Small States

She’s 43 years old…and starting over from scratch. How did this happen? She had it all together. A stable marriage of two decades. Two grown daughters. And now she and her husband, empty nesters, were moving to a beach house. Until he showed up late one night and tore their marriage apart. A secret life. A different woman. Another family. Left alone, she has to begin again. And then her estranged sister and mother get thrown into the mix. When she buys a house on a small South Carolina island, will she learn what life is really about?

Olivia Cameron always knew she was adopted. What she didn’t know is that her birth family would come back into her life 47 years later… Just days after her husband’s death, Olivia gets a call that she might have inherited a beach cottage in Cape May. Except she’s never been to Cape May, and the lawyer explains it has nothing to do with her husband’s recent passing. Nestled in front of an old vineyard, the cottage is exactly the fresh start she needs. Although she’ll need to provide proof of her identity within 30 days before it goes to the person next in line. When she arrives ...

Willow Shorts has told herself the same thing for years – she doesn’t want a divorce. But deep down, she knows there’s more to life than laundry and loneliness. Her husband, Charlie, had promised to give up his workaholic ways this summer. But it’s been months, and nothing has changed. In an act of desperation, Willow leaves her husband a note, drives south through the night, to stay at her best friend’s summer cottage on Sanibel Island. The first few days are filled with sandy streets, sunshine and crystal blue water, just as she imagined. It’s only after 4 days have passed ...

After the loss of her husband a year ago, Grace Evans can’t continue with her career or her life in the city any longer. Lost emotionally, she sells her law practice and decides to spend her summer among the sandy beaches of Florida, taking care of an old inn in Naples Beach with her childhood friend Susan Willows. Maybe the lush palm trees and sun-drenched days filled with sand between her toes will help her find direction again. What she doesn’t expect to find is a secret tucked away in an old hidden locket that will change her life forever. And making things more complicated is local...

In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Equal parts beauty and terror, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.

Francis J. Bremer focuses on the role of religion in the settlement of the Plymouth Colony and how those values influenced political, intellectual, and cultural aspects of New England life 150 years before the American Revolution. He traces the Puritans' persecution in early 17th-century England for challenging the established national church and the difficulties they faced as refugees in the Netherlands in the 1610s.

Western Adventure by Ronnie Ashmore "Ashmore creates fierce characters with confidence and authority. A fresh and welcome Western narrative." -Best-Selling Author Ralph Cotton Jim Long is trying to settle into his new post as marshal of the small quiet town of Leonville. But the town is growing faster than Long thinks it should, the mayor brings a new teacher to town, which brings its own problems and a threat from a gang of rustlers and killers threatens the peace Long has fought to maintain. Now he must face the threat or die trying. Long knows the odds are not in his favor, but he swore ...

Folks in Moab live for ice cream socials, baseball, and the local paper’s weekly gossip column. Sheriff Winston Browne has watched over Moab with a generous eye for a decade, and by now he’s used to handling the daily dramas that keep life interesting for Moab’s quirky residents. But just after Winston receives some terrible, life-altering news, a seemingly mute runaway with no clear origin arrives in Moab. The residents do what they believe is right and take her in - until two suspicious strangers arrive and begin looking for her.

After a political scandal, fledgling lobbyist Dempsey Jo Killebrew is left almost broke, unemployed, and homeless. She reluctantly accepts to refurbish Birdsong, the old family place in Guthrie, Georgia. But, oh, is Dempsey in for a surprise. "Bird Droppings" would more aptly describe the moldering Pepto Bismol - pink dump. There's also a murderously grumpy old lady who has claimed squatter's rights and isn't moving out. Ever.

In the first line of Ocean State, we learn that a high school student was murdered, and we find out who did it. The story that unfolds from there with incredible momentum is thus one of the buildup to and fallout from the murder, told through the alternating perspectives of the four women at its heart. The murderer Angel, her mother Carol, and the victim Birdy, all come alive on the page as they converge in a climax both tragic and inevitable. Watching over it all is the retrospective testimony of Angel’s younger sister, Marie.

