Rural Small Town Fiction

It's hard to truly get lost in 2025, but Arden trusted his GPS in the deep, rural woods of Georgia, where satellite signals don't reach. Now he, his wife Laurie, and their two children, traveling back home after a fun weekend away, have run out of gas next to a house displaying a very unwelcoming sign. The porch light turns on. A large man with a shotgun emerges. As he walks slowly toward their car, the family has no idea how bad their night is about to become…

The last person I expected to see at the funeral was Jake Blackwood—my best friend's older brother, my first love turned bearded mountain god. He brought backup. Two ex-SEALs who share his cabin in the woods. Noah is the calm in the storm. Eli's the storm itself. He blames me for the past. I blame him for that kiss in the woodshed. Then the threats started. Jake insists I stay with them. I should've said no. But I didn't. Being snowed in with a mountain man is a bad idea... Let alone three. And falling for all of them? Disastrous.

Charlene Ann Baumbich—award-winning journalist and best-selling author of the Dearest Dorothy novels—launches a series of heartwarming stories linked by the swirling flakes of one special snowglobe. In this charming tale of second chances, renewed faith, and forgiveness, a captivating heirloom triggers inexplicable changes.

Five years ago, Clara Hayes got the diagnosis no one wants: cancer. She fought it and won, but it altered everything. She moved back home, changed her career, and now she approaches life without fear or hesitation. Then her brother’s best friend moves to town. She’s loved Holden for as long as she’s known him. And though she’s been gently turned down by him once before, Clara decides she needs to take one more chance on him, even if ends in heartache. Because as she knows all too well, life’s too short for regrets.

Vallée de l'Asse. Provence. Été 1965. Il vit dans une station-service avec ses vieux parents. Les voitures qui passent sont rares. Shell ne va plus à l'école. Il est différent. Un jour, il décide de partir. Pour aller à la guerre et prouver qu'il est un homme. Mais sur le plateau qui surplombe la vallée, nulle guerre ne sévit. Seuls se déploient le silence et les odeurs du maquis. Et une fille, comme un souffle, qui apparaît devant lui. Avec elle, tout s'invente et l'impossible devient vrai.

Pru Reynolds doesn’t have time for drama. Between running the Misfit Inn and finalizing the adoption of her teenage foster daughter, she’s juggling more than enough. A casual fling with her sister’s best friend? Fine. No strings, no complications. Until the social worker shows up. Unannounced. At the absolute worst possible time.

Rickie Alleyn, son of the famed detective Roderick Alleyn, had taken to the peaceful Channel Island village of Deep Cove to write his book. However, soon enough the tedium of provincial life threatens to send him packing - until, that is, he finds a dead stablehand, and the sleepy community's world is upturned. His father is called to take proceedings into hand, but as a darker side to island life emerges, one of illegal drugs and smuggling, Rickie goes missing.

Alone in the Northwoods, Norry Last settles in for another springtime lull at the remote resort she inherited from her father. She’s content with the solitude, maybe resigned. But when a blizzard hits, those little cabins by the lake start to fill up fast. First to arrive is Lizzie, an eight-year-old with resilience and wisdom beyond her years, neglected by a mother struggling with addiction. Next comes Wendell, a cantankerous old fellow whose house collapses in the storm, the same way hope collapsed inside him long before.

Midwestern movie house owner Virgil Wander is "cruising along at medium altitude" when his car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior. Virgil survives, but his language and memory are altered, and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. Awakening in this new life, Virgil begins to piece together his personal history and the lore of his broken town, with the help of a cast of affable and curious locals. Into this community returns a shimmering prodigal son who may hold the key to reviving their town.

The Hathaway sisters might have grown up apart, but when they agree to move to Jasper Creek, Oregon, to revitalize their grandfather’s farm, it seems a straightforward decision. Until they meet their neighborhood cowboys… Sweet-natured Teddy has never met a man worth taking a risk on, until now. Tomboy Joey has more affinity with farm equipment than men, until a brooding cowboy changes her mind. Prickly baker Georgie can’t resist the temptation of the most forbidden cowboy of all, and sparks fly between ceramicist Elliot and the grumpy single-dad rancher next door.

