Willa Cather

Paul had just come in to dress for dinner; he sank into a chair, weak in the knees, and clasped his head in his hands. It was to be worse than jail, even; the tepid waters of Cordelia Street were to close over him finally and forever. The grey monotony stretched before him in hopeless, unrelieved years; Sabbath-school, Young People's Meeting, the yellow-papered room, the damp dish-towels; it all rushed back upon him with sickening vividness. Excerpt fr "Paul's Case," one of eight poetic stories in this memorable collection.

My Ántonia (first published 1918) is considered the greatest novel by American writer Willa Cather. My Ántonia — pronounced with the accent on the first syllable of "Ántonia" — is the final book of the "prairie trilogy" of novels by Cather, a list that also includes O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark.My Ántonia tells the stories of several immigrant families who move out to rural Nebraska to start new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest daughter is named Ántonia.

A classic novel of the Nebraska prairie, O Pioneers! is the story of Alexandra Bergson, the daughter of Swedish immigrant farmers, whose devotion to the land sustains her against the hardships and suffering of prairie life. A new addition to the Bantam Classic line.

 Willa Cather, best-known as the author of "O Pioneers , My Antonia," and "Death Comes for The Archbishop" published "Youth and the Bright Medusa," a collection of her short fiction, in 1920. According to Alfred Knopf, Cather had been displeased with the dull brown covers of "O Pioneers " and "My Antonia," and upon seeing the bright blue Chinese cloth Knopf had purchased to cover other hardcovers, immediately handed him the manuscript of "Youth and the Bright Medusa," Also in Knopf's belief, Willa Cather cared nothing for how much she would be paid for her work, but rather for fame and positive attention. "Youth and the Bright Medusa" is a collection of eight stories of artistic endeavor, told in Cather's clear and lucid prose. Fans of Cather's novels may well be enthralled by this collection, which in its quiet simplicity is as elegant and insightful as anything the author ever wrote.

Unlike her twin brother, Jackson, Jessa struggled with her weight and very few friends. Jackson was an athlete and the epitome of popularity, while Jessa felt invisible. Noah was the quintessential "It" guy at school-charismatic, well-liked, and undeniably handsome. To make matters worse, he was Jackson's best friend and Jessa's biggest bully. During their senior year, Jessa decides it was time for her to gain some self-confidence, find her true beauty and not be the invisible twin. As Jessa transformed, she begins to catch the eye of everyone around her, especially Noah. Noah, initially blinded by his perception of Jessa as merely Jackson's sister, started to see her in a new light. How did she become the captivating woman invading his thoughts? When did she become the object of his fantasies? Join Jessa on her journey from being the class joke to a confident, desirable young woman, surprising even Noah as she reveals the incredible person she has always been inside.

Aria Bennett is a top student with perfect grades but no social life. She is assigned to tutor the school's newest transfer student, Jason Monroe. However, Jason is consistently late to their sessions, cocky, and resistant to being told what to do. Aria just wants to get the tutoring over with. Things take a turn when she discovers that Jason is on academic probation and risks losing his spot as the goalie on the hockey team. This revelation softens Aria's perspective on him. As their late-night tutoring sessions become a regular occurrence, Aria starts to see the vulnerabilities behind Jason's tough exterior. Meanwhile, Jason never intended to develop feelings for the girl who dresses in oversized hoodies and carries notebooks. Yet, somehow, Aria is getting under his skin and possibly into his heart.

The ninety-ninth time Jax Little broke my heart was the last time. We were the golden couple of Northgate High, our future perfectly mapped out for UCLA. But in our senior year, he fell for a new girl, Catalina, and our love story became a sick, exhausting dance of his betrayals and my empty threats to leave. At a graduation party, Catalina "accidentally" pulled me into the pool with her. Jax dove in without a second's hesitation. He swam right past me as I struggled, wrapped his arms around Catalina, and pulled her to safety. As he helped her out to the cheers of his friends, he glanced back at me, my body shivering and my mascara running in black rivers. "Your life isn't my problem anymore," he said, his voice as cold as the water I was drowning in. That night, something inside me finally shattered. I went home, opened my laptop, and clicked the button that confirmed my admission. Not to UCLA with him, but to NYU, an entire country away.

"You are in love with me, aren't you?" He whispered seductively into her ear. **** Elizabeth Bennett thought her life couldn't get any worse. Losing her twin in a hurricane had shattered her world, forcing her to move states and leave behind everything-friends, family, and a sense of identity. At eighteen, she believed she had endured enough. But then she arrived at Hollands High... and caught the attention of the very person she was meant to avoid. Patrick Diego was many things-charming, untouchable, dangerous. But to Elizabeth, he was something else entirely. Her bully. The one who seemed determined to make her life miserable, never missing a chance to remind her that she didn't belong. But what happens when she stumbles upon his soft side? Will her feelings change the narrative between them, or will falling for him only lead to more heartbreak?

“Alina, you will get late for school again” I heard Dad banging on my door. “Last 10 min” I mumble, but my eyes widen. I was with Uncle Harrison. Did Dad find us? “Alina…” I opened my eyes, I was in my room and Harrison was looking at me with a warm smile wearing his signature suit. “I am taking a bath” I yelled. “Come fast, your breakfast is ready,” Dad said before leaving. “Good morning” Uncle Harrison came to bed cupping my face he kissed me. “Good morning” I whispered on his lips. “When did you bring me here,” I asked. “You were sleeping,” He said, scooping me in his arms and entering my bathroom. “This hide and seek is terrible” I sighed. “But it's fun” He chuckled. Author Note... Hello dear Readers, Meet Alina and her family. The story of love, care, romance and lots of suspense..

