Rural Small Town Fiction

When her stepmother dies, Caro returns to her childhood home in the rural English countryside. She hadn’t seen Elizabeth in years, but the remote farmhouse offers refuge from a bad relationship and a chance to start again. But going through Elizabeth’s belongings unearths memories Caro would rather stay buried. In particular, the story her stepmother would tell her about two little girls and the terrible thing they do. As heavy snow traps Caro in the village, where her neighbours stare and whisper, Caro is forced to question why Elizabeth hated her so much and what she was hiding.

Do I have feelings for my sister's best friend? Of course not. That would be stupid, considering my sister once threatened to castrate me if I ever hurt Val. Hurting her is the last thing I want to do, which is all the more reason I can't have feelings for her. Val deserves the world, and I'm not the man who can give it to her. When Val announces she's leaving town (and the country), I'm suddenly confronted with some very capital-F Feelings—ones that refuse to stay stuffed down deep where I've hidden them for more years than I care to admit.

Quentin's at the top of his game. He's the nightly news anchor for the biggest broadcast company in the United States. On top of that, he has three beautiful children and a wonderful wife, Catherine. What more could he want? Life isn't done with him yet. Out of the blue, his wife is diagnosed with cancer, and Quentin finds himself reeling. With Catherine so sick, his career no longer matters to him, and his father's invitation to Nantucket is looking more and more appealing. Maybe he should take his family out of the city for a while.

In need of work and a change of scenery, Aussie expat Jayden Turner agrees to a short-term chef position at a bed-and-breakfast over the Christmas holidays. What he finds is a grand old house in a beautiful town, and his new boss is gorgeous, gay, and single. After his divorce, Carter “Cass” Campion bought his great-aunt’s run-down country manor in his hometown, and he’s determined to get it ready for the busy holiday period. Recently out as gay, he’s been focused solely on his business and hasn’t had time for a man. Not that many gay men come through Hartbridge...

In Meet Me In Ivy Falls, Amy True weaves a heartwarming tale of love, restoration, and new beginnings. Set in the quaint town of Ivy Falls, the story unfolds around the renovation of historic homes, where the past and present merge in unexpected ways. As the protagonist navigates the challenges of her project, she discovers a community brimming with secrets, friendships, and romantic possibilities.

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is blessed with a treasure trove of storytellers, poets, and historians, all seeking to capture a sense of Yooper Life from settler's days to the far-flung future. Since 2017, the U.P. Reader has offered a rich collection of their voices that embraces the U.P.'s natural beauty and way of life, along with a few surprises. The sixty-plus short works in this 8th annual volume take listeners on U.P. road and boat trips from the Keweenaw to the Soo and from St. Ignace to Escanaba.

The emotional equivalent of a Category Six hurricane is raging through the small Southern town of Barksdale in the form of a rumor that a provocative African American newcomer might be of supernatural origin.

One night, no names, and no kissing seemed like a good idea —until I got a big, fat plus sign on a pregnancy test, and I had no idea who my baby daddy was. I'm determined to raise my baby on my own, but then he waltzes into my classroom to drop off his son. Blake Walker. The newly retired linebacker and single dad is even more gorgeous now than the night we spent together, and since he knows I'm pregnant with his baby, he's adamant to do right by us.

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.

Don't miss Neil Lancaster's brand-new espionage thriller series! No Mercy available to buy now. 'Non-stop action, breakneck pace, deliciously suspenseful… When Shadows Fall was my first DS Max Craigie book and won’t be my last – I loved it.' Andrea Mara A TRAGIC DEATH When the body of...

I never thought I'd find myself craving the small-town life, but I've grown to hate LA and all that comes with it. When I get canceled after a celebrity interview goes terribly wrong, I put my life in the City of Angels on hold and hide out in Parkerville, Maine. My sister has made the small town her home, and my assistant lives there, too. So it seems like the most logical place to go. Until my assistant suggests I move in with her dad. Her very hot, rugged dad.

As a firefighter, Kent Wakefield has been burned before, and not just by fire. So when Casey Bradford, his best friend's off-limits, gorgeous little sister, asks him to be her fake boyfriend, he flat out refuses. He doesn't do relationships, real or otherwise. But when his well-meaning, marriage-pushing mother corners him about his cousin's wedding, he panics and tells her he has a date. After being left at the altar, Casey is out of options. She needs a boyfriend ASAP or she can kiss her dreams goodbye. Who better than her brother's emotionally unavailable best friend, Kent?

The SideRoad Kids follows a group of boys and girls as they enter the sixth grade in a small town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula during 1957-58. This meandering collection of loosely-connected short stories is often humorous, poignant, and sometimes mysterious. Laugh as the kids argue over Halloween treats handed out in Brimley. Recall Dorothy's Hamburgers in Sault Ste. Marie.

Dating Matthew O’Brien - a playboy and younger man - cost Laila Riley her career and her parents’ respect: a high price, even for love. So when Laila decides it was just a fling, she breaks it off, despite Matthew’s objections. But the O’Brien family has other ideas, and they conspire to get Laila to join them on a Dublin holiday. It’s a great time to get away from it all, but Laila has reservations about the trip. Matthew’s bound to be there, and she’s far from immune.

There's no one I hate more in our small town, and now that my dad is his boss, I can't avoid him. And maybe…maybe I don't want to. Because the more I get to know him, I realize there's more to him than I thought. With each intimate conversation and accidental touch, the sizzling tension between us grows. He makes me laugh. We understand each other in a way no one has before.

The first time I saw Grayson Phillips, I fell. Tripped, to be specific. His seven-year-old self saved me from scraped knees and sentenced me to a fate of pining after my brother’s best friend for years. People change. Childish crushes fade. I’m an adult now, a doctor with more important things to worry about. I gave up on the boy next door ever loving me a long time ago. Or so I thought…until he returns to our hometown on leave from the Air Force. For the first time, not everything between us feels one-sided. That doesn’t make it matter. He’ll take off soon—literally.

Ellie Bowman barely remembers the incident that put her into a coma. When she awoke, filled with unease, all she knew for certain was that her boyfriend, Rick, was missing. She knew she needed to get away from her old life and recover in safety. With the proceeds of a video game she helped develop, Ellie starts over in rural Missouri, working from her cottage and trusting no one except her friend and business partner.

Grady Dalton is in a rut. He’s 38, without a boyfriend, and has yet to find the place that feels like home. The closest he ever got was his best friend, Nathan. But it’s been seven years since he passed, and life isn’t getting easier. That’s how he ends up in Briar County, hoping to grow roots in the place Nathan had loved. Deacon Sharpe spends his days serving homemade ice cream and his nights alone, pretending he’s getting by after his wife’s death better than he is. His world is rocked when a man shows up who claims to have been his brother-in-law’s best friend.

When Lori Hawthorne trades her high-powered city life for the unexpected inheritance of her late aunt's neglected fruit farm in Sedona, Arizona, she soon realizes that mending a broken orchard is only half the battle. Seeking a chance to rewrite her story, she's determined to breathe new life into both the farm and her own existence.

On an island in the Great Massasauga Swamp—an area known as “The Waters” to the residents of nearby Whiteheart, Michigan—herbalist and eccentric Hermine “Herself” Zook has healed the local women of their ailments for generations. As stubborn as her tonics are powerful, Herself inspires reverence and fear in the people of Whiteheart, and even in her own three estranged daughters. The youngest—the beautiful, inscrutable, and lazy Rose Thorn—has left her own daughter, eleven-year-old Dorothy “Donkey” Zook, to grow up wild.