Colorado's Redstone Ridge is a place of extraordinary beauty, but this rugged mountain wilderness harbors a horrifying secret. When a charred body is discovered in a shallow grave on the ridge, officer Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner, Robo, are called in to spearhead the investigation. But this is no ordinary crime - and it soon becomes clear Mattie has a close personal connection to the dead man.

My time with Asher Anderson was supposed to be simple. A long-distance situationship of sorts with someone older and more experienced. No risk of attachment. No threat of commitment. Exactly how I need it. But the single dad is making it hard to stick to my guns. Impossible to hide behind my walls. Asher wants more. More from me. More for us. He doesn't realize how much stands in our way. How little I have to give. And neither of us expects the two pink lines connecting us forever.

To save her son, shy but determined waitress Becky McAllister would do just about anything. But she never expected "anything" to include the brother of the man who broke her heart. Steve Parker needs a wife, now, if he has any hopes of winning his local DA election and becoming the advocate for the underserved he's always dreamed of being. The sweet waitress seems like just the person—if he can get her to agree. One year of marriage—no strings, no personal attachments. Becky gets the insurance funds she needs for her son's surgery while Steve's poll ratings soar.

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.

Kept apart by their love for one man, two sisters embark on their own paths toward survival, love, and understanding, until they finally meet again in the worst of circumstances. And the reality might break them all. My Heart Went Walking is a beautiful novel that sweeps from the small Irish town of Donegal to the “big smoke” of Dublin City; a book that celebrates the pull of family and the chance of redemption. It is a novel for everyone who feels connected to the Irish approach to life and also for everyone who loves an overriding message of hope and restoration.

When Dr Hannah Rogan, a GP from outback Queensland, moves to Featherwood to open a medical practice of her own, she finds the fresh start she needs. Her first patient is the son of the tight-lipped, attractive Jude, who comes from a mysterious closed community upriver. The rain starts, and doesn't stop. The creeks fill, the river bursts and soon the residents of Featherwood are at risk of losing everything they've rebuilt.

Conner Gilroy was my brother’s best friend. Popular. Smart. Gorgeous. With his cocky grin and perfect family, he was the fantasy of almost every girl I knew, including mine. And for some reason, he wanted me. Me, Henley O’Connell; the ugly bookworm with bright orange hair. Poor white trash with a quick temper and a chip on her shoulder. He confused me and made me angry. He treated me like I was something more than what I was. Like maybe what I wanted wasn’t just a silly fantasy.

With Holding Lies, John Larison takes us deep into a thriving subculture of the Northwest, one born of the ferns and firs, rain and hot-springs, firebombs and whitewater. He takes us even deeper into the troubles of Hank Hazelton, a 59-year-old river guide, as he struggles to reconnect with his only daughter after a 14-year estrangement. His failure as a father haunts him, along with other deep regrets, tragedies, and longings. In the days before his daughter's arrival, Hank discovers a drift boat stranded below a rapid, empty except for a long smear of blood on its seat.

As the new co-owner of Tundish Montana's stationery shop, Delta Douglas knows how to organize a killer crafting event. Creativity and cardstock are all she needs to move one step closer to her ultimate dream: developing her own line of crafting products. But on the night of the workshop, at the swanky hotel venue, glitter isn't the only thing found sprawled on the floor. A hotel guest is discovered dead in the bar, and amid the confusion, Delta's best friend is suspected of the crime.

Detective Abish Taylor left Utah for a reason. But with her husband’s passing, it’s time to come home. Reconnecting with her family means dealing with her past: the father she abandoned and the community she left behind. Her one escape is serving as the sole police detective in the small town of Pleasant View. But when the quiet Mormon suburb in the Wasatch Mountains is shaken by a macabre death - with the hallmarks of a sacred ritual dating back to the days of Brigham Young - Abbie is called into action.