charming short story about strangers who happen to meet in an airport: a woman breaking up with her boyfriend, an older couple who help her, and the bartenders who witness it all. They decide to keep in touch and exchange letters once a year. This chance meeting and the subsequent letters catalyze change in all their lives, and the charm of the story is seeing how this change plays out.

This is a delightful short book about a journalist who returns home to attend his first mentor's funeral, and finds himself caught up in the struggles of the local newspaper his mentor was running. The author has a background in crime writing. He has brought that fast-paced style to this story, and it works well. The characters and plot are both really enjoyable. My only complaint is that there is both a series of "Papercuts" stories and a novel-length book coming out later this year, and it is not immediately clear how they related.

In the aftermath of an earthquake, a mother and father struggle to reach their young son. The mother also finds herself on a journey through memories long buried, which might shed some light on her failing marriage. The external events add extra drama to what is essentially an internal plot of coming to understand the reasons for your own emotions.

This short story does a great job of transporting the reader into the weird, liminal space of a first pregnancy. The main character hasn't found her footing yet, and neither does the reader, really. Despite leaving you feeling slightly off balance, the story is enjoyable to read.

This is a quirky and fun story, with a little more going on than first meets the eye. The central theme is life's surprises, and the various ways we respond and keep going in the face of those surprises, but the characters are so interesting that it is easy to overlook the theme and just enjoy the story.

This is a fun and entertaining story that will also leave you thinking about how our lives can land us in places we never expected to be, and how much control we do or do not have over that process. The main character is a teenage boy, just starting to figure out what sort of person he wants to be. He is a likeable lead character, but the real insights come from contrasting him with the adults who make up the rest of the cast.

This charming story is written in the world of a larger mystery series, but is not itself a mystery. There is a love interest, but it isn't really a love story, either. It is a character-driven peak into life in the French countryside, and it is a delight to read.

Two women from very different backgrounds meet, become friends, and somehow decide to open a restaurant. This is a story about friendship, and how it can grow between people who don't seem to have much in common, and it is a story about the value of doing somewhat audacious things. At its heart, though, it is the story about two women you'll wish you could meet, and a restaurant you'll wish you could visit.

This is a quick-reading novella about a woman who is feeling taken for granted by her adult children, who are still living in their modest family home in Dublin. Binchy has a knack for capturing everyday life, and this book is no exception, which makes it an enjoyable read even though sometimes the story feels like more of a sketch than a fully formed story. When it is a sketch, it is at least a very good sketch!

The plot of this charming novella sounds surreal when summarized: a somewhat unsuccessful American man whose mother always told him that his father was Tom Mix falls in love with the music of a Mexican band called Los Gatos Negros, and when he hears that they are in danger from the drug cartels, decides to head to Mexico to rescue them. Meanwhile, the head nun in a convent in a little Mexican town is struggling to deal with the departure of their priest, and the head of one of the drug cartels is longing to leave that all behind and live the life of an artist.

The plot of this story is fun, but the real charm is the lead character, who is well-drawn, believable, and downright delightful. Jade Yeo is an ambitious young writer, recently arrived from Malaysia, and working to make a life for herself in London. This is a romance story set in 1920s London, and like many romances, there is some sex- but if that is not your thing, you can easily skip that scene.

This fascinating story follows the life of a young Russian girl in the 1800s who has a love of mathematics. She persists despite society's obstacles and studies mathematics at a German university, before finally ending up as a professor in Sweden. It is based on the life of Sofia Kovalevskaya, and is organized around her papers. The writing is engaging and almost lyrical at times, and the story has fantastical elements, making this more of an exploration of the motivations and costs of circumventing society's obstacles than a simple fictionalized biographical sketch.

This is a story of a young Hawaiian girl growing up and learning her family's secrets, but also of making peace with the past and the danger in refusing to do so. It is a beautifully told story with a strong sense of place, interesting characters, and a thread of Hawaiian mythology woven in.

A bittersweet but funny story about a woman who sets out to start over after her husband is killed, but finds herself sharing a trailer with her mother-in-law instead. The characters are believable and ultimately likable, the sort you wish you could reach into the book and help sort through the mess they're making.

This is an epistolary story examining the end of a friendship between two men. Pothier has a genius for portraying the difficulties and beauty of human relationships, and this story does not disappoint in that regard.

This is a gripping and harrowing story about a successful British man attending his first polo match. No, really, it is- because the successful man is the black son of working class parents whose sacrifices he is only now understanding, and whose life is not at all as secure and idyllic as it seems. The action in this masterfully told story is primarily in the protagonist's head, and the result is a story I will not soon forget.

This is an enjoyable short story about growing up and losing your illusions about the world and the grown ups who live in it.

A simple, heartbreaking, and beautifully written story about a woman whose life has not turned out the way she had hoped.

This is a quirky coming of age story in which it is not just the main character (Timi, a teenager in Uzbekistan) who learns some life lessons. Timi's village has been the recipient of a gift of camels from a Western aid organization- and the camel-related hijincks are only one source of laughs. There's also a Mexican soap opera dubbed into Uzbek and the general randomness of life.

A sweet and bittersweet story about a man who finds himself alone when he never expected to be, and has to figure out what to do next and who he really is. There are moments of real beauty in this story, and perhaps some notes of warning, too.

A woman prepares for an important visitor, and the visitor is not as expected. Note that this story can also be bought as part of a collection of the same name.

An oddly appealing story about an extremely professional hit man and what happens when his latest job takes an unexpected turn.