Rural Life

Set on the high prairies of Montana, in small towns scattered across vast landscapes, the distances in Broken Field are both insurmountable and deeply internalized. Life is dusty and hard, and men are judged by their labor. Women have to be tougher yet. That’s what sixteen-year-old Josie Frehse learns as she struggles to meet the expectations of her community while fumbling with her own desires.

Blanche McCrary Boyd’s first novel in 20 years continues the story of her protagonist Ellen Burns. When Tomb of the Unknown Racist opens in 1999, Ellen - now sober, haunted by her activist past, her failed relationships - is taking care of her demented mother in South Carolina....

1944. Emily Dean is sent to stay with relatives in rural Victoria. With grandmother determined to keep up standards despite the effects of the war; Della, the Bible-quoting cook, and her young and fearless aunt Lydia, who refuses to befriend her, Emily just wants to go home. But things start looking up when she encounters Claudio, the Italian prisoner of war employed as a farm labourer. And then Lydia’s brother, William, unexpectedly returns from the war. Wounded and bitter, he’s rude, traumatised and mostly drunk, yet a passion for literature soon draws them together.

When Brianna Donahue was three years old, her mother mysteriously disappeared while farming in Merriwell Bay, Western Australia. Now she works the same land while almost single-handedly raising her two children, and when her son goes missing she is forced to face the fact her marriage has huge cracks in it. Meanwhile, over 2,000 kilometres away in South Australia, Detective Dave Burrows sets off on an investigation that will impact Brianna’s world and test her relationships with those she loves most.

August 1956. After a night of rage and terror, Anna Nassad wakes to find her abusive husband dead and instinctively hides her bruises and her relief. As the daughter of Syrian immigrants living in segregated Alabama, Anna has never belonged, and now her world is about to erupt. Days before, Anna set in motion an explosive chain of events by allowing the first black postman to deliver the mail to her house. But it's her impulsive act of inviting him inside for a glass of water that raises doubts about Anna's role in her husband's death.

Set against the backdrop of North Dakota’s oil boom, two very different mothers form an uneasy alliance to find their missing sons in this heartrending and suspenseful novel from the Edgar Award–nominated author of Garden of Stones.

An unlikely criminal, Andy Durant is robbing gas stations to buy back land once connected to his wife's farm in upstate New York. But when he's shot and killed during a robbery, he leaves his wife, Grady, and their three children to fend for themselves. Moving back to the debt-laden farm, Grady ignites a plan that involves getting in the middle of an adjoining neighbor's marriage. Meanwhile, one by one the whole family is charmed by Royal Provo, a young and charismatic orphan working on the property.

Nolan Jackson is a journeyman carpenter by trade and a wanderer by nature. And in 2007, while fellow Americans fight in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Nolan roams, traveling between jobs building tract homes across the West. Following a shocking workplace accident in Las Vegas, he uproots himself from the tentative relationships he has made and heads toward the ocean.

Schon lange sehnt sich die unkonventionelle Skyla nach Liebe und Stabilität und heiratet den verlässlichen Thomas. Bei seiner Familie im ländlichen Wisconsin lebt sie sich nach und nach in ihre neue Rolle als Ehefrau und Mutter ein, verspürt jedoch zunehmende Ruhelosigkeit. Trost und Freundschaft findet sie bei ihrer Nachbarin Roxanne, die mit ihren fünf Kindern - und Wunsch nach mehr - ein eher chaotisches Leben führt, aber auch ein Leben voller Lachen und Liebe.

A Town of Empty Rooms presents the story of Serena and Dan Shine, estranged from one another as they separately grieve over the recent loss of Serena's father and Dan's older brother. Serena's actions cause the couple and their two small children to be banished from New York City, and they settle in the only town that will offer Dan employment: Waring, North Carolina.

