Rural Small Town Fiction

It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas' house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household—where everything is so well tended to—and this summer must soon come to an end.

Mary Stoltzfus is 30 years old, splashed with freckles, and unmarried. In her Amish world, that qualifies her to be called an old maid. She is living her quiet schoolteacher life in the Lancaster County Amish community when she gets a surprising invitation in the mail one day. Would she come to Montana to teach?

She's my first love. She's also my father's mistress's daughter. I'm Duke Wilder, and this is my story. I left Wildflower Canyon and Wilder Ranch ten years ago, away from my father and Elena—the girl I loved before I found out she was the daughter of my father's mistress. Now my father is gone, and he's left the ranch to me. I come back ready to sell it off piece by piece, to destroy his so-called legacy, and finally get revenge on the land that failed my mother. But coming back to the Colorado ranch country feels like stepping into a part of myself I've tried to forget.

After fleeing her beloved small town five years ago, Julia Bailey is back to spend Christmas with her family. Returning is hard, but keeping the devastating secret about her late husband is even harder. Her place isn't in Big Sky Country any longer...but the more time she spends with the irresistible Sheriff who saved her once before, and his adorable little daughter, the more Julia starts wishing she could let go of the past and start a new life.

Want to know what happens to a man who barely claws his way out of a tragedy, only to fall right into the arms of the one girl in the world he can never have? Another tragedy, that's what. When I was six years old, my father made a choice that altered the course of my entire life. Because of what he did, the only girl I ever loved became the only girl I couldn’t have. In a lot of ways, I did have her; I had her first steps, her first words, her first smile. I had her milestones, her heartbreaks, her dreams.

Cormac McCarthy, best-selling author of National Book Award winner All the Pretty Horses, delivers his first new novel in seven years. Written in muscular prose, No Country for Old Men is a powerful tale of the West that moves at a blistering pace.

Missing Links is the story of four middle-class buddies who live outside Boston and play golf together at Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Links and Deli, not so fondly known as Ponky. An 18-hole garbage dump with hazards that include a concrete river surrounded by a chain-link fence and the pillars of the elevated train that runs through the course, it is reputed to be the worst golf course in America.

Windows is a celebration of the High Street, small-town life and the hard-working and dedicated shopkeepers, public servants and other people who strive to keep that life going. It’s a funny and poignant portrayal of human nature and its many frailties and strengths, including love, hate, loyalty, ambition, determination, error and redemption. A key theme is the human tendency to rush to conclusions about others which can later prove to be wrong.

Big secrets run deep. Former FBI agent Jack McBride took the job as chief of police for Stillwater, Texas, to start a new life with his teenage son, Ethan, away from the suspicions that surrounded his wife's disappearance a year earlier. With a low crime rate and a five-man police force, he expected it to be a nice, easy gig; hot checks, traffic violations, some drugs, occasional domestic disturbances, and petty theft. Instead, within a week he is investigating a staged murder-suicide.

When an old military buddy turns up at the ranch he shares with two friends, Noah Harding never imagines the friend will skip out overnight and leave his baby boy behind. Noah will have some choice parenting advice to offer when the baby's mother turns up, but until then, he'll do his best to take care of the little one. Yet when a relieved Jen finally tracks down her son, Noah realizes the story is more complicated than he thought. And soon, so are his feelings for Jen . . .

The Miller family's move from Ohio to Montana was, for the most part, uneventful, except that Sadie Miller had to leave her beloved horse, the palomino named Paris. Still, she likes the Montana snows and her job at Aspen East Ranch, serving the ranch hands. Unexpectedly, Ezra appears, the man who seems to be perfect in every way and fully intends to marry Sadie. But does she love him back? And who is this fascinating Mark who helps to rescue a dying horse and shows up at the Amish hymn-sing though he is English?

On the brink of a breakdown, two years after the death of his fiancée, Jim Hawkes quits his high-powered job in the city to rent a cottage in the Devonshire countryside seeking some well-needed rest. But Slyford St. James is far from the peaceful haven Jim was hoping for. Almost immediately, he is plagued by strange occurrences: a combination lock that won’t open, loud noises in the attic, the figure of a little girl always just out of sight. His new village friends, Jed and Emma, are convinced Jim has found his way to the village for a reason.

Mike Page fled Ironwood Flats, Texas the moment he tossed his high school cap in the air and never looked back. But when his little sister, Annie, is suddenly left raising two kids on her own, one desperate call brings him right back to the one place he swore he’d never return. Now, stuck playing uncle, Mike’s in for more than he bargained for, especially since it means surviving the town’s infamous Halloween celebrations—his personal nightmare.

Sunny never expected to find herself owning a centuries old silk mill in the shadow of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains or becoming a half-sister to a 10-year-old named Bailey. Once the shock subsides, she plans to cash in and head back home. But the overgrown greenhouse she finds on the property calls out to the gardener in her, and she senses Bailey's need for nurturing too.

All John Beauchamp wants is a simple life. He's a widower who is content running his Louisiana sugarcane farm. Then Shelby Mackey breezes in, announcing that she's pregnant with his baby. Their accidental night of passion has changed . . . everything. Shelby insists John doesn't have to be involved—she'll raise the baby on her own in Seattle. But John can't let her go that easily. Even without the baby, Shelby is a breath of fresh air. So when Shelby agrees to stay in Louisiana temporarily, John's determined to make that stay permanent—and as sweet as can be.

The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything - everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy's not only a book woman, however, she's also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy's family or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble.

Bo Tully, sheriff of Blight County, Idaho, has dealt with small-town crime throughout his long, storied career. Now, contemplating retirement after years on the job, Tully is faced with perhaps his most perplexing case yet. When area bald eagles start getting picked off by a ghost-like killer, and when a prominent local rancher is murdered by an arrow with eagle fletching, things gets complicated fast. In this fast-paced whodunit, Tully has a vast array of suspects to choose from, including the rancher's gorgeous, bird-loving wife, who mysteriously leaves for a ranch in Mexico the day of the murder.

When Connor Larkin boards a late-night bus in downtown LA, he's not sure where he's going or what he's looking for. Putting his acting career - and his fiancée - on hold, he's searching for something he can't define, a part of himself he lost on the road to success. Once he dreamed of being a singer in the classic style of Sinatra and Bennett. But his lean good looks soon landed him in movies as the sexy bad guy - and in the arms of a famous young heiress. Now, with his wedding day approaching, Connor finds himself stepping into the sleepy seaside town of Miramar Bay.

Barnes, the supervisor of a Hot Shot wildfire suppression crew, is haunted by the season past, when many members of his dedicated, young team were killed in a Colorado forest fire that went all wrong, scorching the Hot Shots as they fled, some as they struggled into their fire shelters. He wakes each morning in the presence of their ghosts as they proceed across his bedroom or assemble at his kitchen table, their eyes asking questions that he cannot answer.

Cecil Younger, local Alaskan investigator, is neither good at his job nor great at staying sober. When an old Tlingit woman, unimpressed by the police's investigation, hires him to discover why her son, a big-game guide, was murdered, he takes the case without much conviction that he'll discover anything new.