A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
Where does the story take place?
On a bright beach, a painter walks beside his disabled wife while a friend tells the harsh story behind their silent marriage.
A clerk’s dissatisfied wife borrows a glittering necklace for one night among the wealthy, then pays dearly when it vanishes.
During a police roundup in rainy Paris, a young prostitute tells a passerby how poverty, abuse, and the law narrowed her choices.
A sheltered young wife befriends the woman named in an anonymous warning about her husband—and trusts them both.
A newly appointed State Councillor scatters favors across Paris until one generous recommendation threatens his carefully polished importance.
A late-night walk with a nervous pedlar leads a young oarsman into a poor household where each sound suggests the wrong kind of danger.
A newspaper’s suicide statistics carry a riverside reader into a dream of a Paris institution that promises a quiet, respectable death.
A surgeon’s false tale about a stolen saint’s relic impresses his devout fiancée—until she visits Cologne herself.
On her way to a lover’s apartment, a Parisian society wife discovers that habit can exhaust even the most forbidden affair.
A divorced man meets his remarried former wife at a hotel and turns their old grievances into a calculated new proposal.
A confident Parisian explains how two carefully scheduled affairs collapsed through a silent exchange of pins in his bedroom.
A bored baroness copies a window signal she sees across the street and discovers that curiosity can be taken as a business offer.
A reluctant traveler bound for Italy meets an aloof young woman whose sudden proposal reshapes his carefully planned holiday.
A duel between two dragoons reveals the secret arrangement of a widow known for piety and strict respectability.
A respected lawyer accused of violating his lover’s grave refuses counsel and asks a shocked courtroom to hear why he returned to her.
A Parisian libertine becomes consumed by a stranger whose identity remains beyond his reach.
A Paris officer recognizes a former colonial soldier whose chaotic courage and appetite once shaped life inside a blockaded town.
A beautiful countess rebels against the husband who has used pregnancy to control her, choosing a revenge designed to poison his certainty.
A chance meeting in a beer hall reveals why a once-privileged schoolmate has spent his adult life drinking at the same table.
A solitary collector watches every object in his beloved house walk away into the night—and no explanation can make the sight less real.
A chance encounter in a provincial tobacco shop revives a vanished world of river outings, hard work, and ingenious schemes.
On a carefully cultivated tour of Rome, a refined schoolteacher meets an ideal companion—until one social detail tests her affection.
After crossing a feared secret society, an arrogant colonial traveler finds that revenge follows him from Sierra Leone to London.
After five years and most of his fortune, Monson must decide whether his flying machine is ready—or whether ridicule has forced the decision.