The tight-knit residents of Blue Moon Mountain, nestled high in the Colorado Mountains, form an interconnected community of those living off the land, stunned by the beauty and isolation all around them. So when, at the onset of winter, the town veterinarian commits a violent act, the repercussions of that tragedy will be felt all across the mountainside, upending their lives and causing their paths to twist and collide in unexpected ways.

Er schuldete einer Menge Leute etwas, aber ich war der einzige der noch übrig war, um die Schulden einzutreiben. Ich sagte mir, dass ich mich nicht um ihn schere. Nur darum, was er mir schuldet, was auch immer das genau war. Das habe ich wirklich versucht zu glauben. Als Mitch Quillens Leben aus den Fugen gerät, fürchtet er, dass es keinen Ausweg gibt. Seine Ehe sowie seine Karriere scheitern und die Beziehung zu seinem Vater ist seit Jahrzenten ein Desaster.

> New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Jodi Thomas pens contemporary romances that tug at listeners’ heartstrings. When Allie Daniels unexpectedly inherits property on Twisted Creek from a mysterious uncle, she and her "nana" open the place as a café for local residents. There, Allie is treated to a revolving cast of intriguing characters, including the handsome Luke Morgan.

Holt, eine Kleinstadt im Herzen Colorados. Zwei alte Viehzüchter müssen den Wegzug ihrer Ziehtochter verkraften. Ein Ehepaar kämpft in seinem Trailer um ein Stückchen Würde. Ein elfjähriger Junge kümmert sich rührend um seinen kranken Großvater. So hart das Schicksal auch zuschlägt - die Menschen in Holt sind entschlossen, dem Leben einen Sinn abzutrotzen. Und begegnen einander dabei neu.

Amanda is a new mother, and she is breaking. After a fight with her partner, she puts the baby in the car and drives from Queens to her hometown in rural Ohio, where she shows up unannounced on the doorstep of her estranged childhood best friend. Amanda thought that she had left Carrie firmly in the past. After their friendship ended, their lives diverged radically: Carrie had a baby the summer after high school, became a successful tattoo artist, and never escaped Ohio’s conservative grid of close-cut grass.

The Sabas family lives in a small Jordanian town that for centuries has been descended upon by all manner of invader, the latest a scourge of disconcerting Evangelical tourists. The border town relies on a blackmarket trade of clothes, trinkets, and appliances - the quality of which depends entirely on who’s fighting - but the conflict in nearby Syria has the place even more on edge than usual. Meanwhile, the Sabas home is ruled by women - Mother Fadhma, Laila, Samira, and now, Muna, a niece visiting from America for the first time - and it is brimming with regrets and desires.

Gussie, Ina Mae, and Blanche have been best friends for more than sixty years. From their humble beginnings of founding the Sunshine Club when they were girls to becoming the matchmaking queens of Newton, Texas, these three were inseparable. When Blanche passes away, Gussie and Ina Mae feel the best way to honor their dearly departed is with a shot of whiskey, some good music, and making a match for Blanche’s niece, Sissy.

Grace first met Mimi when she blew into their sons’ toddler playgroup like a warm bay breeze that loosened Grace’s tight spaces. Despite differing approaches to life and parenting, the fast friends raised their kids together while cementing a sisterlike bond that neither believed could be broken. But when a string of ill-fated decisions results in a teen party with a tragic outcome for Grace’s son, the friendship is ripped apart and an already-splintered community explodes.

In a polygamist commune in the desert, a 14-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl fall in love and consummate that love, breaking religious law. They are caught, and a year later, she gives birth to his father's child while the boy commits murder 400 miles away - a crime that will slowly unravel the community.

Evie Austin, native of Hatteras Island, North Carolina, and baddest girl on the planet, has not lived her life in a straight line. There have been several detours - career snafus, bad romantic choices, a loved but unplanned child - not to mention, her ill-advised lifelong obsession with boxer Mike Tyson. Evie is not plucky, but when life's changes smash over her like the rough surf of the local shoreline, she muddles through - until that moment of loss and longing when muddling will no longer suffice.