Rural Life

Beatrice, de oudste dochter van de welgestelde Simon Steel, neemt zonder enige moeite het huishouden in huize Dennenlust over wanneer haar moeder overlijdt. Haar drie zussen zien haar strenge beleid met lede ogen aan en merken hoe het landgoed een obsessie voor Beatrice wordt. Bij het overlijden van de vader des huizes, is ze tot in de puntjes voorbereid om het huis en de grond eromheen over te nemen.

Sie soll für einige Tage die Pension ihrer Freundin Marleen auf Norderney übernehmen – ein Job, von dem die 47-Jährige nicht die leiseste Ahnung hat. Kein Wunder, dass die beiden Schwestern schnell an ihre Grenzen stoßen. Und das nicht nur, weil sie nicht kochen können. Ihre Anwesenheit spricht sich auf der Insel schnell herum. Zu schnell. Und so dauert es nicht lange, bis Papa Heinz und Mama Charlotte vor der Tür stehen, um ihre Töchter mit höchst eigenwilligen Ideen zu unterstützen.

For years, Isobel Latimer has composed serious novels for serious people, but to dwindling acclaim and ever-more dwindling gain. Now her husband is ill and she must carry their financial burden alone, and in secret. But if the public don’t want careful moral fables any longer, why not provide an outrageous tale of sex and satanism, and an author to match? The incomparable, uncontrollable Zelda de Vere is born.

Rosie verlaat het bruisende Londen en keert terug naar haar ouders, in het saaie dorp Fellburn. De moeder van Rosie Massey, Hannah, is ongelooflijk blij dat haar favoriete dochter weer thuis komt wonen. Toch lukt het haar niet om Rosie te doorgronden, die zich schikt in het ouderlijk nest met haar vele broers en waar moeders wil nog altijd wet is.

At the Bounty Canyon Ranch in Southeastern New Mexico, the bodies of Luke and Deona Pruitt are buried in a manure pit and their 14-year-old son Leeland Pruitt is missing. Deputy Sheriff Greenwood is called out to investigate the missing Pruitt family and discovers the grim scene. Leeland’s brutal upbringing was an open secret overlooked by neighbors and teachers for years. The community turned a blind eye as Leeland was moved by his cruel father from one remote ranch to another. And so, Deputy Greenwood begins a twenty-four-hour hunt to find and save the boy suspected of murdering his parents.

Moving from Pakistan’s sophisticated cities to its most rural farmlands, This Is Where the Serpent Lives captures the extraordinary proximity of extreme wealth to extreme poverty in a land where fate is determined by class and social station. Daniyal Mueenuddin’s This Is Where the Serpent Lives paints a powerful portrait of contemporary feudal Pakistan and a farm on which the destinies of a dozen unforgettable characters are linked through violence and love, resilience, and tragedy.

Lovely and winsome May Seymour graduated from college with the world at her feet...and no idea what to do with it. A spontaneous mission trip to Africa brought great surprise - love - and a strong sense of purpose. But in loving others there, she encountered a severe tragedy that left her deeply wounded. She comes to heal at the farm of Claudius Borne - a sweet, kind old man who understands plants and animals far better than people. And his farm becomes May's home. There on the farm, May renews a friendship with an old college flame named Eli whose path has taken unexpected turns too.

A hilarious tale of dogs, fogs, bogs and moving to Ireland. For many years, Nick and Lesley Albert had shared a dream of living far away from the stress of modern life, and when the opportunity arose, they jumped in with both feet. Almost overnight, they decided to move to beautiful County Clare, in the west of Ireland - a country they had never before visited. With little experience or money they set about renovating a derelict farmhouse and building a new life together.

Hi. I’m Amelia. I live in a tiny fishing village called Hook by the Sea. My dilemma is I’m ten, and I really need a phone, but my parents can’t afford it, even if it counts for two birthdays and a Christmas, and even if they never have to give me another gift ever again! So, there’s only one thing to do: find a job and buy it myself. I know it’ll be tough, but I can do it, and along the way, maybe we’ll both learn a little about determination, disappointment, friendship, and love.

