Rural Fiction

Animal Dreams is a passionate and complex novel about love, forgiveness, and one woman's struggle to find her place in the world. At the end of her rope, Codi Noline returns to her Arizona home to face her ailing father, with whom she has a difficult, distant relationship. There she meets handsome Apache trainman Loyd Peregrina, who tells her, "If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life."

Jeremy Marsh is the ultimate young New Yorker. He's also an expert on debunking the supernatural. When he receives a letter from Boone Creek, North Carolina, about ghostly lights appearing in a cemetery, he can't resist driving down to investigate. Here, in this tightly knit community, Lexie Darnell runs the town's library. Disappointed by past relationships, she is sure of one thing: her future is in Boone Creek, close to all the people she loves.

China Bayles gave up jurisprudence to settle down in small-town Texas and set up shop as an herbalist. But crimes that need solving keep coming her way, so China's back in action in this seventh book of the best selling, critically-acclaimed herbal mystery series. The story centers around an annual chili cook-off where a judge dies of a severe allergic reaction...to a peanut. Everyone knows peanuts don't belong in a bowl of Texas chili, so it's up to China to uncover the truth.

I've spent my entire life running. No more. The past is finally catching up to me, and my secrets won't stay buried as trouble looms on the horizon. I must face the monster who spent a decade torturing me. For myself. My daughter. The countless other victims that he silenced with his brutality. This town gave me everything. I have to protect it, or I'll lose the ones I love forever.

When Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and two young children; and another with her plainspoken single neighbor, Jo. Despite her reservations, Katie begins to let down her guard, putting down roots in the close-knit community..

St. Elizabeth’s, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed, and stays. She plans to give up her child, thinking she cannot be the mother it needs. But when Cecilia is born, Rose makes a place for herself and her daughter amid St. Elizabeth’s extended family of nuns and an ever-changing collection of pregnant teenage girls.

On the little Scottish island of Mure—halfway between Scotland and Norway—Flora MacKenzie and her fiancé Joel are planning the smallest of “sweetheart weddings,” a high summer celebration surrounded only by those very dearest to them. Not everyone on the island is happy about being excluded, though. The temperature rises even further when beautiful Olivia MacDonald—who left Mure ten years ago for bigger and brighter things—returns with a wedding planner in tow.

Archer, chef mondialement célèbre et père solo, n'aurait jamais cru troquer ses cuisines étoilées pour un diner spécialisé dans les pancakes, niché dans une petite ville. Mais Dream Harbor a besoin d'un chef, et lui, d'un endroit où élever sa petite Olive avec un coup de main. Iris n'a jamais réussi à garder un emploi plus de quelques mois. Alors, quand elle apprend qu'Archer cherche une nounou à domicile, son instinct lui hurle de filer loin, très loin.

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.

Football has always been Cam Hartson's life. When he's forced to retire following an injury, he slinks back to his small home town, planning to lie low and lick his wounds. Until he meets Mia Devlin. The beautiful single mom of two tearaway boys has no interest in love. She's too busy trying to find a job and keep a roof over her family's heads to worry about relationships. Even if every time Cam looks at her it sends her heart into a spin. She knows she shouldn't like him. He's too ambitious, too confident. But when he offers to be her rebound guy, she finds herself agreeing.

There was a time when the world was sweeter...when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats.... Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort High. Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn that he'd been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he'd fall for was Jamie, the shy, almost ethereal daughter of the town's Baptist minister....

Set in familiar Steinbeck territory, To a God Unknown is a mystical tale, exploring one man's attempt to control the forces of nature and, ultimately, to understand the ways of God.

The life Olivia Harper always dreamed of isn’t so dreamy these days. The 16-hour work days are unfulfilling and so are things with her on-again, off-again boyfriend. But when she hears that her estranged mother, Juliet, has been seriously injured, Liv has no choice but to pack up her life and head home to beautiful Cape Sanctuary on the Northern California coast. It’s just for a few months - that’s what Liv keeps telling herself. But the closer she gets to Cape Sanctuary, the painful memories start flooding back.

The New Year brings challenges and changes to the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. The Christmas holidays have barely passed before a fire engulfs the humble thatched cottage housing of Donal Donnally and his family. Although the family escapes the blaze more or less unsinged, Donal, his wife, their three small children, and their beloved dog find themselves with nothing left but the clothes on their back.

In the summer of 1988, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls begin to turn up in a small Maryland town. The grisly evidence leads police to the terrifying assumption that a serial killer is on the loose in the quiet suburb. But soon a rumor begins to spread that the evil stalking local teens is not entirely human. Law enforcement, as well as members of the FBI, are certain that the killer is a living, breathing madman - and he’s playing games with them.

The young widower arrives ready to roll up his sleeves and build a place of worship and welcome, but he needs some help. And the Lord works in mysterious ways. With her tight shirts and short skirts, pastor's assistant is not a phrase that springs to mind when Noah meets brassy, beautiful Alicia Baldwin. The former exotic dancer needs a respectable job so she can regain custody of her children. And Noah can't help but admire her spunk and motherly determination.

Cecil Younger is a man who takes comfort in the absurdity of the universe, and the universe is obliging him when he gets a call from his lawyer and psychiatrist, who offers him a job. A client wants to hire Younger to kill someone. Though common sense tells him murder just isn't a good career move, his finances tell him it can't hurt to meet his potential client, hoping he can succeed in appeasing him - without a dead body.

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.

With her adopted son missing and the rest of her family increasingly estranged, Sandra Kaye Darden is drawn to the little pink house where her Uncle Poppy once provided security. What begins for Sandra as a simple painting project, meant to prepare the house for sale, becomes a secret venture that eventually changes everything. Cass Blue is having trouble keeping food on the table since she ditched foster care. When Sandra Kaye shows up with lunch one day, Cass has no way of knowing that the meeting will lead to the creation of a place of refuge that could reunite a divided community.

I have it all. I work my dream job doing animal-assisted therapy, I live with the four best friends in history, and I own an actual pair of Louboutins. I should be content. Right? Except, ever since an adorable toddler begged me to be her momma, I want more, and an insta-family is my only chance at motherhood. Unfortunately, her absurdly hot NFL star dad isn't quite as enthusiastic about me as she is. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd think he was avoiding me. At least until his nanny leaves abruptly mid-season.