Amazon Original Stories Collections
Since 2018, Plympton has partnered with Amazon Original Stories to bring Amazon Prime members contemporary short fiction by critically acclaimed and best-selling writers. We have published small collections of socially relevant stories, as well as standalone stories. These digitally published stories are available online to over 100 million Prime members in the United States alone and in all English-speaking countries. Audio versions accompany the stories and are narrated by some of the most celebrated actors in the U.S.
Collections
Released in March 2024, NEVER TELL explores the lingering threat of secrets and the inescapable fear that they can’t stay buried forever. The collection features six stories by Liv Constantine, Loreth Anne White, Andrea Bartz, Rachel Howzell Hall, Ivy Pochoda, and Caroline Kepnes. A woman’s long-dead father appears, alive, sending her on a search for the truth. A couple with a new baby move in to their dream home, but their neighbor across the way seems to be keeping a close eye on them. Childhood best friends discover that their friendly rivalry may conceal deeper secrets, betrayals, and jealousy than they had imagined. These thrilling stories of suspense remind us that sometimes revealing the truth can bring out the worst in people.
BLAZE, published in February 2024, goes back in time to find women who broke through barriers in disparate worlds of art, war, science, love, and injustice and paved the way for other women to follow. The collection features seven stories by Marie Benedict, Maggie Shipstead, Pam Jenoff, Asha Lemmie, Melanie Benjamin, Sadeqa Johnson, and Ariel Lawhon. A struggling young female painter working as the assistant to a renowned painter on a remote island finds herself tested by his demands. In early twentieth-century New York, a young Black woman adopted by Italian parents is torn between cultures. A woman dares to pursue and ultimately lead the field of forensic science despite her lack of a formal education. Each of these stories takes readers to a particular point in time and reveals a singular woman who dared to break convention.
Released in July 2023, OBSESSION follows characters that veer sharply off track to pursue their deepest desires no matter the cost. The collection features six stories by Nita Prose, B. A. Paris, Minka Kent, Julie Clark, Chris Bohjalian, and Alyssa Cole. An usher with dreams of becoming an actress launches a one-woman investigation into the star of her show’s untimely death. When a DNA website emails her a match, a pro-choice activist struggles to keep her distance from the daughter she gave up for adoption. In search of peace after a failed marriage, a man attends their group vacation but finds himself unable to live with the incessant buzzing of one of his housemates and one persistent mosquito. Whether they are the town’s golden couple or an unassuming bartender, their desire is strong and sharp enough to cut.
GOOD INTENTIONS was released in April 2023. Poignant and evocative, these stories explore the kaleidoscopic experience of motherhood. The collection features seven stories by Rebecca Serle, Kristina McMorris, Charmaine Wilkerson, Kristin Harmel, Etaf Rum, Sejal Badani, and Angie Kim. One woman uncovers photographs that unravel everything her late mother told her about her past. A French woman takes in a Jewish refugee, gaining a temporary second chance at motherhood. An expecting mother reckons with her estranged parents and a failing marriage to prepare for her baby’s arrival. These moving stories remind us that motherhood is fierce, unsteady, and rarely follows a straightforward path.
Published in February 2023, WE COULD BE HEROES follows everyday people trying to do good and questions the wake their heroism leaves. This collection features five stories by Lisa Scottoline, Lisa Unger, Janelle Brown, J.T. Ellison, and Victor Methos. A lawyer investigates a murder case himself to save his client from a small town’s beliefs. A concerned mother tries to be the parental oversight she believes her daughter’s friend is missing. An Italian immigrant stands up to his neighborhood’s drug dealers to keep his young neighbor from joining them. These stories consider the sometimes messy aftermath of heroic intentions.
