Rural Fiction

Twenty miles across the North Dakota border, where the scenery goes from rolling grass prairie to pipeline fields, detective Cassie Dewell has been assigned as the new deputy sheriff of Grimstad - a place people used to be from but were never headed to. Grimstad is now the oil capital of North Dakota. With oil comes money, with money comes drugs, and with drugs come the dirtiest criminals hustling to corner the market.

The small, rundown village of Great Diddling is full of stories—author Berit Gardner can feel it. The way the villagers avoid outsiders, the furtive stares and whispers in the presence of newcomers… Berit can sense the edge of a story waiting to be unraveled, and she's just the person to do it. In fact, with a book deadline looming over her and no manuscript (not even the idea for a manuscript, truth be told), Berit doesn't just want this story. She needs it. Then, while attending a village tea party, Berit becomes part of the action herself.

Audrey gives birth at the end of February. Although she’s young, healthy, one of the most vibrant people on the Vineyard, the birth is a troubling one—and the baby’s health is cast into doubt. This adds even more stress to an already stressful situation. After all: Christine planned to help Audrey raise her baby, to allow her to return to school and get the degree she so desperately wants. As Christine, Audrey, Lola, and Zach wade the waters of this delicate new family plan, and grapple with the fears surrounding a very sick baby, they find new strength together.

Twenty-four-year-old truck stop waitress and single mother Catherine Wright has simple goals: to give her five-year-old daughter a happy life and to never again be the talk of the town in Balsam, Pennsylvania (population 3,000 outside of tourist season). And then one foggy night, on a lonely road back from another failed date, Catherine saves a man's life. It isn't until after the police have arrived that Catherine realizes exactly who it is she has rescued: Brett Madden, hockey icon and media darling.

As a millworkers’ strike in the northern lumber town of Roberval drags on, tensions start to escalate between the workers—but when a lockout renews their solidarity, they rally around the mysterious and magnetic influence of Querelle, a dashing newcomer from Montreal. Strapping and unabashed, likeable but callow, by day he walks the picket lines and at night moves like a mythic Adonis through the ranks of young men who flock to his apartment for sex.

Kelli Montgomery spent the previous twenty years in a loveless and abusive marriage. Last Christmas, after her brother, Andy, arrived home after decades away, she finally found the strength to leave her husband—but as anyone who’s ever been through such trauma knows, what happens next—the healing process, the rebirth which is the hardest, and most grueling part of healing. Years ago, Kelli and her ex took over her parents’ prosperous real estate business. Now that Mike has officially left the island, the work has fallen on Kelli’s shoulders.

High on the cliffs of the west coast of Ireland, overlooking the windswept Atlantic Ocean, is Stone House. Once falling into disrepair, it is now a beautiful hotel specialising in winter holidays. With a big, warm kitchen, log fires and understated, elegant bedrooms, it provides a welcome few can resist, whatever their reasons for coming...Henry and Nicola are burdened with a terrible secret, and are hoping the break at Stone House will help them find a way to face the future.

Hotshot attorney Reuben Graham has finally agreed to take a vacation, when his plane suddenly plunges into the Alaskan wilderness. Just his luck. But his frustrations have only begun as he finds himself stranded with the injured, and superhot, pilot, a man who’s endearingly sociable - and much too young for Reuben to be wanting him this badly.

Tucker Cahill destroyed everything he touched. He disappeared from Gilt Edge, Montana, to become a better man. But time never erased the past and when a teenage girl's remains and a mysterious stranger are found on his family's ranch - he has no choice but to face his demons. The truth that sent him running years ago could take away his freedom now. Serena Culbertson came to town in search of a killer. What she finds is a tortured and irresistible man who's not what he appears. Unconvinced that Tucker is a cold-blooded murderer and drawn deeper into twisted game that's not over yet, she must prove his innocence. If she doesn't, the consequences may prove fatal for them both.

Littleport, Maine, has always felt like two separate towns: an ideal vacation enclave for the wealthy, whose summer homes line the coastline, and a simple harbor community for the year-round residents whose livelihoods rely on service to the visitors. Typically, fierce friendships never develop between a local and a summer girl - but that’s just what happens with visitor Avery Greer and Littleport resident Sadie Loman. Each summer for almost a decade, the girls are inseparable - until Sadie is found dead.

What happens when you accidentally throw a blueberry pie in your brother's best friend's face? You marry him a week later for health insurance, of course.

When Sarah Lewis inherits a run-down B&B from her late grandmother in coastal Blue Moon Bay, the logical thing to do is sell it and focus on her life in LA. But when she learns that interested buyers will only tear it down in its current state, she feels a sense of obligation to her grandmother to get it back to the landmark tourist destination it once was...even if that means hiring the best contractor for the job, who happens to be her old high school crush.

When Connor Larkin boards a late-night bus in downtown LA, he's not sure where he's going or what he's looking for. Putting his acting career - and his fiancée - on hold, he's searching for something he can't define, a part of himself he lost on the road to success. Once he dreamed of being a singer in the classic style of Sinatra and Bennett. But his lean good looks soon landed him in movies as the sexy bad guy - and in the arms of a famous young heiress. Now, with his wedding day approaching, Connor finds himself stepping into the sleepy seaside town of Miramar Bay.

With Holding Lies, John Larison takes us deep into a thriving subculture of the Northwest, one born of the ferns and firs, rain and hot-springs, firebombs and whitewater. He takes us even deeper into the troubles of Hank Hazelton, a 59-year-old river guide, as he struggles to reconnect with his only daughter after a 14-year estrangement. His failure as a father haunts him, along with other deep regrets, tragedies, and longings. In the days before his daughter's arrival, Hank discovers a drift boat stranded below a rapid, empty except for a long smear of blood on its seat.

It was supposed to be an innocent night, celebrating my brother’s birthday. Nothing was supposed to go wrong. We’d vowed to be on our best behavior after all.... But it only took one rowdy night with my brothers to flip my world upside down. One unlucky encounter saddled us with a family curse and the promise of doomed relationships. I laughed it off immediately. “Yeah, right,” I thought. “A love curse. Ha!” Boy, was I wrong.

Straight-laced lawyer Kate Matthews always plays by the rules. But when her ex gets engaged and a big promotion is on the line at work, she blurts out that she has a new boyfriend. And now that she's proved she "has a life" outside of work, everything is perfect. Except for one teeny little detail - there is no boyfriend. And now Kate's liable for her little white lie. Dominic Sorensen is hot, charming, and very definitely not Kate's type. But not only does Dominic want to help Kate renovate her home, he's also willing to play "boyfriend".

The Briscoe family is once again the talk of their small town when March returns to East Texas two years after he was caught having an affair with his brother's wife. His mother, June, hardly welcomes him back with open arms. Her husband's own past affairs have made her tired of being the long-suffering spouse. Is it, perhaps, time for a change? Within days of March's arrival, someone is dead, marriages are upended, and even the strongest of alliances are shattered. In the end, the ties that hold them together might be exactly what drag them all down.

After losing her sister in a devastating car accident, chef Quinn Weller is finally getting her life back on track. She appears to have it all: a loving family, a dream job in one of LA's hottest eateries, and a gorgeous boyfriend dying to slip an engagement ring on her finger. So why does she feel so empty, like she's looking for a missing piece she can't find?

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.

The population of Falls Creek, North Carolina, is a collective menace to society. Layla thought the first line of her orientation packet was a joke, but she soon realized it was all facts. After only a few hours on the job, the whip-smart flight nurse found herself flying headfirst into small-town drama.