Rural Fiction

When Connor Larkin boards a late-night bus in downtown LA, he's not sure where he's going or what he's looking for. Putting his acting career - and his fiancée - on hold, he's searching for something he can't define, a part of himself he lost on the road to success. Once he dreamed of being a singer in the classic style of Sinatra and Bennett. But his lean good looks soon landed him in movies as the sexy bad guy - and in the arms of a famous young heiress. Now, with his wedding day approaching, Connor finds himself stepping into the sleepy seaside town of Miramar Bay.

Eva - known to all as Lovey - grew up safe and secure in Oxford, Mississippi, surrounded by a rich literary history and her mother's stunning flower gardens. But a shed fire, and the injuries that it caused, seemed to change everything...especially when her older sister, Bitsy, blamed Lovey for the irreparable damage. Bitsy became the cheerleader. The homecoming queen. All the while, Lovey served as the family scapegoat, always bearing the brunt when Bitsy threw blame her way. At 18, Lovey fled to Arizona. In time, she became a successful advertising executive....

Mary Stoltzfus is 30 years old, splashed with freckles, and unmarried. In her Amish world, that qualifies her to be called an old maid. She is living her quiet schoolteacher life in the Lancaster County Amish community when she gets a surprising invitation in the mail one day. Would she come to Montana to teach?

A historic western that opens in 1873, a time when recession is forcing thousands westwards to recoup their fortunes. The West is tough, brutal and the Indian is the enemy. But when a white woman is raped, it is a half-breed Cheyenne who comes to the rescue. From the author of Jake and Upland Passage.

After the end of a long-term relationship, local weather girl Bea Armstrong has been avoiding her family, and their inevitable 'I-told-you-sos'. But with Christmas fast approaching, she is finally on her way home to Charis House, the school in Sherwood Forest that her mum and dad run in their old family home. And to top it all off, the insufferable Henry Fairfax—who her parents have always wanted her to marry—has also been invited.

Windows is a celebration of the High Street, small-town life and the hard-working and dedicated shopkeepers, public servants and other people who strive to keep that life going. It’s a funny and poignant portrayal of human nature and its many frailties and strengths, including love, hate, loyalty, ambition, determination, error and redemption. A key theme is the human tendency to rush to conclusions about others which can later prove to be wrong.

After fleeing her beloved small town five years ago, Julia Bailey is back to spend Christmas with her family. Returning is hard, but keeping the devastating secret about her late husband is even harder. Her place isn't in Big Sky Country any longer...but the more time she spends with the irresistible Sheriff who saved her once before, and his adorable little daughter, the more Julia starts wishing she could let go of the past and start a new life.

With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again.

Wade Ashby doesn't let anyone in. With the death of his father and his failed marriage, plus the weight of the family business on his shoulders, Wade has plenty to deal with. He thrives on being the one constant and steady thing in his family's life and on their ranch, Silver Pines. Ivy Spencer knows two things for certain: Animals make better friends than people, and she can only count on herself. After a turbulent childhood and a string of bad luck since, Ivy is excited to start fresh at Silver Pines Ranch and live out her dream of training a racehorse en route to the Kentucky Derby.

Phineas King knows better than to expect anything but shock and pity wherever he shows his face. Horribly scarred from the tragic accident that claimed his mother's life, he chooses to keep his distance from everyone, focusing his time and energy on the bees his family raises. So why does he start finding excuses to seek out Deborah Lantz, the beautiful new arrival in town?

Blaire Monroe is the only woman I've ever loved, and the only one I've let break my heart. It's been ten years since she ran from this town, chasing a life that didn't include the cowboy next door who blurred the line between best friend and something more. Now she's back. Fresh off a busted engagement and hiding out on her grandmother's crumbling strawberry farm like the past never happened. Like she doesn't still linger in every part of me I've spent years trying to erase. But Blaire isn't the kind of girl you forget.

All John Beauchamp wants is a simple life. He's a widower who is content running his Louisiana sugarcane farm. Then Shelby Mackey breezes in, announcing that she's pregnant with his baby. Their accidental night of passion has changed . . . everything. Shelby insists John doesn't have to be involved—she'll raise the baby on her own in Seattle. But John can't let her go that easily. Even without the baby, Shelby is a breath of fresh air. So when Shelby agrees to stay in Louisiana temporarily, John's determined to make that stay permanent—and as sweet as can be.

Cecil Younger, local Alaskan investigator, is neither good at his job nor great at staying sober. When an old Tlingit woman, unimpressed by the police's investigation, hires him to discover why her son, a big-game guide, was murdered, he takes the case without much conviction that he'll discover anything new.

My name is Christine, and I'm on the run from a cult that wants me dead. Annabelle Lane is the cult's cunning and venomous leader, who forced me to commit crimes that are unforgivable. Annabelle's threats aren't to be taken lightly, and everybody knows that once you're in the cult, you're in it for life.

Morgan Jo Coyle hasn’t been back to the small town of Brambleberry Creek or seen any of her family for years. But when she receives the heartbreaking news that her Memaw Essie is on her deathbed, Morgan knows she has to go home to face Essie—and her complicated past—before it’s too late. Stepping through the door of her family’s charming old farmhouse, Morgan is reminded of all the happy times she spent baking and talking with Essie. And it’s not long before her childhood sweetheart, Emmett Dawson, with his sparkling blue eyes and teasing smile, comes to find her.

Mike Page fled Ironwood Flats, Texas the moment he tossed his high school cap in the air and never looked back. But when his little sister, Annie, is suddenly left raising two kids on her own, one desperate call brings him right back to the one place he swore he’d never return. Now, stuck playing uncle, Mike’s in for more than he bargained for, especially since it means surviving the town’s infamous Halloween celebrations—his personal nightmare.

Wren King is the one person in town everyone can rely on: need someone to watch your kids? She’s got it, you deserve a night off! Want five dozen cookies for a bake sale? Call up Wren; she loves to bake. Holly Ridge’s sweetheart is always available to help, even if it leaves little time for herself along the way.

Lara Bennett is world-famous in Ribbonwood, population 907. She's the woman you don't trust your husband with: a real-life femme fatale. If there's a scandal in town, she's at the center of it, ruining businesses, marriages, and egos everywhere she goes, with her sharp tongue and that body that makes you look twice. Besides… didn't she more or less kill a man?

Give me the smallest reason to make a bad decision, and I’ll jump in with both feet. Case in point: thinking that drunkenly buying an abandoned town with my brothers is a good idea. As builders, we plan to renovate and flip the town, maybe turn it into something worth seeing, but the longer we’re here, the more things feel … off. It’s not until a bearded mountain man breaks into my room in the middle of the night and threatens for us to get out of his town that I realize Wilde’s End isn’t as abandoned as we were told.

Billie Wallace has spent her whole life trying to prove she's more than the Wallace Ranch's "wild" only daughter. All she wants is a shot at barrel racing—and a purpose beyond crunching numbers in her daddy's office. But when her very first run ends in disaster, Billie lands flat on her back with Ryder Rivers—her childhood crush, her brother's best friend, and the town's notorious heartbreaker—hovering over her. In all the years she's known him, Ryder has never entertained Billie's shameless flirting. But after her fall, he's suddenly everywhere.