Southern Fiction Family

Faith Simpson, a New York Police Department detective, grew up in North Carolina and was summoned back to her little hometown of Mint Hill for the reading of her great-aunt’s will and to settle her estate. Faith’s parents were tragically killed in a car accident when she was a child. Because there were no living relatives other than her great-aunt, she went to live with her at O’Gallagher Estate in the little town of Mint Hill. There she experienced isolation, mental abuse, and loneliness. Her only contact with the outside world was her friends at school. Because of the stipulations ...

The Best of Me: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! Get swept up in a timeless story of lost dreams and redemption, in which former high school sweethearts get a second chance at first love - from the number one New York Times best-selling author of The Notebook.

“You float through life like a piece of driftwood. Aimless. You have nothing to strive for.” Wellington Estates heiress Danielle Riley has everything her heart desires. But for the first time, she wants something she cannot have: Mike, the poor, proud, talented athlete, whose mother is working class, whose family is beneath hers. Mike Melgoza works hard for a living and bears a terrible secret, a secret that clouds his decisions, that pollutes his relationships. He mistakes Danielle’s generosity for pity, spurning her love and everything she represents. Brokenhearted, Danielle embarks...

Jerene Jarvis Johnston and her husband, Duke, are exemplars of Charlotte, North Carolina’s high society, a world where old Southern money and the secrets behind it meet the new wealth of bankers, real estate speculators, and carpetbagging social climbers. Steely and implacable, Jerene presides over her family’s legacy of paintings at the Mint Museum; Duke, the one-time college golden boy and descendant of a Confederate general, whose promising political career was mysteriously short-circuited, has settled into a comfortable semi-senescence as a Civil War reenactor.

Zara Bloom’s got 230K followers, a scruffy bay rescue horse named Chaos Theory, and a knack for turning dressage into a millennial TikTok empire—until her bourbon-soaked train wreck of a mom, Darla, crashes the Barn Burners Gala with a thermos of “tea” and a pyrotechnic disaster that’d make a gator blush. Southern Grace Stables was supposed to woo investors with classy demos and a fake fire, not erupt into a glitter-gargling, swamp-siren shitshow featuring Darla’s line-dancing chaos, a rogue chopper pilot named Remy, and a kid who thinks “Auntie Darla” is a superhero. Now ...

A historical adventure book set in southern Africa during the late 19th century (1880s). Dive into the enthralling expedition of Allan Quatermain, a seasoned hunter and trader, who with diverse companions, transverses the uncharted African interior. The narrative springs to life with Quatermain explaining his initial reluctance and eventual decision to embark on this dangerous journey. The Adventure Filled with twists and turns, the story takes off with Quatermain meeting Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good on a ship bound for Natal. They confide in Quatermain about their mission to find Sir ...

Welcome to Sweetgum Hollow—where stories grow wilder than blackberry vines and one red-haired girl can stir up more truth than a Southern storm. Meet Jennymae “Jingles” Tibbins: a feisty, 13-year-old sparkplug with a jangle in her pocket, a rebel spirit, and a sweet tea wit that cuts through nonsense like a butter knife through biscuits. In these pages, you’ll ride shotgun through the Deep South—on dirt roads, church pews, and secrets buried beneath front porch chatter. Jingles doesn’t aim to cause trouble, but truth has a funny way of finding her—and when it does, it sure ...

It's November of 1965, and Ruthie's life in the tiny Appalachian Mountain town of Dry Falls, NC, is always challenging. Still, when Christmas rolls around, she's determined to make it memorable for her children and neighbors at Holiday Hill Travel Park. In desperation, Ruthie takes her best friend Leona's advice and writes a letter to Santa Claus, never expecting him to arrive at Jerry's Diner. Over the next twelve days, Ruthie faces moral dilemmas, takes desperate measures, and risks her future to make her idea of Christmas and Santa Claus a reality. But when the whirlwind of Christmas is ...

Jess Kirkman’s mother is dying of congestive heart failure, and he has come home to be at her bedside. Charged with getting family affairs in order, he faces the daunting task of sorting out the secret workshop that his father left behind when he died 10 years ago. As he investigates his findings—a map littered with the names of strange women and a strange invention of stovepipe and ceramic—Jess discovers an intriguing side of his father.

From drinking and running away from her problems to finding redemption, healing, forgiveness, and independence, Ethel Mae's life takes a dramatic turn in 1950 as she embarks on her last train ride. Facing yet another failed marriage, despite harsh judgment from family and community, she drops her children off at her mama’s small mountain farm one last time because she plans to bring their daddy home. During a train ride from the mountains of North Carolina, bound for New York, she reflects on and shares her miraculous birth, mountain raising, and tumultuous coming of age with fellow ...

