Rural Fiction

After five hectic years of retirement from Lord's Chapel, Father Tim Kavanagh returns with his wife, Cynthia, from a so-called pleasure trip to the land of his Irish ancestors. While glad to be at home in Mitford, something is definitely missing: a pulpit. But when he's offered one, he decides he doesn't want it. Maybe he's lost his passion. His adopted son, Dooley, wrestles with his own passion - for the beautiful and gifted Lace Turner, and his vision to become a successful country vet.

In a sleepy rural town in South Carolina, Dylan and Maggie Styles are a young couple in love, preparing eagerly for the birth of their first son. But events take a tragic turn in the delivery room, and their child is delivered stillborn. When Maggie hemorrhages and slips into a coma, Dylan slips into what can only be described as a walking coma, holding vigil at his beloved wife’s bedside.

October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker, and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington.

Dorothy Jean Wetstra, 87, is the town matriarch in Partonville, Illinois. Fully aware of both her strengths and flaws, she often asks "the Big Guy" in heaven for help: "Dear Lord, DO SOMETHING!"

There are few things Jeremy Marsh was sure he'd never do: He'd never leave New York City; never give his heart away again after barely surviving one failed marriage; and most of all, never become a parent. Now, Jeremy is living in the tiny town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, married to Lexie Darnell, the love of his life, and anticipating the birth of their daughter. But just as his life seems to be settling into a blissful pattern, an unsettling and mysterious message re-opens old wounds.

Daisy Murray was our best friend, the girl of our dreams, and the glue that held us all together. But our town hosted an evil presence, and it wanted Daisy all for itself. One night, it took her from us, and she was erased from history. On the tenth anniversary of her disappearance, we are summoned home—back to the tainted town—by the ghost of the girl we all loved. It should be impossible, but there's no chance any of us are willing to miss the opportunity to see her again.

I didn’t know I was pregnant. Ayden walked away from me a decade ago and never looked back. The only thing he left me was our sweet, amazing daughter. And a mile-long list of small town secrets. When his father—the town’s mayor—threatens me, Ayden’s childhood best friend steps in. And I have no choice but to fight the battles he ran away from.

Buffalo Valley, North Dakota. A few years ago, this was a dying town. Now it's come back to life! People are feeling good about living here again - the way they used to. They're feeling confident about the future. Stalled lives are moving forward. People like Margaret Clemens are taking risks on new ventures and on lifelong dreams. On happiness. Margaret is a local rancher who's finally getting what she wants most: marriage to cowboy Matt Eilers.

Deeply forlorn following the devastating loss of her fiancé, young New Zealand writer Veronika resettles alone in a quaint Swedish village. Her arrival is quietly observed by Astrid, an elderly, reclusive neighbor, whose companionship will be a great blessing to Veronika - if she embraces it.

A charming Irish bus driver. A group of disparate American tourists. One life changing week. Take a tour you'll never forget as you navigate the stunning vistas of gorgeous Ireland along with the hearts and minds of a cast of characters who will live with you long after you've finished this audiobook. During a routine tour of Ireland, tour guide Conor O'Shea finds himself on a journey of his own through the lives of his hilarious companions as together they navigate both the Irish countryside and the secrets of their individual lives.

In his first novel to follow the publication of his enormous success, The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck's vision comes wonderfully to life in this imaginative and unsentimental chronicle of a bus traveling California's back roads, transporting the lost and the lonely, the good and the greedy, the stupid and the scheming, the beautiful and the vicious away from their shattered dreams and, possibly, toward the promise of the future. This edition features an introduction by Gary Scharnhorst.

On the little Scottish island of Mure—halfway between Scotland and Norway—Flora MacKenzie and her fiancé Joel are planning the smallest of “sweetheart weddings,” a high summer celebration surrounded only by those very dearest to them. Not everyone on the island is happy about being excluded, though. The temperature rises even further when beautiful Olivia MacDonald—who left Mure ten years ago for bigger and brighter things—returns with a wedding planner in tow.

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village”, since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left - a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn - have plagued her. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.

All good things, even laughter and orange marmalade cake, must come to an end. And in Light from Heaven, the long-anticipated final volume in the phenomenally successful Mitford Years series, Karon deftly ties up all the loose ends of Father Timothy Kavanagh's deeply affecting life.

When a young family moves into an unfinished development community, cracks begin to emerge in both their new residence and their lives, as a mysterious online DIY instructor delivers dark subliminal suggestions about how to handle any problem around the house. The trials of home improvement, destructive insecurities, and haunted house horror all collide in this thrilling story perfect for fans of Nick Cutter’s bestsellers The Troop and The Deep.

Want to know what happens to a man who barely claws his way out of a tragedy, only to fall right into the arms of the one girl in the world he can never have? Another tragedy, that's what. When I was six years old, my father made a choice that altered the course of my entire life. Because of what he did, the only girl I ever loved became the only girl I couldn’t have. In a lot of ways, I did have her; I had her first steps, her first words, her first smile. I had her milestones, her heartbreaks, her dreams.

Blue Bishop has a knack for finding lost things. While growing up in charming small-town Buttonwood, Alabama, she’s happened across lost wallets, jewelry, pets, her wandering neighbor, and sometimes, trouble. No one is more surprised than Blue, however, when she comes across an abandoned newborn baby in the woods, just south of a very special buttonwood tree. Sarah Grace Landreneau Fulton is at a crossroads. She has always tried so hard to do the right thing, but her own mother would disown her if she ever learned half of Sarah Grace’s secrets.

Minnesota, 1977. For the teens of one close-knit community, summer means late-night swimming parties at the quarry, the county fair, and venturing into the tunnels beneath the city. But for two best friends, it’s not all fun and games. Heather and Brenda have a secret. Something they saw in the dark. Something they can’t forget. They’ve decided to never tell a soul. But their vow is tested when their friend disappears—the second girl to vanish in a week. And yet the authorities are reluctant to investigate.

A House for Mr. Biswas, by Nobel and Booker Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul, is a powerful novel about one man's struggle for identity and belonging. Born into poverty, then trapped in the shackles of charity and gratitude, Mr. Biswas longs for a house he can call his own. He loathes his wife and her wealthy family, upon whom he is dependent. Finding himself a mere accessory on their estate, his constant rebellion is motivated by the one thing that can symbolize his independence.

Tess McBride manages to snag a mid-year teaching job on Mackinac Island, Michigan. However, her timing is a little off, it's the dead of winter and she's never been in temperatures below fifty degrees. Just her luck, her landlord, Lukas, is as hot as the sun. A Michigan blizzard leaves them trapped in the same house together and things heat up, fast. Tess finds herself falling for Lukas, in spite of the secrets that could ruin everything before it even begins.