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.

In a small Southern town where loyalty to family and to "your people" carries the weight of a sacred oath, defying those unspoken rules can be a deadly proposition. After 15 years of growing up in the Ozark hills with his widowed mother, high-school freshman Boady Sanden is beyond ready to move on. He dreams of glass towers and cityscapes, driven by his desire to be anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. The new kid at St. Ignatius High School, if he isn't being pushed around, he is being completely ignored.

In this number one New York Times best-selling novel of first love and second chances, former high school sweethearts confront the painful truths of their past to build a promising future - together. In the spring of 1984, high school students Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole fell deeply, irrevocably in love. Though they were from opposite sides of the tracks, their love for one another seemed to defy the realities of life in their small town in North Carolina. But as the summer of their senior year came to a close, unforeseen events would tear the young couple apart.

Four hunded years ago a small band of Christian reformers came to America in search of indiviudal and religious liberty. Their willingness to risk it all in their quest for freedom helped give birth to the United States of America. Based primarily on their own writings, Dr. Eddie Hyatt gives an overview of their faith and vision, their trials and triumphs, and their profound impact on American life and culture. On this 400-year anniversary of their arrival in the New World, this book will help us remember them as they really were.

91 year-old Ira Levinson is kept concious after a car wreck by visions of his late wife, Ruth, who recounts stories of their lifetime together. A few miles away, at a local rodeo, Sophia Danko, a senior at Wake Forest, meets a young cowboy named Luke. Ira and Ruth. Sophia and Luke. Two couples who have little in common. Yet their lives will converge with unexpected poignancy, reminding us all that even the most difficult decisions can yield extraordinary journeys: beyond despair, beyond death, to the farthest reaches of the human heart.

Acclaimed romance author Katie Lane inspires listeners to believe in true love. When Faith Aldridge learns she has a twin sister, she treks to Bramble, Texas, to find her. But Bramble’s residents think Faith is her sister, Hope, and they take action to reunite Faith with Hope’s ex-flame, Slate. When the real Hope finally shows up, Faith pulls out all the stops to hold onto her newfound passion.

Hardly anyone ever leaves Des Moines, Iowa. But Bill Bryson did, and after 10 years in England he decided to go home, to a foreign country. In an ageing Chevrolet Chevette, he drove nearly 14,000 miles through 38 states to compile this hilarious and perceptive state-of-the-nation report on small-town America.

A small town where pickup trucks rule, the farmer's market is bigger than the grocery store, and just about everyone goes to church on Sunday is the last place Henley Warren expects to find herself three months after her grandmother's death. But Gran left a list of things she needed Henley to do after she died, and fulfilling those wishes means spending a summer in the same place her mom fled from when she was only seventeen years old. With each task that is ticked off the list, events are set in motion that uncover secrets surrounding Henley's life.

A white woman has been bludgeoned to death with an altar cross in a rural church on Cicada Road in Walterboro, South Carolina. Sam Jenkins, a Black man, is found covered in blood, kneeling over the body. In a state already roiling with racial tension, this is not just a murder case: it's a powder keg. Two young women are murdered on quiet Edisto Beach, an hour southeast of Walterboro, and the killer disappears without a trace. Thirty-four years later, the mystery remains unsolved. Could there be a connection to Stander's case?

Looking for a fresh start after the death of his partner, homicide detective Jack Lee and his wife move to Cedar Island, WA, where he accepts the position of chief of police. Jack hopes to leave his past behind him and settle into the small community. However, upon arriving, the body of a woman turns up, a child goes missing, and a devastating mudslide hits the town. Even crazier are the rumors of a Bigfoot lurking around. Enter Jack’s longtime friend, Dr. Allie Chandler, an anthropologist. Her lifetime obsession with Sasquatch could at least answer one of the burning questions plaguing ...