Ella's life has been completely upended. She's young, beautiful, and deeply in love - until her husband dies in a tragic sailing accident while trying save her. Or so she'll have everyone believe. Screenwriter Hunter needs a hit, but crippling writers' block and a serious lack of motivation are getting him nowhere. He's on the look-out for a love story. It doesn't matter who it belongs to.

The entire MacLeod clan is haunted by secrets, and young Bud MacLeod doesn't realize he carries the biggest secret of all. Growing up poor in Depression-era South Georgia is hard enough, but Bud is also cursed with a stutter and a birthmark that disfigures his face. His hateful father and amoral mother make life worse still, despite his brother's efforts to shield him. To survive, Bud must discover his strengths and confront the sins of his parents. First, though, he'll need to grasp his own truth: that he can't embrace his future until he comes to terms with his past.

Christmas comes but once a year... but will it be different this Christmas? Callie Mae Copeland is the only child of affluent landowner, Sullivan Copeland, and his wife, Faye. Because Callie has been doted on her entire life, she is pampered and outspoken. Although the Civil War is looming and is in its second year, it hasn't affected the Copelands or their neighbors in north Alabama too much ... yet. Once she turns sixteen, Callie realizes the influence she has over boys her age and uses her flirtatious graces to her advantage. She turns her sights on Christmas and is determined to do ...

Bailey thought she’d gotten her happy ending. She is married to the man she loves, she has started a family, and her design business is flourishing. But when Bailey’s ex-husband, a famous TV chef, is found murdered with her DNA all over his apartment and body, she is suddenly facing murder charges in a high-profile case. Already burdened by the demands and challenges of marriage, motherhood, and her career, Bailey now must do everything she can to prove her innocence. But it’s the ones she thought would surely be on her side who might be doubting her innocence the most.

On the heels of her mother's death, Hope Logan reluctantly returns to her grandparents' home place for a journal that reveals the explosive crimes and atrocities of the past that have haunted her grandma for nearly sixty-five years. Bitterness, unforgiveness, and anger consumes her as she sets out to solve the mystery that surrounds her grandma's life. The dark, evil secret that is contained in the journal only deepens her resentment of God. Because of her quest, she comes in contact with many strong believers. In that small town in the foothills of the mountains of North Carolina, Hope's ...

Benjamin Church came to the Grange Hall expecting to meet someone else, but then the girl in the red dress looked across the dance floor and smiled.... Passing Through Perfect is a heart-wrenching Southern family saga that starts on the night Benjamin falls madly in love with Delia. Once he tastes the sweetness of her kiss, he envisions them spending the rest of their life together. He doesn't stop to consider that her daddy is a learned Pastor, and her mama a woman with a college degree; he knows only that she sets his heart to racing.

Before being torn down in 2007, the Stateway Gardens public housing projects on Chicago’s South Side were ridden with deprivation and crime. But for some, like Tracy, the shy, intelligent young boy at the center of this enthralling collection of linked stories, they are simply home. Set in the mid-1980s and taking listeners up to the point of the destruction of the infamous Cabrini-Green housing projects, this collection gives an intimate look at the hopes, dreams, failures, and fortunes of a group of people growing up with the deck always stacked against them.

In this riveting continuation of the Brisco family saga, brothers Dub and Tim strive to persevere against their early 1900s post-slavery beginnings—clashing with their history of family trauma and their different coping mechanisms for living in a world that doesn’t accept them. While Dub becomes a respected coal miner and finds prosperity for his family, Tim continues a slow descent into a fog of psychosis, alcoholism, and perpetual joblessness—forced to live an isolated existence on Dub’s property despite his desire for deeper connection.

Ethan Faulkner is a precocious child with a brilliant but troublesome sister, a war vet for a father, and a weary mother trying to manage their family. One night a young woman rings their doorbell, desperate to hide from two men who are pursuing her, when one of the two barges in after her. The struggle leaves both of Ethan's parents dead. Years later, Ethan has a successful teaching career and a budding relationship with a coworker. But he hasn't quite followed through on his promise to his dying father - to take care of his sister. Susannah is not an easy person to keep tabs on....

For as long as she could remember, Susannah Faulkner knew that even though she lived a dangerous and violent life, she would try her best to do some good in the world. She’s hunted down evil men before, but the one man that puts fear into her heart, the one man who could destroy everything she loves, is the one man she cannot track down. And worst of all, she doesn’t know what will happen when she finds him...or if he finds her first.