Burning Bright: Four Chanukah Love Stories

By Megan Hart, KK Hendin, Stacey Agdern and Jennifer Gracen

This December, take a break from dreidel spinning, gelt winning, and latke eating to experience the joy of Chanukah. When you fall in love during the Festival of Lights, the world burns a whole lot brighter.

It’s definitely not love at first sight for Amanda and her cute but mysterious new neighbor, Ben. Can a Chanukah miracle show them that getting off on the wrong foot doesn’t mean they can’t walk the same road?

Lawyers in love, Shari Cohen and Evan Sonntag are happy together. But in a moment of doubt, he pushes her away—then soon realizes he made a huge mistake. To win her back, it might take something like a Chanukah miracle.

When impulsive interior designer Molly Baker-Stein barges into Jon Adelman's apartment and his life intent on planning the best Chanukah party their building has ever seen, neither expects that together they just might discover a Home for Chanukah.

All Tamar expected from her Israel vacation was time to hang out with one of her besties and to act like a tourist, cheesy t-shirt and all, in her two favorite cities. She definitely was not expecting to fall for Avi, a handsome soldier who’s more than she ever dreamed. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Dec 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9780062464859

Megan Hart

When she was in third grade, Megan Hart fell in love for the first time. Not with a boy (that would wait until fourth grade), but with a story. Homecoming by Ray Bradbury leaped out at her from the pages of a library book, and she tumbled head over heels. In the dark ages, before the days of photocopiers, the only way for her to keep a copy of this story was to copy it out by hand so she could read it over and over again. Something funny happened, though, as she carefully printed it on lined notebook paper. She made "improvements." At age twelve, reading Stephen King's The Stand for the first time one memorable summer, it occurred to her that people really did write books for a living. That's when she decided to become an author. Megan began writing short fantasy, horror and science fiction before graduating to novel-length romances. In 1998, now a stay-home mom, Megan took up writing in earnest, attending her first writing conference and getting her first request for a full manuscript. In 2002 she saw her first book in print, and she hasn't stopped since. She's published in almost every genre of romantic fiction, including historical, contemporary, romantic suspense, romantic comedy, futuristic, fantasy and perhaps most notably, erotic. She also writes non-erotic fantasy and science fiction, as well as continuing to occasionally dabble in horror. Megan's goal is to continue writing spicy, thrilling love stories with a twist. Her dream is to have a movie made of every one of her novels, starring herself as the heroine and Keanu Reeves as the hero. Megan lives in the deep, dark woods with her husband and two monsters...er...children. I love to hear from readers! Please contact me at: readinbed AT gmail DOT com

Reviews for Burning Bright

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An excellent collection of short stories set in Rash's very own postage stamp of soil, the North Carolina hill country, at various times in history. The writing is superb, with characters that step right off the page (or in my case, screen) and inhabit my world for the span of their story. Someone is dead or dying in almost every selection, and not much pretty stuff happens, but there is little real violence here, despite portrayals of grim poverty, desperation, defeat and greed. As always with short story collections, there were a couple that didn't quite work for me, and a couple that will stick with me a long time. I give the collection 4 stars. This was my first e-read, and I think short stories will work quite well for me in this format.May 2015

[corioreo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Just read this in two sittings, less than 24 hours, and it was so enjoyable. I didn't even have time to make it a "currently reading". Just lovely, lovely, writing, and sad little stories.

[cheryl.russell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Burning Bright is a short story collection by Ron Rash. All are good and it's hard to pick any favorites, but the stories that stand out to me are: "Hard Times"--which I first read in a workshop, "Back of Beyond," "The Ascent," which I first read in The Best American Short Stories, I think it was the 2010 edition, and "Lincolnites."

In "Hard Times," eggs go missing out of Jacob and Edna's hen house. Jacob sets a trap to catch the snake he's sure is stealing his eggs, but has a difficult choice when the thief turns out to be something entirely different. This short story deals with poverty, starvation, and pride and the effects they have on people.

