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E-Book · Free to read · English

The price of salt

Claire Morgan

Set in a crowded department store cafeteria, the novel follows Therese as she moves through her training and work at Frankenberg’s, feeling trapped by the store’s rigid routines and impersonal atmosphere. Around her are plans for a future with Richard, but those prospects feel uncertain against her growing sense that ordinary life and conversation leave something essential unspoken. The story centers on Therese’s relationship with Carol, whose touch and presence carry a charged intimacy that unsettles her.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Death between the stars

Marion Zimmer Bradley

A Terran woman boards a cargo starship during a tense period of interstellar war, needing passage home before travel routes are disrupted. The ship’s only cabin has already been reserved by a nonhuman Theradin, Haalvordhen, who is also a telepath, and strict rules and customs make the arrangement socially fraught. The story centers on the captain’s dilemma and the narrator’s decision to share space with the alien passenger despite the risk of scandal and taboo.

E-Book · Free to read · English

When love's labor's lost

W. C. Tuttle

In Piperock, Magpie Simpkins promotes a Labor Day novelty fight between a lion and Zeb Whittaker’s bull, Calamity, and plans to raise money by selling chances on the lion. Ike Harper doubts the scheme, worries about getting the animal from a circus at Granite, and expects the event to stir up trouble. Testament Tilton protests the idea as a desecration of the holiday, but Magpie keeps pressing the plan and recruiting support.

E-Book · Free to read · English

With the joker wild

W. C. Tuttle

This western short story is narrated by Ike Harper, who presents himself and his partner Magpie Simpkins as prospectors living near Piperock. After they decide there must be gold on Whispering Crick, they find a rich pay streak, stake the Golden Hunch claim, and begin planning a dam and sawmill to work the ground. Their plans are complicated when Hailstorm Wilson warns them that the timber they want may be on forest reserve land and therefore restricted by law.

E-Book · Free to read · English

A scarlet poppy, and other stories

Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford

This collection centers on American short fiction and domestic social life in the nineteenth century. One story opens with a marital dispute over a decorative scarlet paper poppy and quickly widens into an argument about money, property, and the rights of a wife’s separate income. The volume is issued by Harper & Brothers in New York.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Waiting

Helen R. Hull

Helen R. Hull’s short story follows Anne Stephens as she looks back from her early forties on a few childhood scenes that shaped her understanding of her family. The memories center on her parents’ strained but intimate marriage, her mother’s sharp authority, her father’s quieter temper, her mother’s greater attachment to her eldest brother, and Anne’s own wish for a baby and a place in the household. The story presents a domestic life marked by love, jealousy, grief, and the limited roles available to women in the family.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Buffalo Bill's death message

Prentiss Ingraham

This Western novel centers on William F. Cody, known as Buffalo Bill, and presents him as a scout, rider, soldier, hunter, and showman. It follows his early life in Iowa and Kansas, his service in the Civil War and later Indian campaigns, and his rise to fame through buffalo hunting and Wild West exhibitions. The book also frames these adventures as part of a broader series of Western tales linked to Prentiss Ingraham’s stories about Cody.

E-Book · Free to read · English

The Sun Virgin

Jr. Thomas Dixon

Set during Spain’s conquest drives in the early sixteenth century, this historical novel follows Francisco Pizarro’s troubled expedition in the South Sea region and the crisis it provokes in Panama. As rumors of hardship and failure spread, Almagro, Father Luque, and their allies try to defend the enterprise before Governor de los Rios, who prepares to end the venture and recall the men from Gallo. Alonso de Molina emerges as a key intermediary, caught between the governor’s orders and the hopes of Pizarro’s supporters.

E-Book · Free to read · English

The story of Ivy

Marie Belloc Lowndes

At a country-house week-end party, Mary Hampton and her guests discuss the striking Ivy Lexton, her marriage to Jervis, and the pressure of the couple’s financial troubles. The conversation also centers on Miles Rushworth, whom Mary hopes may find Jervis work, while others speculate about Ivy’s effect on men and her carefully managed charm. The book opens amid social observation, flirtation, and hints of a mystery tied to the Lextons’ situation in London society.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Idol's eye

Carol Emshwiller

Philippa, a young woman with poor eyesight and a habit of hiding behind her hair and glasses, lives on a farm where a man’s visit and her family’s comments make her feel uneasy. While shelling peas, she has a sudden, unusually clear vision of a purple cloud over Hump Back Mountain and becomes absorbed in the experience of seeing differently. The story also shifts to a separate group arriving in a folded loop, guided by a crystal and searching for the right place for their idol.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Public enemy

Kendell Foster Crossen

This science-fiction crime story follows Public Police Officer Brad Raynor on his first days in the highly trained police system of the 32nd century. While he finds routine patrol work dull, he is suddenly sent after a violent fugitive who has killed an officer and fled in an air-car through Nyork. The setup centers on Brad’s new uniform, his police education, and the contrast between everyday domestic calls and a serious manhunt.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Terror station

Dwight V. Swain

Dwight V. Swain’s science-fiction adventure follows Stone, who encounters a terrifying alien creature at a top-secret desert base after a woman stumbles into the road and is seized by the translucent monster. He fights the fast-moving being with a pistol and then by hand as it attacks with tentacles and a purple beam, while the woman warns him about the light. The story centers on survival, an apparent alien threat to Earth, and the immediate danger surrounding the encounter.

E-Book · Free to read · English

The haunted house

Hilaire Belloc

Rackham is a Sussex country house owned in the early twentieth century by Henry Maple, a widower with one young son. The book sketches the house, its long and mixed history, its comfortable interior, and the small household that supports a life rooted in the surrounding land and only loosely connected to London. It sets up a satiric picture of English rural gentry and their setting rather than a conventional mystery plot.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Brown eyes and brown bear

Frank Richardson Pierce

In this Alaska story, Dave Sloan and his partner Sam quarrel over Dave’s habit of boasting about bear hunting and misleading a young schoolteacher, Mary Hanna, who is in love with him. Sam decides to warn Mary that Dave has never killed a bear, but Mary is not persuaded and instead presses Dave for a bear rug to match her eyes. The tale centers on their talk of truthfulness, romance, and the difference between brown bears and black bears.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Russian life and society as seen in 1866-'67

Nathan Appleton

Nathan Appleton recounts his 1866 Atlantic crossing from New York to Brest and the month he spent in Paris before continuing to Russia. He sketches the shipboard world of his voyage in lively detail, including the mix of travelers, conversation, card playing, and the captain’s routine presence. The book is framed as a travel narrative from an American visitor observing Europe and moving on toward Russia.

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