INTO SHADOW, released in November 2022, follows a set of dauntless characters captivated by their search for the truth. Featuring seven stories by Tomi Champion-Adeyemi, Lev Grossman, Alix E. Harrow, Nghi Vo, Tamsyn Muir, Veronica G. Henry, and Garth Nix. A young woman turns her back on the real world to search for the mythical realm her mother disappeared to. A servant turned warrior questions who and what she is really fighting for. A closed-off teenager unleashes an unknown power on the students tormenting her. The truth may set these characters free, but it might also consume them.
GETAWAY was published in August 2022. This chilling set of stories explores all the twists and turns vacation in paradise can take. The collection features six stories by Sally Hepworth, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Catherine Steadman, Luanne Rice, Jess Lourey, and Rumaan Alam. A psychiatrist tries to outmaneuver her controlling husband on a surprise and remote anniversary trip. Strange events interrupt a woman’s sleep at her new boyfriend’s quiet, upstate cabin. A woman confronts the new owner of her family’s old vacation home and discovers more than she expected. Power moves, secrets, and obsession abound in these dream vacations gone wrong.
Released in July 2022, A POINT IN TIME is a touching collection of the difficult choices that bind past with present. The collection features seven stories by Martha Hall Kelly, Paula McLain, Olivia Hawker, Esi Edugyan, Fiona Davis, Thomas Keneally, and Jesmyn Ward. A teenage girl grapples with her ancestors’ wishes when she leaves her secluded community created by people escaping slavery for the modern world. A school custodian is wrongly blamed by his community for a deadly school fire. An Apollo 11 engineer must decide if it is more important to remain focused on work or help with a family crisis. These stories expand on the pivotal moments that shape a life — or history itself.
TRESPASS, released in February 2022, presents unsettling, genre-bending stories that traverse the borders between domesticity and wildness. The collection features six stories by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Jeff VanderMeer, Stephen Graham Jones, Karen Russell, Tochi Onyebuchi, and Carmen Maria Machado. A woman seeks revenge after a neighbor fells a tree on her property. A man crashes a “divorce party” in the desert where he meets a formidable tortoise. A researcher discovers the gruesome truth about a town’s history of tiger sightings. These haunting tales of secrets and survival explore what happens when humans and Mother Nature collide.
Released in August 2021, BLACK STARS offers electrifying, thought-provoking tales that reimagine Black existence in futuristic and fantastical realms. The collection features six stories by Nisi Shawl, Nnedi Okorafor, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, C.T. Rwizi, Nalo Hopkinson, and Victor LaValle. A merman and woman receive 40 acres of underwater land. A town besieged by Al-Qaeda accepts help from a supernatural being. Two women with magical abilities use their powers to call attention to injustices. Magical and transcendent, these Afro-centric stories invite us to consider a more liberated and expansive version of the future.
CURRENCY, published in February 2021, is a delicious, sometimes edgy, often satirical examination of modern-day class and privilege. The collection features eight stories, by Kiley Reid, Jia Tolentino, Emma Cline, Justin Torres, Curtis Sittenfeld, Yiyun Li, Tom Perrotta, and Cristina Henríquez. An internet influencer faces off against her easily provoked legion of followers. A high-school soccer star unwittingly ruins the life of his Honduran teammate. A young artist gains his footing in the real world. Featuring audio narration by Arden Cho, Wilson Cruz, Kelly Marie Tran, Helen Hunt, and more, these stories ask what each of us is truly worth, and why.
FARAWAY was published in December 2020. This collection brings readers charming and eerie modern interpretations of classic fairy tales. FARAWAY features five stories, by Rainbow Rowell, Nic Stone, Soman Chainani, Ken Liu (whose story is in TV development with Amazon Studios), and Gayle Forman. A troll under a bridge reckons with iPhones and Starbucks. Wicked stepmothers teach their entitled stepdaughters some lessons about gratitude. A rookie detective goes undercover to unearth a killer of popular high school princesses. Both subversive and enchanting, this collection finds new relevance in age-old stories and provides unexpected rewards.