"Back of Beyond" deals with a pawn shop owner and the steps he takes to save his brother and sister-in-law from the ravages of methamphetamines. While Parson, his brother Ray, or his sister-in-law Martha don't do drugs, Danny, Parson's nephew and Ray's son does, and it has devastating results for his parents. Parson is forced to make hard choices in a life that offers no easy ones.

"The Ascent" is probably the most heart-breaking of all the stories in the collection. This story is told from the point of view of Jared, a fifth-grader in the local school and son of meth addicts. He finds a plane wreck in the Smoky Mountains and adopts the dead couple for his own parents. He's trying to cope with his life in the only way he knows how, since the adults in his school or the sheriff, who is well-aware of his parents' drug abuse, never step in to help.

"Lincolnites" goes back in time to the Civil War and is the story of a pregnant wife, whose husband is off fighting for the Union, even though they live in the South--which is why her husband is dubbed a "Lincolnite." When a lone Confederate soldier shows up on her farm, she does what she must to protect her family. The Civil War is fought even on an isolated mountaintop in the Carolinas.

All the stories in this collection are strong, and well-worth reading.

[rdra1962 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not happy, but very satisfying short stories.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Spanning time from the Civil War through to the present, divided into two sections these short stories are gritty and real. All the people are going through some type of adversity, while through their own fault or just life's circumstances. Many are trying to recover something they have lost, trying to find a new path or have taken something that do not belong to them.Rash's rendering of time and place is nothing short of astonishing. The details in these short stories make one feel that they are reading something that could be much longer, they are that complete. My favorite was the story "Back of Beyond" in which a mother refuses to give up on a son that has turned her and her husbands lives upside down, with dangerous results. This ran so true to me because often parents are blind to the foibles of their children, it's not his fault is something said by many. This story really resonated with me. Never can go wrong reading this author, his knowledge of Appalachia and its people is openly displayed in his many works.

[dickmanikowski · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second collection of Ron Rash stories that I've read, and it's even darker than the stories were in Nothing Gold.The stories are vivid and gripping, but not the kind of stuff that his local Chamber of Commerce probably wants to be published.

[cariola_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm always looking for new short story collections, and several LTers recommended Ron Rash. While I can't say that he has become an instant favorite, I did appreciate these stories and will likely look for more of Rash's work in the future.The stories are set in Appalachia, most of them in contemporary times, but one dates back to the Civil War and another, "Hard Times," to the Depression era. All of the characters struggle with poverty and the fast-changing times. A man joins a coworker in raiding Confederate graves for buckles and other artifacts that they can sell to collectors; it's the only way that he can pay his mother's hospital bill. A farmer tries to catch whoever or whatever has been stealing his eggs. A pawnbroker attempts to rid his aunt and uncle of their meth-addict son and his girlfriend. A young boy steals valuables from the dead bodies in a downed private plane to support his parents' meth habit. Rash presents these stories in a straightforward, no-nonsense, non-judgmental manner: his characters are simply living and surviving the lives they have been dealt as best they can. My only caution: don't read this is you're in the mood for something uplifting. While I empathized with most of the characters, their stories were often quite depressing.

