Rural Fiction

Katie Benard reluctantly returns home to Grady Lake two decades after her older sister Malorie disappeared without a trace, a story that has captivated the nation since the day she was reported missing in 2003. After leaving home years ago, Katie is overjoyed to reunite with her childhood best friend and cousin while working at her family's lakeside resort at the end of tourist season in northern Michigan. Just when life begins to feel normal again, a teenage girl goes missing from the resort. She has vanished without a trace, just like Malorie.

When confronted by raging fires or deadly accidents, volunteer fireman Taylor McAden feels compelled to take terrifying risks to save lives. But there is one leap of faith Taylor can't bring himself to make: He can't fall in love. For all his adult years, Taylor has sought out women who need to be rescued, women he leaves as soon as their crisis is over and the relationship starts to become truly intimate.

Wolf Wayburn is the devil in an Armani suit with the body of a Greek god. He thinks I’m just a small-town girl who he can intimidate—but I never back down from a fight. The first time we met, he cut me off at a gas station. So, I flashed him the bird and mocked his family jewels. The second time we met, he tried to get me fired. He took his shot—and he missed. At least for now. Wolf Wayburn was an ex-Navy SEAL with an attitude. But it would take a lot more than the big, bad Wolf to scare me off.

Some places are too good to be true. Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things. After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different....

Welcome back to Beechwood Harbor, the small town where witches, vampires, shifters, and werewolves all work, play—and mostly—get along! This boxed set includes Books 10–12 in the Beechwood Harbor Magic Mysteries by Danielle Garrett.

His attractive neighbor is tugging at his heart-strings. A wealthy widow is pursuing him with hot casseroles. And his red-haired Cousin Meg has moved into the rectory, uninvited.

In An Irish Country Christmas, the third book in Patrick Taylor's Irish Country Books, Barry Laverty, M.B., is looking forward to his first Christmas in the cozy village of Ballybucklebo, at least until he learns that his sweetheart, Patricia, might not be coming home for the holidays. That unhappy prospect dampens his spirits somewhat, but Barry has little time to dwell on his romantic disappointments. Christmas may be drawing nigh, but there is little peace to be found on earth, especially for a young doctor plying his trade in the emerald hills and glens of rural Ireland.

Whether it's working at his cousin's funeral home or tossing around the local riffraff at his favorite bar, Nathan Waymaker is a man who knows how to handle the bodies. A former marine and sheriff's deputy, Nathan has built a reputation in his small Southern town as a man who can help when all other avenues have been exhausted. When a beloved local minister is found dead, his parishioners ask Nathan to make sure the death isn’t swept under the rug.

There are few things Jeremy Marsh was sure he'd never do: He'd never leave New York City; never give his heart away again after barely surviving one failed marriage; and most of all, never become a parent. Now, Jeremy is living in the tiny town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, married to Lexie Darnell, the love of his life, and anticipating the birth of their daughter. But just as his life seems to be settling into a blissful pattern, an unsettling and mysterious message re-opens old wounds.

After watching my older brothers fall in love, I knew it was a matter of time before I'd be the one mindlessly losing my head over a girl, but I didn't expect it to happen so fast. I was supposed to buy a house, get a job, and spend the next few years enjoying my youth before submitting to one woman for the rest of my life. Fate had different plans, though, sending me on a mission to pursue a girl who didn't want to be pursued. Too bad that fate and the past get in our way... Just when I think I'm winning, a well-kept Hayes family secret turns our lives upside down.

At 25, after five years as her mother’s caregiver, it’s time for Shelby to experience freedom and adventure. Time for travel, college, and romance. But when she visits Virgin River, she runs into Luke Riordan, decidedly not whom she has in mind. A handsome Blackhawk pilot, Luke exited the army after 20 years, four wars, and having been shot out of the sky three times. At 38 he’s tough and jaded. His major was in one-night stands, with a minor in commitment avoidance.

Barton Dawes' unremarkable but comfortable existence suddenly takes a turn for the worst. A new highway extension is being built right over the laundry plant where he works - and right over his home. Dawes isn't the sort of man who will take an insult of this magnitude lying down. His steadfast determination to fight the inevitable course of progress drives his wife and friends away while he tries to face down the uncaring bureaucracy that has destroyed his life.

Six years ago, Beata Dabrowski arranged to meet her lover in Glasgow and was never seen again. There were no leads...until now. Imprisoned gang boss Davie Hardie wants to talk in exchange for his freedom. He knows exactly where Beata is buried, and he’s prepared to take the police to her grave. But when the mission to locate Beata’s body is hijacked, DS Max Craigie is drafted on to the case. Someone is selling secrets. Max will stop at nothing to expose police corruption and uncover Beata’s murderer.

I’ve had a crush on Dylan St. Clair ever since he climbed into my bedroom window ten years ago. Wrong window, Romeo. I was eleven. He was seventeen. A bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks with a chip on his shoulder and fresh bruises from his latest fight, he went on to play the starring role in all my teenage fantasies. But I always knew he was off-limits. So, over the years, I gave up wishing and hoping we could ever be together. Until he kissed me on a cold beach one starry winter’s night.

When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes. Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go. But must. And there he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map.

Colorado's Redstone Ridge is a place of extraordinary beauty, but this rugged mountain wilderness harbors a horrifying secret. When a charred body is discovered in a shallow grave on the ridge, officer Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner, Robo, are called in to spearhead the investigation. But this is no ordinary crime - and it soon becomes clear Mattie has a close personal connection to the dead man.

Luca Torres, a struggling journalism graduate, never meant to take a vow of celibacy. It was just a dumb idea from a job interview gone wrong. He never thought they'd approve the article. Or make his future career conditional on delivering it. Now, with no choice but to steer clear of temptation for the summer, he takes the most isolated job he can find: a fire lookout in the rural and picturesque mountains of Washington State. However, his goal becomes much harder with the arrival of the husky and flirtatious Artair Osmond, a musician and wilderness enthusiast who takes up camp nearby.

From New York Times best-selling author Marie Bostwick comes a beautiful novel of sisterhood lost and found - and of the ways we create the rich tapestries that encompass the past and the future. The economic downturn has hit New Bern, Connecticut, and Tessa Woodruff’s herbal apothecary shop, For the Love of Lavender, is suffering. So is her once-happy 34-year marriage to Lee. They’d given up everything to come back to New Bern from Boston and start their business, but now they’re wondering if they made the right decision.

At last, Mitford's rector and lifelong bachelor Father Tim has married his talented and vivacious neighbor Cynthia. Now, of course, they must face love's challenges: new sleeping arrangements for Father Tim's sofa-sized dog, Cynthia's urge to decorate the rectory Italian-villa-style, and the growing pains of the thrown-away boy who's become like a son to the rector.

It’s 1985. Rachel O’Brien arrives in Little Cove seeking a fresh start after her father dies and her relationship ends. As a new teacher at the local Catholic high school, Rachel chafes against the small community, where everyone seems to know her business. The anonymous notes that keep appearing on her car, telling her to go home, don’t make her feel welcome either. Still, Rachel is quickly drawn into the island’s distinctive music and culture, as well as the lives of her students and fellow teacher Doug Bishop.