Rural Life

On a June afternoon in a small city, a wild-eyed girl named Francie dashes down a neighborhood street, clutching a gun. She doesn’t know exactly what she’s running from, and she doesn’t know what she’s heading towards. All she understands is the need to survive. To save herself, she has no choice but to run—and to save those she loves, she must hold tight to that gun. Swirling around Francie is a chorus of friends, family, and neighbors, each person with a different view of her.

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. "Everyone wanted to believe that endless love was possible. She'd believed in it once, too, back when she was 18". 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.

When Jillian James lands in the small town Texas community of Laurel Springs, she's definitely not planning to stay. Connor Larady is a single dad, and the only one caring for his grandmother, Eugenia, who has Alzheimer's. And now he has to close Eugenia's quilt shop. When Connor meets down-on-her-luck Jillian, he's out of options. Can he trust the newcomer to do right by his grandmother's legacy? Jillian is done with relationships. But as she grows closer to Connor and Eugenia, she must consider giving up her nomadic life for a future with those who need her.

> New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Jodi Thomas pens contemporary romances that tug at listeners’ heartstrings. When Allie Daniels unexpectedly inherits property on Twisted Creek from a mysterious uncle, she and her "nana" open the place as a café for local residents. There, Allie is treated to a revolving cast of intriguing characters, including the handsome Luke Morgan.

In the early evening of June 25, 1980 in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For 13 years, no one was prosecuted for the "Rainbow Murders", though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of local residents in the community, depicted as poor, dangerous, and backward.

Two wonderful new chapters are unfolding for Maura Beth Mayhew, Cherico's librarian. Thanks to her persistence, a new, cutting-edge library is being built on the shores of beautiful Lake Cherico. And come September, Maura Beth will marry Jeremy McShay at his aunt and uncle's stunning home. Yet in life, as in fiction, happy endings are hard won....

Orphaned cousins Jane and Lucilla, both 19, receive the exciting news that their guardian is at last allowing them to leave boarding school. But their rosy future is thwarted when they find he has made some bad investments and fled, leaving them with a cottage in the English countryside and a modest bank account.

Billington, Texas, is a place where nothing changes. Well, almost nothing. For the first time in nearly four decades, Mary Alice Roth is not getting ready for the first day of school at Billington High. A few months into her retirement—or, district mandated exile as she calls it—Mary Alice does not know how to fill her days.

The Choice: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life - boating, swimming, and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies - he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style. That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door.

Bonny Blankenship's most treasured memories are of idyllic summers spent in Watersend, South Carolina, with her best friend, Lainey McKay. Now in her early 50s, Bonny is desperate to clear her head after a tragic mistake threatens her career as an emergency room doctor, and her marriage crumbles around her. With her troubled teenage daughter, Piper, in tow, she goes back to the beloved river house, where she is soon joined by Lainey and her two young children.

Welcome to Too Much - where the women are strong-willed and the men are handsome yet shiftless. Ever since Mary Dell Templeton and her twin sister, Lydia Dale, were children, their Aunt Velvet has warned them away from local boys. But it’s well known that the females in Mary Dell’s family have two traits in common - superior sewing skills and a fatal weakness for men. While Lydia Dale grows up petite and pretty, Mary Dell just keeps growing. Tall, smart, and sassy, she is determined to one day turn her love of sewing into a business.

Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland tells the story of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), which, like thousands of other small towns across the country, has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy, and an out-migration of people.

When Sky Terran returns to the village of Middledip after losing the job she loves, she anticipates a quiet Christmas getting used to her new life. However, the annual street decoration competition is coming up and this year, the residents of Winter Street are determined to win. As she is pulled into the preparations, Sky quickly grows to love the quirky, tight-knit community she is now part of. Including the extremely handsome Daz, who soon becomes more than just a friendly neighbour.

In nine interlinking stories, the town of Abbot Falls reacts as Ernie Whitten, a pipefitter, builds a giant ark in his backyard. Ernie was weeks away from a pension-secured retirement when the union went on strike. Now his wife Marie is ill. Struck with sudden inspiration, Ernie builds the ark as a work of art for his wife to see from the window; a vessel to carry them both away; or a plea for God to spare Marie, come hell or high water.

Writing with the telegraphic swiftness and microscopic sensitivity that have made her one of our most distinguished journalists, Joan Didion creates a shimmering novel of innocence and evil. A Book of Common Prayer is the story of two American women in the derelict Central American nation of Boca Grande. Grace Strasser-Mendana controls much of the country's wealth and knows virtually all of its secrets; Charlotte Douglas knows far too little.

Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life, including boating, swimming, and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies, he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style. That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door.

Ten-year-old Grace is in search of a subject for her fifth-grade history project when she learns that her four times-great grandfather once stabbed his lover to death. His grisly act was memorialized in a murder ballad, her aunt tells her, so it must be true. But the lessons of that revelation—to be careful of men and desire—are not just Grace’s to learn. Her family’s tangled past is part of a dark legacy in which the lives of generations of women are affected by the violence immortalized in folk songs like “Knoxville Girl” and “Pretty Polly” reminding them always to know their place.

Twenty-seven years ago, Alana Copperfield was the beauty queen of Nantucket High and girlfriend of Jeremy Farley, the handsome and successful football quarterback. Back then, Jeremy's football scholarship to Notre Dame pushed him to break things off with the aimless Alana. Their breakup created a chain of events that ultimately led to a terrible car accident, one that left Jeremy unable to walk for nearly two years. Needless to say, his dreams were dashed forever.

I have one rule when it comes to my sex life: I only hook up with guys who identify as straight. It’s a tried and tested way of avoiding the cling factor, which I’ve found to be a huge problem in the past. A one-night stand with a curious "straight" guy is the perfect situation. Of course, there’s one straight guy who’s completely off-limits. George Goode is sweet, charming, hilarious, and sexy as hell. And he’s also become one of my best friends since I moved to the tiny town of Finchley about a year ago. But let’s make one thing clear: I do not have feelings for him.

A high-security luxury housing estate in the Thames Valley is the setting for a disturbing outbreak of violence in this compelling novella from the acclaimed author of ‘Cocaine Nights’ and ‘Super-Cannes’. Pangbourne Village housing estate is exclusive, expensive and protected from the outside world by the very latest in security systems. It should be the perfect place to bring up a child.