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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of romance short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

150+ Romance Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. From the thrill of a first date to a snapshot tour through an entire relationship, our collection of romantic short stories will give you everything your heart desires.

Romance Short Stories – Page 5 of 10

The Matchmaker

Weekly Contest #338

The MatchmakerI opened the Collected Works of Edgar Alan Poe and began to read. Near my chair, a large iron radiator creaked, hissed, and smelled of heat. Basking in its prodigious output, my toes had thawed and were now toasty warm. At my feet sat a packed lunch and a thermos of hot tea, but it was still early – ten o’clock – as I plowed through “The Telltale Heart” on my way to “The Cask of Amontillado.”On this snowy winter morning, I had enjoyed a mug of strong coffee with a big breakfast fry up before bundling up and trudging through the...

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Fishing Journal

Weekly Contest #339

May 8 I’m writing this journal in case I get lost at sea. If my boat is ever found, there will be record of my harrowing story. I’m leaving port this afternoon. I’m planning to spend the whole night out on the water, but the sea has been fickle these past weeks, so we’ll see if she gives me a storm. If she does, this will be a very short journal. May 9 There was no storm, but there were no fish either. I could’ve sworn I saw something below the waves just before dawn. Much too large to fit in a one man vessel, but not large enough to b...

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Read to Me Forever

Weekly Contest #338

Green Valley High School, Green Valley, Wyoming April 1998Jennifer Cochran tried hard to pay attention to her teacher, Mr. Schmedly, as he wrote out the solution to the algebra problem on the whiteboard. She couldn’t help but smile at his hair. The man tried very hard to present a professional appearance. It just never worked for him. He should get some help from Eric Walsh. Her preference for staring at Eric rather than Mr. Schmedly was based totally on how cute Eric was. Whether he would go on to be the star quarterback on the football tea...

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Grimoire Mishaps at the Library of Baba Yaga

Shortlisted for Contest #338 ⭐️

Rule #438 of the Library of Baba Yaga: Damaged books will be finedHecate, grant me peace. Aradia clasped her pendant, running her thumb over the serpent’s ridges, as she gingerly opened the volume in front of her, a copy of “A Lady’s Guide to Cyanide.” She quickly flipped through the bloodied pages, assessing the damage. It seemed the lady had decided to forgo cyanide. This amount of blood could only spill from a sizable wound. Really, it was none of her business what people did with the books, but she drew the line at returning them in less...

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The Moment Before The Knock

Weekly Contest #339

He remembered her mostly in the mornings. Sometimes it was a bar of sunlight that cut through the morning dust and hit his face as he stirred to wake, an uncreased pillow beside him. Sometimes it was the shrunken bar of her soap that still held its space in the shower rack. He stared at it as the water washed away the night. Sometimes it was the ping of toast popping and falling on the bench; he rarely ate toast anymore. Her perfume still hung in the air of the apartment; it was in the towels, the cushions that she had rested her head on. He...

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Stupid, complicated, love

Weekly Contest #338

David closed the book as I watched, the spine glue cracking and the pages fluttering. He avoided looking at me.After a moment I couldn’t take it any longer.“Well?” I tried not to sound like I was begging.“It’s...uh, it lays it out there.”“It’s too much,” I groaned.I reached for it but he gathered it up and suddenly stood.“You want me to give it to Tom?”“I did, but now I want to wait. It’s too much, isn’t it?” I uttered.He started walking to the door. Worry struck me like a pillow fight to my back. Maybe some things should not be shared with ...

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The Sea is Glass

Weekly Contest #338

I searched for what I've already found. People search for many things here in the Caribbean, like revelry, good rum, youth and sunken cities.There is a window into the past out at sea, in a place where lines are erased and borders are where you place them, between the crests and troughs of waves.There, anchor stones bind heaven and earth and sea in either a curse or a blessing. Nexus is a single object called the Damascene Chalice.According to the book, Egyptian royalty returned it to the king of Spain shortly after it disappeared from the r...