[polaris4_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent collection of short stories by a powerful voice from Appalachia.Ron Rash was an author new to me, but now I know that I'd like to read anything else by him as his simple, spare, and penetrating style really appeals to me.These twelve stories open a window on life in a part of the world not too often looked at. One of my favourites - "Dead Confederates" - is about two labourers, one trying to exploit the other in a search for lucrative buried artifacts in the graves of Confederate servicemen. Here's a flavour: 'He shuts up for a moment then, because he's starting to realise how easy it all sounds, and how much money I might start figuring to be my share. He lays his big yellow front teeth out on his lower lip, worrying his mind to figure a way to take back some of what he just said.''"Course they ain't going to pay near the price I showed you on them sheets. We'll be lucky to get half of that."..."Just wait for a clear night, and a big old Harvest Moon.," Wesley says, looking up at the sky like he might be expecting one to show up any minute. "That and keep your mouth shut about it. I've not told another person about this and I want it to stay that way."'---'"I'll loosen the dirt and you shovel it away," Wesley gasps, veins sticking out on his neck like there's a noose around it. "We can get it out faster that way."Funny you didn't think of that till it was your turn to dig, I'm thinking, but that dog has set loose the fear in me more than any time since we drove up. I take the shovel and we're making the dirt fly, Wesley doing more work in fifteen minutes than he's done in twelve years on the road crew.'In "Burning Bright" an east Tennessee rancher's widow comes to the heartbreaking realisation that her quiet and hard-working second husband could be the local arsonist setting fires in the peak of a drought.'The worst drought in a decade, the weatherman had said, showing a ten-year chart of August rainfalls. As if Marcie needed a chart when all she had to do was look at her tomatoes shrivelled on the vines, the corn shucks grey and papery as a hornet's nest. She stepped off the porch and dragged a length of hose into the garden, its rubber the sole bright green among the rows, grasping the hose just below the metal mouth, as if it were a snake that could bite her. When she finished she looked at the sky a last time and went inside. She thought of Carl, wondering if he'd be late again. She thought about the cigarette lighter he carried in his front pocket, a wedding gift she'd brought him in Gatlinburg.'In "Waiting For the End of the World" a divorced part-time copy proofer plays guitar at a local roadhouse. His ex-wife's father is out to catch him doing something, anything, with his time that can be used against him - ("We're just getting some additional evidence as to your parental fitness.") so turns up at the gig ready to provoke a fight.'And speaking of gene pools, I suddenly see Everette Evans, the man that, to my immense regret, is twenty-five percent of the genetic makeup of my son. He's standing in the doorway, a camcorder in his hands. Everette lingers on Hubert a few seconds, then the various casualties of the evening before finally honing in on me.'"What are you up to, Everette?" I say.---"What's the problem, Devon?" Hubert says, walking over from the bar. "This man's working for National Geographic," I tell Hubert. "They're doing a show on primitive societies, claiming people like us are the missing link between apes and humans." "That's a lie," Everette says, his eyes on Hubert's ball bat.'These are stories of neglect and want, war secrets and hard times and strokes of luck. Whether they are set in an 1860s Boone smallholding, or 1945 Charlotte welcoming home a returning soldier, or are about middle-class meth addicts in Smoky Mountains National Park; the places and characters that Ron Rash introduced to me will remain vivid in the memory. A very good collection.

[pscottier · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Appalachia as hell; totally mesmerising short stories.

[thebookjunky · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Tight stories set in the rural poverty of Appalachia, capturing the voices, the despair, the apathy and the weak struggles to overcome.

[hagelstein_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In these stories, ranging from the Civil War to present, Ron Rash explores poverty, war, greed, loss, fear of loss, bad decisions, and sometimes, plain bad luck.A woman obsesses over her son who only lived for four hours, and about finding evidence that jaguars once lived in South Carolina. A working man afraid he’s losing his college-attending wife seals his fate through a rash act. A man is convinced an owl in his subdivision is announcing the imminent death of a young neighbor. Methamphetamine ravages families and the social fabric of towns. A bar musician whose only mandate is to play Free Bird at least once an hour carries on despite a profound weariness in the searing “Waiting for the End of the World.”The modern south rubs up against and often clashes with disappearing traditions and values, out of which Rash conjures stories with grace and depth.

[mnlohman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

His best to date! he has peaked with the subject and format of the short story. I wouldn't have given it to my sister, except I had him sign it for her!

[davoid_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Burning Bright by Ron Rash I feel a real connection from these sort stories most take place in Western N.C. which I live close to. However even if I didn't have this physical location connection these stories are packed with emotion. Ron has a way of putting you in the character's shoes including leaving you to fill-in the endings. Having said that a couple stories had endings with one too many blanks to fill-in! But most had you wishing it wasn't a short story and would keep on going.