OUT OF LINE, released in September 2020, explores the erosion of women’s rights through the eyes of rule-breaking women characters. Featuring the work of Cheryl Strayed, Roxane Gay, Caroline Kepnes, Lisa Ko, Emma Donoghue, Mary Gaitskill, and Kate Atkinson, these boundary-pushing stories take readers from the offices of a content-moderation firm to a strict future society where children are outlawed and even to a strangely realistic Hallmark movie set. OUT OF LINE is accompanied by audio narration from Kristen Bell, Samira Wiley, Margo Martindale, Gwendoline Christie, and Lea Salonga.
HUSH, published in July 2020, was inspired by a sense that the balance between truth and fiction might be changing permanently. Containing six stories, by Ruth Ware, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Laura Lippman, Jeffery Deaver, Alison Gaylin, and Lisa Unger, these timely mysteries expose the high cost of uncovering lies, and explore the attraction of conspiracies and deception in a time of propaganda and tribalism fueled by social media. From a family trapped by a paranoid father, to an amateur Instagram influencer being stalked and terrorized by a delusional follower, here are characters who need to know who and what to trust before it is too late.
INHERITANCE, which was released in December 2019, presents five tales of hidden secrets within families. Featuring stories by Alice Hoffman, Julie Orringer, Anthony Marra, Jennifer Haigh, and Alexander Chee, this collection explores what happens when power imbalances turn fatal, transgressions beget the darkest truths, and sinister gossip pushes people to test new limits. These haunting and sometimes poignant stories invite readers directly into the homes of their characters, but is it really safe to step inside?
WARMER, our first collection, released in November 2018, is a series of “cli-fi” — climate change fiction — and contains seven engrossing and thought-provoking stories, from Jess Walter, Lauren Groff, Jesse Kellerman, Edan Lepucki, Skip Horack, Sonya Larson, and Jane Smiley. Alarming and harrowing, yet glimmering with the possibility of a better world, WARMER portrays everything from desperation about our children’s uncertain future to the terror of uncontrollable heat and oceans. The New Yorker said, “The stories in WARMER, which possess the urgency of a last resort and the sorrow of an elegy, inhabit this contradiction. They both confront and gently transfigure the incomprehensible realities of climate change….To read WARMER is to remember that many people are kind and caring, and to see the last gasps of our life on Earth infused with tragic meaning.”
DISORDER, released in June 2019, offers twisted examples of the anxieties of modern society. In these six stories, by authors Min Jin Lee, Scott Heim, Lauren Beukes, Uzodinma Iweala, Dan Chaon, and Namwali Serpell, disturbing scenes and harrowing situations unfold in the most innocuous settings. Readers must explore their basest human impulses and will inevitably question the social progress we have made over the decades, if any at all.
INDIVIDUAL RELEASES
cut & thirst
by margaret atwood
CUT & THIRST, written by the #1 bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale, was published in May 2024. Decades ago, some male poets undermined Fern’s writing career and health, publicly, and successfully. After their friend Fern’s health takes a turn for the worse, three women plot their revenge in dramatic Shakespearean fashion.
my mother and other wild animals: an essay
by andrew sean greer
MY MOTHER AND OTHER WILD ANIMALS: AN ESSAY, written by the Pulitzer award winning author of Less, was published in April 2024. Andrew Sean Greer is embarking on a 26 hour road trip from Kansas to San Francisco when his overly serious chemist mother, Sandra, decides to join. To spice up the long journey, Greer plans chaotic fun in hopes of making his mother laugh — a scheme that ultimately brings the two closer together.
two women walk into a bar
by Cheryl strayed
TWO WOMEN WALK INTO A BAR, written by the #1 New York Times best-selling author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, was published in January 2024. In this short memoir, Strayed’s mother-in-law, Joan, is given just weeks to live. Through Joan’s final days, Strayed reflects on their relationship and what she has and can learn from Joan’s story.
