Rural Small Town Fiction

Local legends speak of a Cadburn daughter who ran off to fight in the Civil War, disguised as a boy, and never came home. Other legends tell of a girl's ghost, in Civil War costume, haunting Cadburn Creek. Three years ago, those rumors mixed with the usual wrangling between the two rival historical societies in Cadburn Township, complicated by the activities of the Spirits of '62, the local Civil War reenactors group, and the bickering between their leader, Steve, and Lyndsy, a history student hoping to make a name for herself, no matter the cost.

Four books in one volume: A Legacy of Love by Amy Clipston, The Cedar Chest by Beth Wiseman, The Treasured Book by Kathleen Fuller, and The Midwife’s Dream by Kelly Irvin.

A warm June evening, a local tradition: The students of Nantucket High have gathered for a bonfire on the beach. But what begins as a graduation night celebration ends in tragedy after a horrible car crash leaves the driver of the car, Penny Alistair, dead and her twin brother in a coma. The other passengers - Penny's boyfriend Jake and her friend Demeter - are physically unhurt, but the emotional damage is overwhelming, and questions linger about what happened before Penny took the wheel.

I know Tuck Monroe is trouble the second I walk in to interview for the nanny position. Six-four and covered in tattoos, he's distractingly hot. He's also grumpy as hell. But I need to pay for school, so I take a job as his daughter's live-in caretaker and move into the apartment above his garage. I fall hard for Katie, his adorable four-year-old. But I never expected to fall for my new boss, who's a decade older than I am. Turns out there's a heart of gold beneath Tuck's broody exterior, one I work to reveal bit by bit.

Faced with the harsh reality that there are 25,000 more women than men in London, Katie’s dating prospects are at an all-time low. While she’s glad it’s not a man’s world anymore, it wouldn’t hurt if there were more eligible bachelors. More likely to get murdered than married, according to gleeful media reports, Katie resigns herself to the fact that there’s no sex in the city for her and decides to head for the hills - or the Scottish Highlands to be exact.

A powerful novel examining the nature of evil, informed by the works of T. S. Eliot and Freud, mythology, local lore, and hard-boiled detective fiction, Sanctuary is the dark, at times brutal, story of the kidnapping of Mississippi debutante Temple Drake. She introduces her own form of venality into the Memphis underworld where she is being held.

One shocking argument and 10-year-old Alice Parker’s world was turned upside down. Her peaceful life at Honeysuckle Farm in the quiet rural village of Brook Bridge swapped for the bustling metropolis of New York City. Alice’s life was changed forever. Now, 13 years later, Alice’s American dream is over. With her life in tatters, there is only one place Alice wants to be...home at Honeysuckle Farm. So, when Alice learns her beloved Grandie is ill, she knows this is her last chance to heal the family rift.

Hill Gamble is a model lawman: cool and collected, with a confident swagger to boot. Too bad all that Texas charm hasn't gotten him anywhere in his personal life, especially since the only girl he ever loved has always been off-limits. But then Hill is assigned to investigate her father's mysterious death, and he's forced back to the town - and the woman - he left behind. When Hill left Loveless, he broke Kody Lawton's already battered heart. And now that he's working on her father's case, avoiding him is impossible.

I moved home to take care of my grandmother. Instead, I got caught up with the worst kind of people in town, and now, I'm the personal punching bag for a member of the mafia who has no intention of ever letting me go. He doesn't care about me. He cares about what he owns. I used to care about things like staying alive or trying to be a good man, but the longer this goes on, the harder it is to see a future different from this. I don't even have friends in this town.

Buffalo Valley, North Dakota. A few years ago, this was a dying town. Now it's come back to life! People are feeling good about living here again - the way they used to. They're feeling confident about the future. Stalled lives are moving forward. People like Margaret Clemens are taking risks on new ventures and on lifelong dreams. On happiness. Margaret is a local rancher who's finally getting what she wants most: marriage to cowboy Matt Eilers.

