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The Lunchbox: A Collection of Short Stories

From hardscrabble schoolgirls to apocalyptic arks, from dark fairy tales to sweet serendipity—twenty-five stories that prove the best tales are the ones you never see coming.

In Depression-era Louisiana, a cook's daughter arrives at an elite academy in hand-me-down shoes, armed only with her mother's advice: Put your best foot forward. In a stuffy classroom, a young girl's spelling bee dreams hang by a thread—until an unlikely visitor points the way. These opening stories set the tone for a collection that celebrates underdogs, second chances, and the small moments that change everything.

A.L. Fredine's debut collection spans genres with the confidence of a master storyteller. The Lunchbox gathers twenty-five tales organized into worlds you won't want to leave:

Is this the way the world ends? When civilization crumbles, what rises from the ashes? Three stories explore humanity at the edge—aboard arks both literal and metaphorical, on voyages with no certain destination, and in the quiet courage of those who refuse to surrender hope.

Scary and Other Fairy Tales The woods are darker than you remember. Wolves wear unexpected faces. In these reimagined tales, the monsters aren't always who you think, and "happily ever after" comes with teeth. From What Big Teeth You Have to Sleeping Beauty, Fredine twists the familiar until it gleams with dangerous new light.

A Box of Chocolates You never know what you're going to get. A devoted fan. A cat with impossible dreams. A passion that defies all odds. Star-spangled nights and love stories that arrive on stork's wings. These eight stories range from whimsy to wonder, each one a surprise waiting to be unwrapped.

Featured: The Lunchbox The title story—saved for last, like the best treat in your lunch bag.

Fredine writes with warmth and wit, creating characters who leap off the page fully formed: scrappy girls who refuse to be defined by their circumstances, dreamers who see magic where others see mundane, and ordinary people facing extraordinary moments with grace, grit, and occasionally, a well-timed wisecrack.

These are stories that trust their readers. Stories with voice and verve, heart and humor. Stories that remind us why we fell in love with fiction in the first place.

The Lunchbox is comfort food for the soul—and like the best meals, it's meant to be savored.

A.L. Fredine writes fiction that blurs the boundaries between literary and commercial, magical and mundane. This is her first collection.