Rural Life

> New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Jodi Thomas pens contemporary romances that tug at listeners’ heartstrings. When Allie Daniels unexpectedly inherits property on Twisted Creek from a mysterious uncle, she and her "nana" open the place as a café for local residents. There, Allie is treated to a revolving cast of intriguing characters, including the handsome Luke Morgan.

A FEW SHORT TALES ABOUT SETTING DOWN. LIFE IN THE BURBS. You want to try new things, but you get in the way of yourself. You try to become a bit of a gardener...You think about moving to a quieter neighbourhood...These are a few short stories, which are suburbia in a nutshell.

For decades J.J. Tucker has brought laughter and sunshine to the Sandbar Sisters. But her life has spiraled out of control. A disaster has turned Irish Hills upside down and has left J.J. alone and unsure. She can't bear to look back on her life and moving forward hurts too much. Her future, once bright and filled with love, feels lonely and hopeless. J.J. faces a very different future than she had planned and one she's not sure if she wants. She will have to face her fears and her past if she wants to find the laughter in her life again.

How did the hottest hockey player in the NHL wind up braiding hair and hosting tea parties? Because someone was foolish enough to name him co-guardian of their children. That's how. Cole Montgomery's living his best life—until he gets a call from an attorney letting him know he's been entrusted with the care of two little girls. He can't imagine why anyone would think he was a good role model. He can't even keep a plant alive.

It's the winter of 1967, and snow is on the ground in the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, but the chilly weather can't stop love from warming hearts all over the county. Not just the love between a man and woman, as with young doctor Barry Laverty and his fiancée, Sue Nolan, who are making plans to start a new life together, but also the love of an ailing pensioner for a faithful dog that's gone missing, the love of the local gentry for the great estate they are on the verge of losing, or Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly's love for his longtime home and practice.

In the vein of The Lovely Bones and The Little Friend, Ghosts of the Missing follows the mysterious disappearance of a 12-year-old girl during a town parade and the reverberations of this tragedy throughout the town.

Pregnant with her second child, Martha King finds her marriage to lawyer Austin King more and more frustrating when her husband befriends his young foster cousin, Nora, and, in the process, unwittingly jeopardizes his marriage, career, and place in the community.

For years, Isobel Latimer has composed serious novels for serious people, but to dwindling acclaim and ever-more dwindling gain. Now her husband is ill and she must carry their financial burden alone, and in secret. But if the public don’t want careful moral fables any longer, why not provide an outrageous tale of sex and satanism, and an author to match? The incomparable, uncontrollable Zelda de Vere is born.

This collection of humorous short essays combines affection for the timeless values of community life in an English village with a nostalgia for aspects that are quietly slipping away. Easy to dip into, this light-hearted volume provides entertaining reading for anyone interested in modern English rural community life, wherever they live. Written between 1991 and 2015, most of these essays first appeared in the Hawkesbury Parish News, the community newspaper for Hawkesbury Upton, the Cotswold village in which Debbie Young has lived for the last 25 years. Very active in village life, she is ...

Three Books in One 'Behind the Scenes – Life Before Lake Como Happened' A Captivating Memoir of an Artist as a Young Man“An artist to the stars: An insightful and entertaining read about stuff you won’t have heard about but you’ll be glad you have.” “A memoir with a difference.” “What I liked most about this memoir was it’s for real.” I compiled this memoir to let anyone know what it was like ‘Behind the Scenes’ when I was a beat-club painter in Liverpool during the Beatle era. A scene painter and stage set designer in theatre, films and for BBC TV. A trompe l’oeil...

Satisfy your desire for clean romance with this amazing heartwarming series based upon the Fruits of the Spirit. Welcome to the enchanting world of The Fruits of Orchard County, a captivating Christian Romance Series inspired by the timeless wisdom of the Fruits of the Spirit verses found in Galatians 5:22-23. Set in the serene landscapes of rural Michigan, this series unfolds in a county abundant with lush orchards and sprawling fields of vibrant vegetables. Life in Orchard County is marked by its unhurried pace, cherished traditions, and unwavering commitment to family values. Within the ...

Blythe Harmon is on the fast track to a life she never wanted. On her thirtieth birthday, just as she’s about to lock herself into a high-powered job and accept a marriage proposal to match, an unusual bequest from her beloved late grandmother, Nomi, offers an escape and an invitation to adventure. Equipped with Nomi’s urn of ashes and a treasure map, Blythe sets off for a small island in the San Juans where she rents the mysterious and unsettling Improbable House.

A rainy-day ritual - a tea party between three little girls - becomes the framework of not only their friendship, but their lives. Blonde, curly-haired Zoe Alexander is openhearted, kind, and free-spirited, but struggles with body image. Emily Waters is shy, diminutive, and would prefer to live vicariously through books. And Shannon Morell - tall, athletic, strong - has a deep sense of loyalty, but will always fear abandonment. As years pass, they forge careers, have their hearts broken, marry, and have children, but the one constant that remains is each other and their tea parties.

In The Sweet Hereafter, Russell Banks tells a story that begins with a school bus accident. Using four different narrators, Banks creates a small-town morality play that addresses one of life's most agonizing questions: When the worst thing happens, who do you blame?

If you write an email to a friend about a fantasy involving your gorgeous boss, don't send it to All Staff... Meg It’s not easy to reinvent yourself, but my thirteen-year-old son and I are ready for a new start. Old Maggie was a magnet for disaster, but New Meg is going to be elegant, sophisticated… and blonde. I’ve landed a dream job at the other end of New Zealand as PA to three rich directors who spoil me rotten, I’ve found a beautiful new apartment, and I feel reborn. Then I write an email to a friend describing in vivid detail what I want to do to the sexiest of the directors...

After 15 years of her husband never having time for her, Lindy Coats moves with her teenaged daughter to their summer cottage on the shores of Lake Michigan outside the town of Blueberry Beach. With a lonely single dad on one side of her, a crochety old business owner on the other, and a young mother with terrible secrets and a son fighting leukemia across the road, it doesn’t take Lindy long to discover that learning to enjoy life is less about what she chooses to do for herself and more about what she chooses to do for others.

When Sheriff Flint Cahill's lover Maggie disappears, he knows his ex-wife is behind it. But with a winter storm coming, can he find her before it is too late?

The Morgan sisters spent many blissful summers at their family’s lake house growing up, but as they grew older, their lives took very different paths. Hope adores her twin girls, but she doesn’t love being a stay-at-home mom. When her workaholic husband doesn’t support her career aspirations, she packs up the kids and goes to Sunset Cottage, thinking that some time apart will help her decide what she really wants. But when the life she dreamed of becomes a possibility, she is more torn than ever.

Spring has arrived at The Potting Shed and things seem to finally be going Maddie's way. Her relationship with lovable lawyer Ed is going well and the business is thriving with the help of her new friend Jo and his bright orange coffee van. But troubles are just around the corner... the upgrade of The Potting Shed from a nursery to a garden centre is at a critical point, turning part of Maddie's business into a building site. And just as she has to temporarily move out of her home, a major garden centre announces its grand opening only twenty miles away.

1975. In the town of Rexburg, Idaho, aspiring artist Aran Rigby, his younger sister, Tamsin, and their two brothers are locked in orbit around their emotionally abusive father. Gad is the kind of man who soothes the failures of his own life by controlling the lives of others. But Aran and Tamsin are united in rebellion against their father. They understand each other. They have dreams beyond their small town.