Rural Town Fiction

The scent of flowers and change is in the air for the Wingate sisters. With her husband gone for weeks at a stretch, Rose's unwavering enthusiasm is tested, forcing her to remove her famous rose-colored glasses and face a family crisis. While Susannah plans an anniversary surprise for Rex, Chloe finds the courage to try one more career path, with help coming from the one constant in her life, her precious furbaby, Lady Bug.

I moved home to take care of my grandmother. Instead, I got caught up with the worst kind of people in town, and now, I'm the personal punching bag for a member of the mafia who has no intention of ever letting me go. He doesn't care about me. He cares about what he owns. I used to care about things like staying alive or trying to be a good man, but the longer this goes on, the harder it is to see a future different from this. I don't even have friends in this town.

Pastry chef Tessa Montgomery knows what everyone in Blossom Glen says about her. Spinster. Ice Queen. Such a shame. It’s enough to make a woman bake her troubles away, dreaming of Parisian delicacies while she makes bread at her mother’s struggling boulangerie. That is, it is until Tessa’s mortal enemy — deliciously handsome (if arrogant) chef Leo Castorini, who owns the restaurant next door — proposes a business plan…to get married.

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.

Who goes to rehab eight times? Gage does. As a recovering addict fresh out of rehab, moving back in with his mom and starting over in his hometown isn't part of his life goals, but Gage needs all the support he can get. Lost and a little unsure of himself, Gage meets his new sponsor. A sponsor whose son is the perfect sober companion. But companionship isn't all these two find...

I loved him from the beginning. In the middle. But maybe not at the end. His love for me was full of possibilities, hopes, and dreams a girl like me wasn't accustomed to. He was a nightmare that cracked and bled through my hands, and I stood there watching as it seeped into the ground. Until him. He put me back together without even knowing he was doing so. And he wasn't even my husband.

I’ve had a crush on Dylan St. Clair ever since he climbed into my bedroom window ten years ago. Wrong window, Romeo. I was eleven. He was seventeen. A bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks with a chip on his shoulder and fresh bruises from his latest fight, he went on to play the starring role in all my teenage fantasies. But I always knew he was off-limits. So, over the years, I gave up wishing and hoping we could ever be together. Until he kissed me on a cold beach one starry winter’s night.

Former Hostile Operations Team soldier Blaze "Shadow" Connolly knows what it’s like to lose everything. He’s got nobody except his job and his team and that’s the way he likes it. But when he walks into a gas station during a robbery and locks eyes with Emma Grace Sutton, he knows he’ll do anything to protect the pretty girl with the blue glasses.

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.

At eight, he gave me roses. At fifteen, he gave me butterflies, and at seventeen, he gave me sanctuary. I wasn't a damsel in distress. He wasn't Prince Charming waiting to whisk me off my feet. We didn't meet by chance. He's been part of my life for years, and for most of that time, I've been under his spell.

I've spent my entire life running. No more. The past is finally catching up to me, and my secrets won't stay buried as trouble looms on the horizon. I must face the monster who spent a decade torturing me. For myself. My daughter. The countless other victims that he silenced with his brutality. This town gave me everything. I have to protect it, or I'll lose the ones I love forever.

Jacqueline Keys was ostracized from her small hometown of Pine Springs, Texas, when she was 17, sent away because she was gay. Fifteen years later - long after she'd hitch-hiked to Los Angeles, put herself through college, and had written her first best seller - Jacqueline is persuaded to go back to the tiny town of Pine Springs after her father's death. The quick trip she'd envisioned for the funeral turns into weeks as she learns her father's business is suddenly hers to manage. And she is also again face-to-face with the woman who, as a teen, had been Jackie's first crush.

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.

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.

When Graham Barnett named his diner The Tourist Trap, he meant it as a joke. Now he's stuck slinging reindeer dogs to an endless parade of resort visitors who couldn't interest him less. Not even the sweet, enthusiastic tourist in the corner who blushes every time he looks her way...Two weeks in Alaska isn't just the top item on Zoey Caldwell's bucket list. It's the whole bucket. One look at the mountain town of Moose Springs and she's smitten.

Six-year-old Jaxon Lathan disappeared while playing in a park. Ten years later, he’s found wandering a deserted highway. The boy’s family races to the hospital to see him, but they are shocked at the sight. The bubbly youngster has been replaced by a scarred and emaciated teen. As they begin to bridge the lost years and rebuild their bonds, they must wrestle with their own guilt and demons.

Ava Bedford's quiet existence in Nevada shatters when she becomes the sole witness to a brutal murder linked to rising political star Congressman Richard Callahan. Forced into witness protection, Ava is relocated to Cedar Falls, a rugged Wyoming town nestled in the shadow of towering mountains. But even in this peaceful haven, danger lurks—and it's never far behind.

Brightwater Valley, New Zealand, is beautiful, rugged, and home to those who love adventure. But it's also isolated and on the verge of becoming a ghost town. When the town puts out a call to its sister city of Deep River, Alaska, hoping to entice people to build homes and businesses in Brightwater, ex paratrooper Chase Kelly is all for it. He sees the benefits of building the economy, but only if those who come to Brightwater are ready for its challenges.

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.

Actor Kelsey Grammer, best known for his roles in the TV sitcoms Cheers and Frasier, delivers Bitter Brew, a compelling mystery featuring Detective Bill Walsh, an upstate cop in the quiet, rural town of Beatriceville, 200 miles north of New York City, who suspects foul play in the death of millionaire city transplant Jonathan Kimball, even though the evidence points to suicide, not murder.