The emo kid, the loner, the cynical wallflower with an attitude. It's no secret that I've never quite fit in. But it's glaringly obvious now that I've moved to this Podunk small town that seems to run entirely on sugar, friendliness, and cheer. (And cows, an ungodly number of cows.) I hate it—this place where everyone knows everyone, and I'm still the outsider. Who wants to fit in anyway? I've never really tried, never even thought I wanted to…until I met him. Jimbob is living his best life out here, farming the fields of Kansas, well and truly happy. And I just don't get it.

The population of Falls Creek, North Carolina, is a collective menace to society. Layla thought the first line of her orientation packet was a joke, but she soon realized it was all facts. After only a few hours on the job, the whip-smart flight nurse found herself flying headfirst into small-town drama.

Paisley Ratchford is trying to keep it together, but in eight weeks, the Toronto apartment building she lives in will be demolished. A last-ditch effort to reclaim her abandoned childhood home on Amherst Island plunges Paisley into memories of growing up in the tight-knit community, and into the obsessive compulsive disorder that has only ever offered a semblance of control. Her compulsion to count in sets of eight had little effect on thwarting bullies, her father’s bad luck, and her mother’s mental illness—all of which return to haunt her.

When Luke promises his parents that he’ll have the house ready in time to celebrate Christmas with his family, he hires Cameron online and is surprised to see that she’s a woman—one who has a strong opinion about Luke’s so-called “standards.” Meanwhile, Cameron is happy to accept a steady job through the holidays. And as the two of them work closely on the project, they soon realize that there is more developing than just real estate.

When life throws her one setback too many, midwife and young widow Tess Hartsong takes off for Runaway Mountain. In this small town high in the Tennessee mountains, surrounded by nature, she hopes to outrun her heartbreak and find the solace she needs to heal. But instead of peace and quiet, she encounters an enigmatic artist with a craving for solitude, a fairy-tale sprite with too many secrets, a helpless infant, a passel of curious teens, and a town suspicious of outsiders, especially one as headstrong as Tess.

Fiona Ivers has been in love with her brother's best friend since she was a kid. He's older and oblivious to her existence, which only makes her want him more. She's always believed he was disinterested—until a charity gala pushes them together. There, she realizes maybe he pays more attention than he's ever let on. Broody, tattooed loner Boyd Kelly has a low tolerance for distractions and has no issues letting those around him know. His best friend's younger sister doesn't seem to care, though.

The remote Irish village of Duneen has known little drama, but when human remains are discovered on an old farm, suspected to be those of Tommy Burke - a former lover of two different inhabitants - the village's dark past begins to unravel. As the frustrated sergeant PJ Collins struggles to solve a genuine case for the first time in his life, he unearths a community's worth of anger and resentments, secrets and regret.

One peaceful morning, in the small, Puget Sound town of Point Orchards, the lifeless body of Dr. Erin Landry is found hanging from a tree on the property of prodigal son and failed writer, Elijah Leith. Sheriff Jim Godbout’s initial investigation points to an obvious suicide, but upon closer inspection, there seem to be clues of foul play when he discovers that the circumstances of the beautiful doctor’s death were ripped straight from the pages of Elijah Leith’s own novel.

It’s been three years. It’s time to let go of the past. When a man covered in tattoos walks into the bar where I work, with a guitar case slung over his back and a determined swagger, I think I’m finally ready to move on...until I see his guitar. I’d recognize it anywhere. It was the last gift Nate ever received from his father.

Long before Hank Crawford arrived in the waters of Ketchikan, his partners and compatriots were already in love with its shores. Following the final, crushing moments of World War II, Japanese officer Kiyoshi Tsurifune, Sergeant Jones Henry, and Resistance fighter Swede Scorden struggle to regain normalcy and any contact with the shimmering, fish-filled sea. Lost honor, fallen friends, their cultural identities gone in the wake of a nuclear blast - these fishermen-turned-soldiers have a long way to go till they regain the waters in which they feel most at home.