Raised during the Great Depression and coming of age during WWII, this poignant story follows a brother and sister who, though bound by shared past, yearn for very different futures. Left on their own for much of their childhood, they develop an unshakable bond and resilience to face life’s challenges head on. Through years of separation and personal struggles, their connection endures, proving that ties of family are as enduring as the roots from which they grow.

Рано осиротев, девочки живут в провинциальном городишке горного штата, и за ними приглядывает целая череда престарелых родственниц, пока в доме не появляется взбалмошная и эксцентричная Сильви, сестра их покойной матери. Две сестры по-разному оценивают странные тетины привычки: Люсиль с трудом их принимает, зато Рут обретает в Сильви родную душу.

Each month best friends Claudia, Sal, Ella and Laura meet for drinks, celebrating 45 years of friendship. Sal had spent a lifetime building her career, but she hadn't banked on the one thing over which she had no control. Claudia loved her urban existence. But, as many women will know, other people's needs always seem to come first. Ella is ready to try something different. But she hadn't bargained on quite such a radical change. And Laura succumbed to the oldest cliché in the book.

When council officer Chris Buckley is approached by an odd old man demanding help in healing a decades-old family rift, he sends the stranger away. But then the old man is murdered, and the police arrive on the Chris's doorstep asking questions to which he has no answers. As Chris begins to look into the circumstances of the murder, he uncovers a deadly secret in the silt and mud of the local canals that he'll realise was better kept buried.

Todd, the youngest of four children, has a developmental disability that keeps him at home on the farm with his mother and father. One special holiday season, Todd hears an ad on the radio from a shelter looking for temporary homes for their dogs during the holiday week. When Todd's parents at last give in to his pleas for this charitable cause, the family is faced with an entire shelter full of dogs needing homes.

Tess is feeling burnt out from her uninspiring job and her busy city lifestyle. Even her personal relationships make her feel as if she's simply drifting through life rather than living it to the full. Her godmother Luna, who leads a very simple existence in a rustic cottage in the North Queensland rainforest, is also at something of a crossroads. Keen to expand her jewellery-making business, she needs the new connections that a bustling city offers. When she suggests to Tess that the two of them might swap homes for an extended period, it seems the perfect solution.

Edie - smart, self-assured, beautiful - always worked hard. She worked as a teller at a bank, she worked to save her first marriage, and later, she worked to raise her daughter even as her second marriage came apart. Really, Edie just wanted a good life, but everywhere she turned, her looks defined her. Two brothers fought over her. Her second husband became unreasonably possessive and jealous. Her daughter resented her. And now, as a grandmother, Edie finds herself harassed by a younger man. It’s been a lifetime of proving that she is allowed to exist in her own sphere.

Following her "marvelous" (Wall Street Journal) first novel, Caitlin Horrocks returns with a much-anticipated collection of short stories. In her signature, genre-defying style, she explodes our notions of what a story can do and where it can take us.

Like the small towns J. California Cooper has so vividly portrayed in her previous novels and story collections, Wideland, Oklahoma, is home to ordinary Americans struggling to raise families, eke out a living, and fulfill their dreams. In the early 20th century, Irene and Val fall in love in Wideland. While carving out a home for themselves, they also allow neighbors Bertha and Joseph to build a house and live on their land.

Growing up on a farm in early twentieth-century rural Iceland, Karitas Ólafsdóttir, one of six siblings, yearns for a new life. An artist, Karitas has a powerful calling and is determined to never let go of her true being, one unsuited for the conventional. But she is powerless against the fateful turns of real life and all its expectations of women. Pulled back time and again by design and by chance to the Icelandic countryside - as dutiful daughter, loving mother, and fisherman’s wife - she struggles to thrive, to be what she was meant to be.

Wiesbaden, 1968. In das Café Engel wurde eingebrochen. Die Familie Koch ist zutiefst erschüttert. Doch als Hilde bei den Aufräumarbeiten ein altes Foto aus der Gründerzeit findet, offenbart dies eine freudige Überraschung: Ihr Café wird 75 Jahre alt - und das muss gefeiert werden! Doch die Vorbereitungen zum Fest werden von unerwarteten Ereignissen überschattet. Während Hilde mit gesundheitlichen Problemen kämpft, verliert sich ihr Sohn Andi in Frankfurt in den Wirren der 68er-Bewegung, wo er in Claudia seine große Liebe findet.