Rural Small Town Fiction

Jeremy Marsh is the ultimate young New Yorker. He's also an expert on debunking the supernatural. When he receives a letter from Boone Creek, North Carolina, about ghostly lights appearing in a cemetery, he can't resist driving down to investigate. Here, in this tightly knit community, Lexie Darnell runs the town's library. Disappointed by past relationships, she is sure of one thing: her future is in Boone Creek, close to all the people she loves.

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 she was still a child, Lucy Nelson had her alcoholic failure of a father thrown in jail. Ever since then she has been trying to reform the men around her, even if that ultimately means destroying herself in the process. With his unerring portraits of Lucy and her hapless, childlike husband, Roy, Roth has created an uncompromising work of fictional realism, a vision of provincial American piety, yearning, and discontent that is at once pitiless and compassionate.

Athena and Rosemary must embark on a perilous journey to the Underworld. Along the way, they uncover clues about a prophecy and encounter allies and adversaries in the dream realm. As they get closer to their goal, they face unexpected challenges, and true motives are revealed. Can they unravel the mysteries of the past before it's too late? The fate of the future hangs in the balance in this magical tale of fae, gods, and ancient prophecies.

After surviving a devastating tragedy, combat reporter Nate Garrison returns to the only place that ever felt like home: Starfish Bay on the Northern California coast. But his reunion with childhood friend Lindsey Collier is nothing like he’d imagined. The wary widow who runs Starfish Bay Mercantile was once the girl who made young Nate dream—of a future, of family ties, of deep roots. Now Lindsey avoids love, loss … and Nate. Yet when they join forces to save a beloved town landmark and help a hurting little boy, might they also find healing, hope—and love?

Fairacre is a village of cottages, a church and the school - and, at the heart of the school, its head mistress Miss Read. Through her discerning eye, we meet the villagers of Fairacre and see their trials and tribulations, from the irascible school cleaner Mrs Pringle, to the young school children, with their scraped knees, hopeful faces and inevitable mischief.

“Ask anyone non-Northern, they’ll only know Donny as punchline of a joke or place they changed trains once ont way to London.” But Doncaster’s also the home of Rach, Shaz, and Kel, bezzies since childhood and Donny lasses through and through. Never mind that Rach is skeptical of Shaz’s bolder plots; or that Shaz, who comes from a rougher end of town, feels left behind when the others begin plotting a course to uni; or that Kel sometimes feels split in two trying to keep the peace―the girls are inseparable, their friendship as indestructible as they are.

Bristol detective DS George Cross, champion of the outsider, the voiceless and the dispossessed. DS George Cross can be rude, difficult and awkward with people. But his unfailing logic and dogged pursuit of the truth means his conviction rate is the best on the force. An outsider himself, having been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, DS Cross is especially drawn to cases concerning the voiceless and the dispossessed. Now, Cross is untangling the truth about a young woman who died three days ago.

Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again A Bird in the Hand is the first mystery novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. In England’s birdwatching paradise, a new...

What happens when you accidentally throw a blueberry pie in your brother's best friend's face? You marry him a week later for health insurance, of course.

After losing her job and learning she might also lose her house because of a bad investment, Jess, a fiercely independent and hilariously wry BC grandma, resorts to growing pot in her basement to make ends meet. She then has to juggle her public life as a grandmother and member of the town’s senior women’s group - The Company of Crones - with her secret life as a pot grower.

In 1919, Delano, Georgia, appoints its first chief of police. Honest and hardworking, the new chief is puzzled when young men start to disappear. But his investigation is ended by the fatal blast from a shotgun. Delano's second chief-of-police is no hero, yet he is also disturbed by what he sees in the missing-persons bulletins. In 1969, when Delano's third chief takes over, the unsolved disappearances still haunt the police files.

The story of Flem Snopes' ruthless struggle to take over the town of Jefferson, Mississippi, this is the second volume of Faulkner's trilogy about the Snopes family, his symbol for the grasping, destructive element in the post-bellum South.

Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its uproarious humor and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, is storytelling at its most generous. Nobody’s Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, and Melody Griffith.

In his first novel to follow the publication of his enormous success, The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck's vision comes wonderfully to life in this imaginative and unsentimental chronicle of a bus traveling California's back roads, transporting the lost and the lonely, the good and the greedy, the stupid and the scheming, the beautiful and the vicious away from their shattered dreams and, possibly, toward the promise of the future. This edition features an introduction by Gary Scharnhorst.

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.

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.

Nestled in a cozy cottage with a lush garden and an abundance of bookshelves, Ursula hopes for a peaceful escape. But strange occurrences quickly unravel, leaving her feeling as though she's being watched. Unusual visions of a mysterious purple-haired woman and out-of-season plants add to her unease. As she becomes acquainted with the enigmatic Rowan and his eccentric house truck, Ursula begins to suspect that he may hold the key to understanding the bizarre happenings in this enchanting world.

Since I'm not going to fall for Dylan Stafford, it shouldn't matter that he shovels my driveway or looks at me like he could devour me. One kiss later—I, Marlow Taylor, am completely screwed.

Readers’ Choice Award winner Jodi Thomas pens a touching, passionate tale about never giving up on love. Texas Ranger Travis McMurray prefers chasing outlaws to being cooped up in domestic life. But all that changes when he meets Rainey, a stunning beauty who steals not only his heart—but his horse. On the run from an arranged marriage, Rainey wants to start a new life inthe West—but will Travis be able to track her down before she disappears for good?