Rural Fiction

“Ask anyone non-Northern, they’ll only know Donny as punchline of a joke or place they changed trains once ont way to London.” But Doncaster’s also the home of Rach, Shaz, and Kel, bezzies since childhood and Donny lasses through and through. Never mind that Rach is skeptical of Shaz’s bolder plots; or that Shaz, who comes from a rougher end of town, feels left behind when the others begin plotting a course to uni; or that Kel sometimes feels split in two trying to keep the peace―the girls are inseparable, their friendship as indestructible as they are.

When Annie Jacobson's brother Mike enlists as a medic in the Army in 1967, he hands her a piece of paper with the address of their long-estranged father. If anything should happen to him in Vietnam, Mike says, Annie must let their father know. In Mike's absence, their father returns to face tragedy at home, adding an extra measure of complication to an already tense time. As they work toward healing and pray fervently for Mike's safety overseas, letter by letter the Jacobsons must find a way to pull together as a family, regardless of past hurts.

Seventy-two men arrive in the middle of the Sicilian countryside. They are "immigrants," "refugees" or "migrants." But in Altino, they're called the ragazzi, the "guys" that the Santa Marta Association have taken responsibility for. In this small Sicilian town, their arrival changes life for everybody. While they wait to know their fate, the ragazzi encounter all kinds of people: a strange vicar who rewrites their pasts, a woman committed to ensuring them asylum, a man determined to fight against it, an older ragazzo who has become an interpreter, and a reclusive poet who no longer writes.

Of course, I said yes when Hannah Bell asked me to help her save the library. I say yes to everything. After an accident destroyed my career as a rodeo cowboy, the only things on my schedule were brawling, drinking, and bedding, so it wasn't like I didn't have the time. Now, I have regrets. Because the nerdy little librarian drives me crazy. She has five cats. Five. Her nose is buried so deep in her romance books that she can't see me standing right in front of her. And those long skirts and baggy sweaters leave far too much to the imagination.

On an island in the Great Massasauga Swamp—an area known as “The Waters” to the residents of nearby Whiteheart, Michigan—herbalist and eccentric Hermine “Herself” Zook has healed the local women of their ailments for generations. As stubborn as her tonics are powerful, Herself inspires reverence and fear in the people of Whiteheart, and even in her own three estranged daughters. The youngest—the beautiful, inscrutable, and lazy Rose Thorn—has left her own daughter, eleven-year-old Dorothy “Donkey” Zook, to grow up wild.

What happens when you accidentally throw a blueberry pie in your brother's best friend's face? You marry him a week later for health insurance, of course.

Being forced to move back to my hometown after a decade away is embarrassing, but I'll do anything to protect my little girl. I'll even wait tables at the elite Yacht Club… now owned by the boy I once had a huge crush on. He's grown up and claimed his rightful place as King of Paradise Shores. Parker Marchand was a star athlete and professional sailor who never looked at me twice. He's strong, and steady, everything my abusive ex wasn't, but I'm a struggling single mom and a professional screw-up. What could we possibly have in common?

It’s been three years. It’s time to let go of the past. When a man covered in tattoos walks into the bar where I work, with a guitar case slung over his back and a determined swagger, I think I’m finally ready to move on...until I see his guitar. I’d recognize it anywhere. It was the last gift Nate ever received from his father.

Mason Parker doesn't believe in love. Sure, he cares about people—his younger brother, for example. That's why he's bringing him all the way to an abandoned cabin in the mountains to straighten him out. But love? That's for fairytales and people who haven't had the hope knocked out of them. People like his brand new Little-Miss-Sunshine neighbor with the golden hair and unwavering smile.