a night at the tropicana
by Chanel cleeton
A NIGHT AT THE TROPICANA, written by the New York Times best-selling author of Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick Next Year in Havana, was published in October 2023. This vibrant story, set against the backdrop of 1930s Cuba, follows Natalie, a Cuban American college student on vacation from Miami. Enticed by a handsome stranger to dance, she overcomes her shyness and is set on a whirlwind.
calypso’s guest
BY andrew sean greer
CALYPSO’S GUEST, by the Pulitzer award winning author of Less, was published in August 2023. Inspired by The Odyssey, an immortal man in exile on a faraway planet finally gets a visitor after two hundred years. The two men form a strong, tender bond, but it may not be enough to make the visitor stay, forcing the exile to make a difficult choice.
A SHOW OF FAITH
BY greer hendricks
A SHOW OF FAITH, by #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Wife Between Us and An Anonymous Girl, was published in April 2023. A literary agent grieving her college-aged daughter and a recent graduate struggling to make ends meet grow close after a seemingly chance encounter. This twisty tale of motherhood and loss shows just how far people will go to patch their open wounds.
the bookstore sisters
BY alice hoffman
THE BOOKSTORE SISTERS by New York Times bestselling author of Practical Magic and The Dovekeepers, was published in November 2022. Tender and warmhearted, this story follows a dog walker in New York City who is called back to the family home she fought hard to forget. This charming story of sisterhood, grief, and homecomings reconsiders whether forward is always the best path.
SIGNAL MOON
BY KATE QUINN
SIGNAL MOON by New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network and The Rose Code was published in August 2022. A British debutante turned World War II special duties linguist picks up a distress call from an American naval officer who says his ship is going down — in 2023. War and peace come down to unlikely connections in this touching story, which considers what keeps people going when the world seems on the brink of implosion.
MY EVIL MOTHER
BY MARGARET ATWOOD
MY EVIL MOTHER, by New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, was published in April 2022. Enchanting and bittersweet, this modern-day fairytale follows a young woman as she comes of age under the watchful eye of her protective and possibly magically-endowed mother. This story of motherhood, daughterhood, and the intricacies of love conveys the lengths that mothers will go to protect their daughters and younger selves.
MODEL HOME
BY J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN
MODEL HOME by New York Times bestselling author of Commencement, Maine, and The Engagements was published in October 2021. A home-makeover show host struggles to convince her cohost and husband to renew their contract when their spoiled daughters begin to rebel. In this house, family can be negotiated, and fame and fortune might just eclipse love.
THE SHORTEST DAY
by Colm Tóibín
THE SHORTEST DAY, by award-winning author Colm Tóibín, was published in November 2020. This enchanting story brings to life an ancient burial chamber and the headstrong archaeologist determined to expose its secrets to the light. The dead and the living come face to face, as history intertwines with spirituality in Tóibín’s stunning Irish homeland.
ZIKORA
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
ZIKORA, written by the New York Times best-selling author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, was published in October 2020. Zikora is a powerful lawyer whose world is shaken when her lover leaves her after she reveals she is pregnant with his child. A stunning examination of the injustices faced by women, specifically black women, the story explores the impact of patriarchy on both motherhood and daughterhood. Audio narration is by Adepero Oduye (from Pariah and 12 Years a Slave). Oprah.com proclaimed upon the publication of “Zikora”: “It's a good day for fiction lovers. Actually, make that a great day. Anyone who has been holding their breath for more of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's sweeping fiction since her 2013 epic immigration novel Americanah can officially exhale.”
GIRAFFE & FLAMINGO
by Curtis Sittenfeld
GIRAFFE & FLAMINGO, written by the New York Times best-selling author of Rodham and Prep, was published in September 2020. This piercing and poignant story centers around Emily, a successful woman whose happy life is turned upside down by the revival of memories of her college tormentor. As Emily reaches out to old acquaintances and tries to retrace what happened, the story explores the notion that the past never truly disappears.