Rural Fiction

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.

When a big New York theater production comes to Zinnia, Mississippi, murder takes center stage - and Sarah, it turns out, is the star suspect.

From the author of Lovejoy and Blessed comes a series about church ladies of the South. After reading this first novel in the series, fans of Southern fiction write, "I want to live next door to Mildred Budge." A retired school teacher, Mildred Budge just wants to live a quiet life in her hometown of Cloverdale. But retirement does not mean she can say no to a friend--not a friend in trouble. Mildred Budge knows how. A disciplined woman, Mildred can breathe the word "no" to a second cup of ice cream. Can resist drinking too much champagne. But when it comes right down to a friend needing a ...

Running the family bakery and living in the store's attic might not be Daisy's dream life, but she's beginning to understand what being content feels like. And then she gets some unexpected news. In one moment, Daisy's calm existence turns into chaos. Now she's struggling to keep it together, especially with renovations at the bakery spiraling out of control.

Set in the eccentric backwater of Karakarook (pop. 1,374), New South Wales, this is the story of Douglas Cheeseman, a shy and clumsy engineer with jug-ears who meets Harley Savage, a woman who is known for being rather large and abrupt. Douglas is there to pull down a quaint old bridge, and Harley aims to foster heritage. They are clearly on a collision course - but when they meet they are unaware that something unexpected is going to happen....

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?

Cecil Younger is a man who takes comfort in the absurdity of the universe, and the universe is obliging him when he gets a call from his lawyer and psychiatrist, who offers him a job. A client wants to hire Younger to kill someone. Though common sense tells him murder just isn't a good career move, his finances tell him it can't hurt to meet his potential client, hoping he can succeed in appeasing him - without a dead body.

For fourteen-year-old Leah Payne, life in her beloved coastal Carolina town is worlds away from the harsh realities of the day. Loyal to her lumberjack father, she knows only of the familiarity of her small community, the magic of the natural world, and the creative intuition that prompts her to march to the beat of her own drum. But when an accident takes her father's life, leaving her an orphan, Leah finds herself cast into a family of strangers whose welcoming façade hides a terrible secret.

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?

Forced from San Francisco by the slanders of her ex-fiancé, Eden Paxton heads for the wilds of Colorado. But on her way, she’s abducted and abused by ruthless outlaws—until she’s rescued by Matthew Coulter, still obsessed with avenging his wife’s murder. As Eden and Matthew try to elude their pursuers, these two wounded souls struggle to reconcile their tragic pasts—and their growing attraction to one another.

Adopted at 13, Dell Jordan was loved, mentored, and encouraged to pursue her passion for music. Now, at 20, after a year abroad with a traveling symphony, a scholarship to Julliard is within reach. But underneath Dell's smoothly polished surface lurk mysteries from the past. Why did her mother abandon her? Who was her father? Are there faces somewhere that look like hers - blood relatives she's never met? Determined to find answers, Dell sets off on a secret journey into Oklahoma's Kiamichi Mountains, drawn by the only remaining link to her origins.

Annie McIntyre has a love/hate relationship with Garnett, Texas. Recently graduated from college and home waitressing, lacking not in ambition but certainly in direction, Annie is lured into the family business—a private investigation firm—by her supposed-to-be-retired grandfather, Leroy, despite the rest of the clan's misgivings.

Jean Gilkyson is floundering in a trailer house in Iowa with yet another brutal boyfriend when she realizes this kind of life has got to stop, especially for the sake of her daughter, Griff. But the only place they can run to is Ishawooa, Wyoming, where Jean's loved ones are dead and her father-in-law, the only person who could take them in, wishes that she was, too.

The time: the waning years of the 1990s at the dawn of the millennium. The place: an isolated rural town called Auburn, which could be anywhere at all - a town where everyone knows everyone else - where dark secrets run through its veins like blood. Everyone knows that 16-year old Mikey Childress is "different." A target for bullies since he was a small boy, everything Mikey does attracts abuse: the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he looks. Everyone knows he's not like the other boys in Auburn - the boys who play hockey, who fight, the boys who pursue girls.

Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets he needs to atone for. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed. As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world.

One man finds himself torn between two cultures in this sweeping tale of frontier life in post–Civil War era Texas. In the years following the American War Between the States, the once vacated military presence in west Texas is on the rise to protect the waves of settlers moving into the region. Living peaceably with the Mescalero Apache, half-breed former military scout Holton Lang promotes the tentative harmony between the US cavalry and the Native American population.

Simon can't stop thinking about the pretty Amish teacher at the local one-room school. But he's ignored the sparks between them because he's so shy. So Simon's little brother, Isaac, takes matters into his own hands. He's determined to give his brother the best Christmas present ever - a date with his favorite teacher. Amish novelist Byler brings her tender humor and skillful observation of family relationships to this holiday story.

It begins on the shaded town square in a sleepy Southern town. A spirited seven-year-old has a brisk business at her lemonade stand. But the little girl’s pretty yellow dress can’t quite hide the ugly scar on her chest. Her latest customer, a bearded stranger, drains his cup and heads to his car, his mind on a boat he's restoring at a nearby lake. The stranger understands more about the scar than he wants to admit. And the beat-up bread truck careening around the corner with its radio blaring is about to change the trajectory of both their lives.

He's the hottest man I've ever seen, someone I can't forget. So it hurts when I find out I've slept with the enemy. As a list maker and a rule follower, the last thing I planned on one of the worst days of my life was to fall into bed with a guy who literally charmed the clothes right off of me. With him, I felt safe to lay my sadness down for the night and embrace a stranger. Little did I know, that hot, gorgeous man would be Jamison Ledger, the one who has taken everything I've ever wanted—my legacy, my happiness, and what I've worked my whole life to attain.

Part human comedy and part mystery, Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told is an enthralling, masterful story about what holds a village together and what keeps people apart. When journalist Patrick Bracken returns to Gohen, the Irish village where he was born, he knows the eyes of the townspeople are on him. He has come home to investigate two deaths that happened decades earlier when he was a child, deaths that were ruled accidental.