Rural Fiction

Gerri can't decide what's more devastating: learning her rock-solid marriage has big cracks, or the anger she feels as she tries to repair them. Always the anchor for friends and her children, she realizes it's time to look carefully at herself. The journey is more than revealing—it's transforming. Andy has come to believe that a lasting love is out of reach. When she finds herself attracted to a man without any of the qualities that usually appeal to her, she questions everything she thought she wanted in life.

Dakota Jones is the second youngest of four children who had a difficult upbringing living with parents who struggle with mental illness. He escaped his family as soon as he could by joining the military. Now, after several tours of duty he has been discharged. He has nowhere to go and no solid plans for the future. Refusing to return home to his parents he arrives in Sullivan's Crossing where his brother Cal and sister Sierra have each experienced the healing power of the place and its people. Nestled at the crossroads of the Colorado and Continental Divide Trails, the area attracts those looking for answers or direction or a new lease on life. Dakota will come to terms with his less-than-perfect family and will plant the roots he's never had.

The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of Rares. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing. Dora becomes Miss B.’s apprentice, and together they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labours, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives.

A mysterious virus has infiltrated the good people of Lake Wobegon, transmitted via unpasteurized cheese made by a Norwegian bachelor farmer, the effect of which is episodic loss of social inhibition. Mayor Alice, Father Wilmer, Pastor Liz, the Bunsens and Krebsbachs, formerly taciturn elders, burst into political rants, inappropriate confessions, and rhapsodic proclamations, while their teenagers watch in amazement. Meanwhile, a wealthy outsider is buying up farmland for a Keep America Truckin' motorway and amusement park.

One moment Ben Miller was high up in the rafters at his neighbor's barn raising. The next his foot slipped, and he plunged to his death, leaving behind a young wife and six children - the youngest born four months after his death. Ruth Miller is not alone. Her Amish neighbors help her to make the difficult transition from wife to widow. But while the community has been generous, raising six growing children, all grieving their father's death, is overwhelming.

In An Irish Country Christmas, the third book in Patrick Taylor's Irish Country Books, Barry Laverty, M.B., is looking forward to his first Christmas in the cozy village of Ballybucklebo, at least until he learns that his sweetheart, Patricia, might not be coming home for the holidays. That unhappy prospect dampens his spirits somewhat, but Barry has little time to dwell on his romantic disappointments. Christmas may be drawing nigh, but there is little peace to be found on earth, especially for a young doctor plying his trade in the emerald hills and glens of rural Ireland.

When Graham Barnett named his diner The Tourist Trap, he meant it as a joke. Now he's stuck slinging reindeer dogs to an endless parade of resort visitors who couldn't interest him less. Not even the sweet, enthusiastic tourist in the corner who blushes every time he looks her way...Two weeks in Alaska isn't just the top item on Zoey Caldwell's bucket list. It's the whole bucket. One look at the mountain town of Moose Springs and she's smitten.

Holt Davidson, a Kansas firefighter, hasn’t been back to his hometown of Thompsonville, Colorado, for more than two decades, but when he learns that his estranged mother has taken her own life, he returns for the funeral, hoping to make peace with her memory. He spends the night at his childhood home, rummaging through each room, exploring the past. But instead of nostalgic souvenirs, he discovers a gun, a love letter, and a Polaroid photograph of a man lying in his own blood. Who is the dead man? Was his mother the one who killed him, and, if so, why? Who sent the love letter?

Clare Wilson is starting over. She's had it with her marriage to a charming serial cheater. Even her own son thinks she's given his father too many chances. With the support of her sisters, Maggie and Sarah, she's ready to move on. Facing her fortieth birthday, Clare is finally feeling the rush of unadulterated freedom. But when a near-fatal car accident lands Clare in the hospital, her life takes another detour. While recovering, Clare realizes she has the power to choose her life's path. With enthusiasm and a little envy, her sisters watch her bloom.

It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas' house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household—where everything is so well tended to—and this summer must soon come to an end.

The Amish community of Lancaster is being terrorized by barn fires. David and Malinda Beiler's barn was the first to go. The clues are sparse, but Levi, the Beilers' oldest son, happened to be awake in the middle of the night and spotted a white vehicle driving past the house with its lights off. Sarah, David and Malinda's daughter, observes her parents' agony. Not only is she afraid and wishing she could protect her parents, she's entranced by the flirtatious Matthew Stoltzfus.

Dani unexpectedly inherits an enormous old house in a quaint college town and pursues her true passion - cooking! She opens Chef-to-Go, preparing delicious, ready-made meals for hungry students as well as providing personal chef services. To help support her new business, she opens her home to a few students, renting them rooms and becoming almost like a big sister figure in their lives. But just as Dani is relishing her sweet new life, the friend of one of her boarders is murdered, and Dani becomes one of the primary suspects!

Welcome to the Village of Ballybucklebo. Come and say hello to Dr. O'Reilly's odd-as-two-left feet patients, his housekeeper, Mrs. "Kinky" Kinkaid, and O'Reilly's pets, Arthur Guinness, the beer-swilling black Lab and Lady MacBeth, the demonically possessed white cat. And of course, to young Dr. Barry Laverty. After Barry's first month as an assistant to crusty Dr. O'Reilly, he has been offered a permanent spot. But Laverty's excitement is dashed when one of his patients unexpectedly dies.

For outsiders, Painted Canyon, Montana might simply be a picturesque western town, but for rancher and horse trainer Cord Hollister, it's meant salvation. That's why he recognizes in newcomer Shallie Fletcher another lost soul looking for a fresh start. But can he convince her that Painted Canyon is the perfect place to put down roots-and that love awaits if she'll just take a chance?

A high school history teacher in a small Colorado town, Guthrie is raising his two young sons alone. Thoughtful and honest, he is guiding them through a world that is not always kind. Victoria, one of his students, is pregnant, homeless, and vulnerable to the scorn of the town. When Guthrie helps two elderly ranchers take the young woman into their home, an unlikely extended family is born.

Joe Talbert, Jr. has never once met his namesake. Now out of college, a cub reporter for the Associated Press in Minneapolis, he stumbles across a story describing the murder of a man named Joseph Talbert in a small town in southern Minnesota. Full of curiosity about whether this man might be his father, Joe is shocked to find that none of the town's residents have much to say about the dead man - other than that his death was long overdue....

Celebrating its 75th anniversary, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men remains one of America's most widely read and beloved novels. Here is Steinbeck’s dramatic adaptation of his novel-as-play, which received the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play in 1937-1938 and has featured a number of actors who have played the iconic roles of George and Lennie on stage and film, including James Earl Jones, John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.

Someone is shooting horses, and Sadie is determined to find out who it is. That is until she begins to suspect that Mark, her boyfriend, may be involved. Will Sadie discover the truth? Will it be too hard to bear?

Maya Andersson and Benji Ovich, two young people who left in search of a life far from the forest town, come home and joyfully reunite with their closest childhood friends. There is a new sense of optimism and purpose in the town, embodied in the impressive new ice rink that has been built down by the lake. Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it.

After a childhood filled with heartbreak, Irene, a talented artist, finds herself in a small Central American village where she checks into a beautiful but decaying lakefront hotel called La Llorona at the base of a volcano.