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the vibes are here and nothing else

Weekly Contest #338

Laughter erupts, bubbling and bright, into his room from outside. The sound is familiar. It sounds like Renée. M finishes tightening the knot on his tie and gives himself a final once-over in the mirror. His blond hair is short and sticks up in an unruly way M could never quite tame. He tries to keep it short to maintain its haphazard appearance, but it’s gotten a little too long. Today he’s in a maroon suit with a striped pink tie; the pink is faint but nicely compliments the dark maroon. He has an emerald green tieclip to pull the look tog...

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THE BOOK OF WHISPERING TALES

Weekly Contest #338

THE BOOK OF WHISPERING TALES Chapter 1: The Whispering Book I had always loved fairy tales-the kind where the brave always triumph, and magic solved everything. But nothing prepared me for The Book of Whispering Tales. When I opened it that day, I felt the room sway, words lifted off the page like silver mist, wrapping around me, pulling me through the story itself. I landed softly on moss that glimmered like emerald velvet. Towering tress arched overhead, their leaves a kaleidoscope of colors that shifted as if breathing. The air smelled sw...

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Spines

Weekly Contest #338

Winnie leaned toward the mirror in her narrow bathroom, fastening the tag with her full name, Winslow Cooper, the letters too solemn for the face that studied them back. She pressed her collar flat, gathering her cardigan. Beyond the window the street waited, the hour of buses, bakery vans, stirrings of light. She swung her bag over her shoulder, locked the door, and stepped into the cold. The air nipped her cheeks and hurried her steps toward the library.By the time Winnie arrived, the printer was rattling out slips, the tray twitching with...

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No Holding Back

Weekly Contest #338

No Holding Back. The tagline, the parting words, and the lasting message of the book I've just finished, closed, and placed on the shelf where all my books are spines in, edges out. I finally feel like I'm ready to show off my edge, whatever that means. No. Holding. Back.It's new year, new me, baby! That was me almost two years ago, giving the first Fresh Impact interview on the self-help book that changed my life. This year, they're doing the televised grand finale of the social experiment that this book really entails. I mean, it's in the ...

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Edmond Dantès

Weekly Contest #338

Fac et spera. I put the book down on the grass beside me. I had laid under the shade of a dead tree’s dream broken and at its end, awoken. My eyes crawled out from the darkness of the tome and into the sunlight. ‘For what?’ I wondered, ‘Have I waited all my life for a good equal to the evils done to me? Will I lie down once and for all and die before I am redeemed by love?’ Bound up like a Maidenhair tree, an innocent cruelly cut down in its first bloom. Some protestor may have tied their life to this tree to save it from the fate of what it...

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Crossword

Weekly Contest #338

Sunday. Ah, Sunday. Nothing beats a stroll on Sunday morning. Except maybe a sunny Sunday morning. I chuckle aloud. It is slightly overcast today. The forecast said it would be warm and sunny, but have they ever got it right? I wonder how difficult it really is? Sujoy always says we should be prepared for the weather is fickle here. I have a shawl around my shoulders. Sujoy has tied his jacket around his waist like the school girls. We would pass them for sure if it was a school day. I make a note to come again tomorrow. Now that we are at h...

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The Library Date

Weekly Contest #338

I softly kicked my bare foot back and forth, letting the lake carry it to the surface and back into its crisp hold. The other I tucked underneath my knee, tickled by blades of grass, dandelion stems and weeds. The melodies of the creek against the stones under the earth played with the vocals of the birds in the distance, the wind strumming the trees like sweet flutes. I couldn’t see the way they swayed, only listened and found comfort in its retreat. I inhaled air that presented clean, floral aromas stirred in with the lake’s scents, the Ma...

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The Seat Beside Him

Weekly Contest #338

The Anchor had always been my favourite bar, my home away from home. Not just somewhere I went, but somewhere I returned to week after week, like muscle memory. Fridays, Saturdays, sometimes Sundays, when I promised myself one drink and stayed for three. The staff knew my order. The regulars and I had running jokes. It was the sort of place where you walked in as a stranger and always left feeling like a friend. That night, I arrived late, shaking rain from my umbrella, already comforted by the ritual of it all. The smell - lager, citrus cle...

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RBE | RBE Romance | 2024-03

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