Rural Fiction

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...

When Remy's grandmother dies, it means leaving her life in San Francisco and returning to a town she swore she'd never revisit, forced to confront a world she'd worked hard to put behind her over the last twelve years. She's not expecting that the first girl to ever steal her heart, the pretty, popular Fallon Lewis, is still around, and in a town this small, their paths continue to cross, much to Remy's dismay. It's hard enough seeing her first love, but it's exponentially more difficult when she can barely stand to look at the woman.

October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker, and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington.

When her business partner is accused of serious financial crimes, superstar influencer Cat Cranwell—an engineered marvel of beauty, energy, and fun—falls from her penthouse perch. Des­perate to get away from the online trolls and paparazzi docu­menting her disgrace, Cat accepts her uncle’s offer to work with him in Kannery National Park, Montana. About as far as possible from life as she’s known it.

Want to know what happens to a man who barely claws his way out of a tragedy, only to fall right into the arms of the one girl in the world he can never have? Another tragedy, that's what. When I was six years old, my father made a choice that altered the course of my entire life. Because of what he did, the only girl I ever loved became the only girl I couldn’t have. In a lot of ways, I did have her; I had her first steps, her first words, her first smile. I had her milestones, her heartbreaks, her dreams.

Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a white mother and a Cherokee father, Betty Carpenter is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit in the rural town of Breathed, Ohio, is one of poverty and violence—both from outside the family and, devastatingly, from within. But despite the hardships she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father’s brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all to which she bears witness, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write.

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.

Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes the lush countryside, this novel's intriguing protagonists—a reclusive wildlife biologist, a young farmer's wife marooned far from home, and a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors—face disparate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they necessarily share a place. Their discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one piece of life on earth.

When a young family moves into an unfinished development community, cracks begin to emerge in both their new residence and their lives, as a mysterious online DIY instructor delivers dark subliminal suggestions about how to handle any problem around the house. The trials of home improvement, destructive insecurities, and haunted house horror all collide in this thrilling story perfect for fans of Nick Cutter’s bestsellers The Troop and The Deep.

The rambling house called Thornyhold is like something out of a fairy tale. Left to Gilly Ramsey by the cousin whose occasional visits brightened her childhood, the cottage, set deep in a wild wood, has come just in time to save her from a bleak future. With its reputation for magic and its resident black cat, Thornyhold offers Gilly more than just a new home. It offers her a chance to start over.

Lottery winner and ex-journalist Donal Fitzgerald joins forces with his girlfriend, DNR conservation officer Mercy Virdon, to solve the mysterious death of a beloved angler, Charlie, who was murdered in his tent in a state campground and who was known by all - and who may have known too much. Set in the engaging small town of Ossning on the Borchard River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula - an angler’s dream, filled with eccentric, believable, sympathetic, and unforgettable characters - Riverwatcher is a classic whodunit.

In Trinidad, in 1796, teenage Rosa Rendon quietly but purposefully rebels against typical female roles and behavior. Bright, competitive, and opinionated, Rosa sees no reason she should learn to cook and keep house - it is obvious her talents lie in running the farm she expects to be her birthright, despite her two older siblings. But as her homeland goes from Spanish to British rule, it becomes increasingly unclear whether its free black property owners - Rosa's family among them - will be allowed to keep their assets, their land, and ultimately, their freedom.

It is the summer of 1919, and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas.

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 know better than to let them get close. I’ve been betrayed too many times to put my trust in anyone. Too bad the air crackles every time he comes near, and I feel like I’m going to burn up every time I look at him. All it takes is one reckless night to completely spiral into the bliss of the man and his big, capable hands. One dinner with his little family to completely fall. Only I never told him why I really came to Time River. Now I have to choose to trust him with my secret before it’s too late for both of us.

Running to Summerpoint to avoid my failed love life may have seemed drastic, but I'd just inherited a house from a distant relative. The timing was perfect, almost like magic. But the cottage is in need of repairs, the place is in the middle of a forest, and I'm not used to small towns. Then I meet my new contractors. Sexy doesn't begin to describe them. The flirting flows easily, and while they're a well-established couple, it seems they may have room for more. Even better, these guys are quickly getting to be a lot more than just friends.

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.

Twenty-one-year-old Jenilee Lane's dreams are as narrow as the sky is wide. She doesn't imagine any good could come out of the tornado that has ripped across the Missouri farmland where she's made her home. But some inner spark compels her to take action. To rescue her elderly neighbor, Eudora Gibson, from the cellar in which she's been trapped. To make her way to the nearby town of Poetry, where the townspeople have begun to gather in the only building left standing. To collect from the devastated landscape fragments of life that lie strewn about in the tornado's wake.

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....

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.