Sophy Stevens is moving to Australia. Turning thirty has found her unexpectedly out of a job, out of a relationship, and just in need of Something Different - and Australia, where she can finally meet her grandparents and surprise them on their wedding anniversary, looks like the perfect answer...if she can save up the money for the plane ticket. So when her feckless, absent dad Johnno offers her a job at his vintage clothes shop in Primrose Hill, she can't turn it down.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. And there’s nothing more desperate than turning up to my ex’s wedding alone. My cheating ex. My current boss. The reason I hired a professional to be my plus-one. When I spot Mr. Temptation-in-a-Tux at the hotel, I assume I’ve found my man. Charming, attentive, and protective, he’s the perfect boyfriend experience. The way he looks at me has even me fooled. After the most passionate night of my life, I slip away before he wakes. But there’s a price to pay for all that pleasure…

Being bonded to Caden Blackburn used to be all I dreamed of. Those dreams were crushed the moment this pack branded my entire bloodline traitors for challenging his father. Life in Silver Falls isn't easy. As the only packmate unable to shift, I'm considered broken. No one wants a useless mate. Especially not Caden. Imperfections don't fit within the rigid way he rules our pack as alpha. I never thought he'd look at me with anything other than fury until our bond awakens.

One night, no names, and no kissing seemed like a good idea —until I got a big, fat plus sign on a pregnancy test, and I had no idea who my baby daddy was. I'm determined to raise my baby on my own, but then he waltzes into my classroom to drop off his son. Blake Walker. The newly retired linebacker and single dad is even more gorgeous now than the night we spent together, and since he knows I'm pregnant with his baby, he's adamant to do right by us.

Posadas County, sitting along New Mexico's southern border, has enjoyed a surge in visitors, jobs, and prosperity since rancher Miles Waddell used much of his inherited half billion to create an internationally renowned astronomy complex atop Torrance Mesa. Passion, not profit, drives Waddell. Yet benefits include a narrow-gauge train linking the village of Posadas to NightZone. But a ripple of unease is felt across the county with the arrival of developer - no, speculator - Kyle Thompson.

It was always Samantha's dream to run her beautiful rescue centre, Hedgehog Hollow, full-time. But just as her wish comes true, she becomes a victim of her own kindness when she finds herself with a house full of guests - all with their own problems and secrets - looking to her for support. When her self-absorbed cousin, Chloe, unexpectedly turns up at the farm - swiftly handing over her baby to Samantha to care for - trouble is definitely brewing. Especially as Chloe won’t tell anyone why she’s left her husband, James.

Darby Dunwell is not a Bond Girl, though she's been blessed with the body of one. An east coast, ivy-league, trust fund kid, she flees a life of expectation, elocution, and executive board rooms to follow her one true love: Coffee. The deeply eccentric seaside tourist hamlet of Townsend Harbor throws its doors wide open for her sex-positive, bikini-themed coffee shop named Brewbies.

Cape Cod, Massachussetts. Harlow Smith est fière de la librairie qu'elle tient avec son grand-père, et de l'ambiance cosy qu'elle a réussi à y créer. Une cheminée, un petit café, beaucoup d'alcôves aménagées en coins lecture ainsi qu'un jardin fleuri font le succès de sa boutique. Célibataire, elle mène une vie tranquille jusqu'au jour où Matthew fait irruption dans la librairie. Car ce dernier n'est autre que l'enfant qu'elle a décidé de placer à l'adoption dix-huit ans plus tôt, sans en parler à personne...

I'm a damsel in distress without health insurance and an upcoming surgery. Zane is my billionaire knight in a three-piece suit, an affectionate smile, and a stuttering voice. When I run out of all options, he proposes a gentleman's offer, generous and beautiful, exactly like him. We get into a marriage of convenience until my life is back to normal. Simple. But nothing is simple in my grand wedding and designer wedding dress. Ours is possibly the only fake wedding where every custom is followed to the word—including consummating the marriage.

It's been fifteen years since the tragedy that took not only the life of Ellison Wilson's father but her entire world. Since then, she's done everything she can to separate herself from the thing they both loved: rodeo. But each year, on the anniversary of his death, she makes an exception for her mother and goes back to the place her heart once belonged.

When Rose Fenemore takes a desperately needed holiday to an isolated cottage on the Scottish island of Moila she doesn't expect much in the way of adventure - just a few quiet weeks of writing, walking and bird-watching. And then, late one night during a wild storm, two young men appear in her doorway, seeking shelter from the wind and rain. Neither man is quite who he claims, and the question of whom to trust will put Rose in grave peril....