Rural Life

In Bonnet, Texas, Liddy Latham, the queen of funeral dinners, keeps a Southern comfort-food tradition alive - until fancy-schmancy Matilda Monroe moves back to town. She wants room at the table for her own style of consolation and closure: healthy, modern, and vegan. But this is about more than fried chicken versus tofu turkey. Matilda’s return is also stirring up their volatile, unresolved history. And just when they thought it couldn’t get more personal.

Readers of Patrick Taylor's books know Mrs. Kinky Kincaid as the unflappable housekeeper who looks after two frequently frazzled doctors in the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. She is a trusted fixture in the lives of those around her, and it often seems as though Kinky has always been there.Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Being the middle son is never easy, especially when your brothers are perfect. T.K. is 14 and has a true talent for getting into trouble. He tries to keep his temper under control, but it’s a difficult task with so many freaking jerks around. T.K. feels like his life has been flushed down the toilet, but soon he’s able to join the football team, and then there’s Finn, the hottie newly hired to help out on the farm. T.K. believes he might finally be happy, but when he spots a blond angel, he realizes he didn’t know what happiness means.

Love is in the air in the colourful Ulster village of Ballybucklebo, where Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly has finally proposed to the darling of his youth, Kitty O'Hallorhan. There's a wedding to be planned, but before O'Reilly can make it to the altar, he and his young colleague, Barry Laverty, M.B., must deal with the usual round of eccentric patients—and crises both large and small.

When Vanessa Young finds herself aged out of her job as a Hollywood stylist and facing the loss of her father, she acts on a bold impulse and reconnects with the daughter she gave up for adoption thirty years ago. To her surprise, Emily is also at a crossroads in her life, equally eager for change and a fresh start. Together, they travel to Vanessa's hometown of Rosemary Beach, Florida, to embark on a journey of self-discovery and second chances.

No longer tolerating her husband’s borderline abuse, Faith escapes to her parents’ California beach house to plan her next move. She never dreamed her new chapter would involve befriending Sarah, a fourteen-year-old on the run from her father and reeling from her mother’s sudden and suspicious death. While Sarah’s grandmother scrambles to get custody, Faith is charged with spiriting the girl away on a journey that will restore her hope: Sarah implores Faith to take her to Falkner’s Midnight Sun, the prized black mare that her father sold out from under her.

In the small town of Celeste, Texas, Mitzi Taylor has never quite fit inside the lines. Nearly six feet tall, flame-haired, and with a plus-size spirit to match every curve, she’s found her niche: a custom wedding-dress boutique catering to big brides-to-be with big dreams. Taking the plunge alongside her two best friends, she’s proud they’ve turned The Perfect Dress into a perfect success. Just when Mitzi has it all pulled together, Graham Harrison walks back into her life, looking for bridesmaid dresses for his twin daughters.

When we last left off, there was a big wedding and an addition to the family. But, what happens when a new resident moves to town and shakes things up? And what will everyone do when a familiar face shows up and creates chaos during the holidays?

In An Irish Country Courtship, after less than a year, young Barry Laverty, M.B., is settling in to the village, with only a few months to go before he becomes a full partner in the practice. He's looking forward to becoming a fixture in the community, until an unexpected romantic reversal gives him second thoughts. Will he truly be happy tending to routine coughs and colds for the rest of his career? After all, even when a more challenging case comes along, like a rare tropical disease, all he can do is pass it on to a qualified specialist or big-city hospital.

Just as Emmalee prepares to escape her hardscrabble life in Red Chert holler, Leona dies tragically. Grief-stricken, Emmalee decides she'll make Leona's burying dress, but there are plenty of people who don't think the unmarried Emmalee should design a dress for a Christian woman - or care for a child on her own.

Everyone knows that Addie Fullbright can’t keep a secret. Yet, twelve years ago, as her best friend lay dying, she entrusted Addie with the biggest secret of all. One so shattering that Addie felt she had to leave her hometown of Starlight, Alabama, to keep from revealing a devastating truth to someone she cares for deeply. Now she’s living a lonely life, keeping everyone at a distance. But when her beloved aunt gets a shocking diagnosis and asks her to come back to Starlight to help run the family bakery, Addie knows it’s finally time to go home again.

It's Christmas at the Dane Crown Inn, and the much-needed renovations at the resort once known as "the gem of Florida's Treasure Coast" have been put on hold for the holidays. Amy Sommer Peterson and the rest of the family deck the halls with festive garland, decorate towering Christmas trees, and hang sparkling lights. When surprise guests arrive to share the season, everyone soon gathers in the kitchen to decorate cookies, sing Christmas carols, reminisce about the past, and make new memories. While the rest of the family celebrates, Amy faces a host of challenges.

New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Chiaverini has charmed countless readers with her heartwarming Elm Creek Quilts novels. Like the other delightful entries in the series, Circle of Quilters offers an engaging story, endearing characters, and fascinating bits of quilting lore.

Anthony Puckett was a rising literary star. The son of an uber-famous thriller writer, Anthony’s debut novel spent two years on the best seller list and won the adoration of critics. But something went very wrong with his second work. Now Anthony’s borrowing an old college’s friend’s crumbling beach house on Block Island in the hopes that solitude will help him get back to the person he used to be.

Twenty-seven years ago, Alana Copperfield was the beauty queen of Nantucket High and girlfriend of Jeremy Farley, the handsome and successful football quarterback. Back then, Jeremy's football scholarship to Notre Dame pushed him to break things off with the aimless Alana. Their breakup created a chain of events that ultimately led to a terrible car accident, one that left Jeremy unable to walk for nearly two years. Needless to say, his dreams were dashed forever.

All her life, Epiphany Salerno has been tossed like a dandelion seed on the wind. Now, at 16, she must move to the low-rent side of Blue Sky Hill and work where she's not wanted: in an upscale home on The Hill. J. Norman Alvord's daughter has hired a teenager to stay with him in the afternoons. Widowed and suffering from heart trouble, Norman wants to be left alone. But in Epie's presence, Norman discovers a mystery. Deep in his mind lie memories of another house, another life, and a woman who saved him.

Karen Sommerfield has been hiding from the big questions of her life - the emotional distance in her marriage, her inability to have children, and her bout with cancer. Getting lost in her high-powered career provides the sense of purpose she yearns for. Until the day she's downsized out of her job and the doctor tells her the cancer may be back. It's a double blow that would send anyone reeling.

With the high summer season underway at the Seabreeze Inn, Ivy Bay faces new challenges. She has just one season to make the inn a success to pay the tax bill her late husband left behind. And her neighbor’s lawsuit could mean an end to the Seabreeze Inn. Yet her daughter Sunny’s arrival in Summer Beach is also a chance to renew their strained relationship. While the mayor, Bennett Dylan, develops deeper feelings for Ivy, new trials weigh on their romantic relationship. Sensing Ivy’s sadness over her sister Shelly’s departure, Bennett encourages Mitch, the Java Beach owner, to contact Shelly.

Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost forty years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive, and singular view of American life as lived. Unconstrained, astute, provocative, often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is once more our guide to the great American midway.

Long before Dr. Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly made most listeners’ acquaintance in Patrick Taylor's best-selling novel An Irish Country Doctor, he appeared in a series of humorous columns originally published in Stitches: The Journal of Medical Humour. These warm and wryly amusing vignettes provide an early glimpse at the redoubtable Dr. O’Reilly as he tends to the colourful and eccentric residents of Ballybucklebo, a cozy Ulster village nestled in the bygone years of the early '60s.