What if you fall deeply in love with someone who sees you as nothing but an inconvenience? What if he ignores every tear, every smile, every desperate attempt to matter to him? What if he crushes your hopes again and again and you still wait, foolishly, faithfully? Would you still cling to the hope that one day, he will finally love you back? But what if, just what if, the day you finally teach your heart to let him go, and he shows up begging for a second chance? Can you forgive the man who once was your heartless heartbreaker? Liana Celina Ruiz was hopelessly in love with her foster brother even at a young age. She pleaded with her foster mother to arrange their engagement and to her delight it happened. But love was never easy. It was sacrifice. Pain. Years of trying to prove her selfless love to a boy who never asked for it. Elias Joaquin Saavedra Rosario was the only heir to the Rosario fortune, a gifted artist with breathtaking looks, yet cold, distant, and ruthless. He refused to be swayed by his mother or his spoiled brat of a financèe he was supposed to marry. Instead, he vowed to show her she was mistaken, that he wasn't the man for this determined orphanage girl. Now tell me, who will win this war? The girl who gave everything? Or the boy who gave nothing but pain? Heads up: THESE TWO WILL ABSOLUTELY TEST YOUR PATIENCE. THEY'LL FRUSTRATE YOU, ANGER YOU, AND PROBABLY MAKE YOU WANT TO SCREAM. IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE CHAOS, IT'S OKAY TO STOP HERE. IF YOU CAN HANDLE IT... WELCOME TO THE FIRE.

I was cramming formulas for the National Innovators Scholarship exam, our ticket to Caltech' s engineering program. Ethan Hayes, my best friend since kindergarten, and I had dreamed of this for years. We were supposed to be a team. But Ethan wasn't here. He was with Jessi Vance, the new, rebellious girl. I overheard her chilling plan: she wasn't just distracting him; she was sabotaging him, plotting to get him wasted so he'd fail the exam. Naive, I interfered, dragging him back to the exam. He got into Caltech, but Jessi soon died in a drunk driving accident. He twisted it, blaming me. His revenge was meticulous: a framed sexual assault, wiping out my future. The public humiliation, amplified by his powerful family, drove my parents to despair. Their car went off the Blackwood Bridge, a tragic 'accident' . My heart, already fragile, couldn't bear his venomous words. He visited me in my cold cell, holding a newspaper headline of my parents' 'tragic accident.' "This is what you get for ruining my life," he hissed. "You and your family paid for Jessi." The pain, the injustice, consumed me. Then, darkness. My eyes snapped open. I was in my own room, my own bed. The clock read 7 PM, the eve of the exam. I was back. This time, Ethan Hayes could make his own damn choices. I' d protect myself. And above all, my family.

My grandmother, Eleanor Vance, a woman who curated lives as meticulously as her art collection, had decided my future: marriage to the influential gallery owner, Daniel. My dream, however, was to attend the prestigious Blackwood Art Academy, a dream she' d promised to fund-on the condition of this union. But then, my cousin Olivia, ever the delicate flower, executed a theatrical faint at the dinner table, perfectly timed with the announcement of my tuition. She claimed a rare heart condition, and my grandmother, blind to the obvious manipulation, diverted my entire academy fund to Olivia' s supposed treatment, even suggesting I become her "assistant." The injustice burned, the audacity of Daniel-my supposed fiancé-proposing I become his mistress after he secured the Vance fortune through Olivia, was breathtaking. Was my art, my entire future, to be sacrificed for a transparent charade? Just as I believed all hope was lost, a mysterious letter arrived: a full, anonymous scholarship to Blackwood, the exact academy I had been barred from, exposing Olivia' s deceit in front of the city' s elite.

Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley. Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him. That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!" He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law." Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart.

Thanksgiving weekend was just around the corner, and as an intern ranger, I was preparing for what my supervisor, Mark Thorne, called a "mandatory exploratory survey" to Devil's Gulch. But this seemingly routine assignment was a meticulously planned death trap, set by the man I worked for and the sister I loved. The rock bit into my back, a sharp pain, then nothing as my climbing rope went slack, sabotaged, as I plummeted into the cold darkness of the crevasse. Mark's chilling, empty smile was the last thing I saw above me on the narrow ledge, my sister Emily looking away, silent, complicit, as I fought for air. Killed. By my own supervisor and the only family I had left, betrayed for reasons I couldn't comprehend as my life vanished in an instant. Then I jolted awake, not in a freezing abyss, but in my familiar bunk, the comforting scent of pine from my cheap park-issued mattress filling the air. My heart hammered against my ribs as I touched my face, my arms, realizing there were no broken bones, no blood. The calendar on the wall screamed at me: three days before that fateful Thanksgiving trip to Devil's Gulch. I was alive. It was a memory, vivid, terrifying, but now it was also a warning. A second chance. This time, I wouldn't be the naive one; I would protect myself first, and if I could, protect my sister from him and from herself. I could still stop this. And I would.