Rural Small Town Fiction

Running my sister's bed-and-breakfast in our small town should have been a piece of cake. Until I opened the door to our new guest and came face to face with the man I had a one-night stand with a year ago—and he was looking at me like I was a total stranger. Nate Sullivan was fourteen years older than me and my brother's best friend. Not to mention a billionaire CEO who looked just as good in well-worn jeans and a T-shirt as he did in a suit. And when he was with his girls? There was no way I couldn't fall for him.

Gabriella Jacobson has one goal for her freshman year of college: get Matthew Cory to fall in love with her. Luckily for Gabby, her best friend Ben attends the same college on a music scholarship. He is the perfect resource—girls love him, and he's more experienced with relationships than she is, since she's never had a boyfriend. When Gabby panics before her first date with Matt, she begs Ben to show her how to kiss. But Ben has a secret, one he's been keeping from Gabby for years. He's in love with her.

There are two things Joey Greer is great at: Raising horses and holding grudges. Eight years ago, her high school sweetheart abandoned her, skipped out on his family, and fled to Hollywood, of all places. She vowed never to forgive or forget. Now big-shot screenwriter Jackson Pierce is back in Blue Moon demanding another chance. No matter how good it feels when he sneaks past her defenses to land a kiss or a compliment, she is determined to pretend he doesn’t exist. Except maybe when he’s naked in her bed.

When Gregory Tomasov moves into an abandoned farm on the edge of McGuane, Arizona, he discovers a terrible secret buried in the walls of the old building.

In the dark, wintry highlands of Lochdubh, Scotland, where the local Calvinist element resists the secular trimmings of Christmas, the spirit of old Saint Nick is about as welcome as a flat tire on a deserted road. Nor is crime taking a holiday, as Constable Hamish Macbeth soon finds himself protecting an unhappy girl, unlocking the secrets of a frightened old woman, and retrieving some stolen holiday goods. Now the lanky lawman must use all his Highland charm and detective skills to make things right.

Maeve McKenna is on the verge of a breakdown. Having worked herself into the ground as a sought-after interior designer in London, she’s in desperate need of a vacation. Philomena Duffy is a little lonely. After losing her husband, their crumbling mansion, Willow House, feels awfully empty. With the rugged shores of Ireland calling, Maeve visits her aunt Philomena in Sandy Cove, where she once, as a teenager, kissed a wild, mysterious boy - a kiss she has never been able to forget.

Baking a multitude of tartes tatins for local restaurants, an Ohio housewife contemplates her four kids, husband, cats and chickens. Also, America's ignoble past, and her own regrets. She is surrounded by dead lakes, fake facts, open carry maniacs, and oodles of online advice about survivalism, veil toss duties, and how to be more like Jane Fonda. But what do you do when you keep stepping on your son's toy tractors, your life depends on stolen land and broken treaties, and nobody helps you when you get a flat tire on the interstate? When are you allowed to start swearing?

Desperate for a new life, Gretchen escapes her abusive ex and finds refuge in the small town of Gracemont. Her plan is simple: lay low. But when she meets Theo Storm, her sexy new boss, everything changes. Drawn into the warmth of his world, Gretchen discovers the possibility of happiness, love, and family—things she thought were out of her reach.

Every summer the peaches ripen in Port Peter, and the tourists arrive to gorge themselves on fruit and sun. They don't see the bird women, who cavort on the cliffs and live in a meadow beneath the lake. But when summer ends and the visitors go back home, every pregnant Port Peter girl knows what she needs to do: deliver her child to the Birds in a laundry basket on those same lakeside cliffs. But the Birds don't want Georgia Jackson.

Living with an eccentric little brother can be tough. Falling through the ice at a skating party and nearly drowning are grounds for embarrassment. But having a vision and narrating it to assembled onlookers? That solidifies your status as an outcast. What Ruby Carson saw during that fateful day was her entire town—buildings and people—floating underwater. Then an orange-tipped surveyor stake turns up in a farmer’s field. Soon everyone discovers that a massive hydroelectric dam is being constructed and their homes will eventually be swallowed by rising water.

As the Nazis’ relentless bombs fall during the Blitz of Coventry, six-year-old Rose Sherbourne finds herself orphaned and under the guardianship of a Cornish farmer's daughter, Elenor Cardew. Elenor knows that the only way to protect spirited Rose is to leave the city and make a new life for themselves away from harm. But soon Elenor discovers that Hitler’s firestorm is not the only thing she must fear when she learns a devastating secret about Rose....

The third volume in the best-selling Wideacre trilogy. Set in the 18th century, they launched the career of Philippa Gregory, the best-selling author of The Other Boleyn Girl and Three Sisters, Three Queens. Meridon, a desolate Romany girl, is determined to escape the hard poverty of her childhood. Riding bareback in a travelling show while her sister, Dandy, risks her life on the trapeze, Meridon dedicates herself to freeing them both from danger and want.

George Holloway has spent his life alone, exploring the treacherous beauty of the Colorado Rockies. He's the best survival expert Search and Rescue has, which makes him the obvious choice to lead Ellie Price through deadly terrain to find her missing father. There's just one problem - Ellie's everything George isn't. She's a city girl, charming, gregarious, delicate, small. And when she looks up at him with those big, dark eyes, he swears he would tear the world apart to keep her safe.

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.

The job at Sunday Orchard was supposed to be temporary. A chance to gain some work experience, to have some fun. I had not expected to be welcomed into a family of gorgeous and weirdly efficient lumberjack-types, or to find purpose in the tiny Vermont town whose claim to fame seemed to be apple-based products and copious amounts of charm. And I most definitely hadn’t expected to fall for Knox Sunday, my grumpy, burly, fifteen-years-older, reluctant roommate, with his infuriating lectures, his hot-as-fire body, his superior attitude - I’ve never been one to put down roots.

When Maggie Banks arrives to run her best friend's struggling bookstore, she expects to sell bestsellers to the small-town clientele. But with the town on the map as a top literary destination and the tourist society bent on keeping businesses historic, Maggie is banned from selling anything written this century. So, when a series of mishaps suddenly tip the bookstore toward ruin, Maggie will have to get creative to keep the shop afloat. And in Maggie's world, bookish rules are made to be broken.

After two back-to-back life-changing events, first grade teacher Katie McGrath leaves Albuquerque for a fresh start in Borden's Gap, Tennessee. She is finally back in the classroom where she belongs, but it will take a little while for her to heal and truly feel like herself. She'll need to dig deep to find the courage to try again—in life and in love—but with some help from her neighbor Sam Youngblood and his adorable twin daughters, her future is looking brighter than she dared imagine.

The greatest days of Heather Matthews' life have taken place in Delta County. Unfortunately, so have the worst. Ten years after an unspeakable tragedy took the lives of the two people she loved the most, Heather returns to her hometown for a class reunion with her high school sweetheart, who is now her husband. Just when she recalls all the reasons to love the idyllic lakeside town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, her life is once again turned upside down. Heather must push her grief aside and investigate the events that occurred the night of the reunion.

In a North Carolina mountain town filled with moonshine and rotten husbands, Sadie Blue is only the latest girl to face a dead-end future at the mercy of a dangerous drunk. She's been married to Roy Tupkin for 15 days, and she knows now that she should have listened to the folks who said he was trouble. But when a stranger sweeps in and knocks the world off-kilter for everyone in town, Sadie begins to think there might be more to life than being Roy's wife.

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.