Rural Life

Dover 1940 As firebombs fall on Dover, Edie Castle's life is thrown into turmoil when the garage where she lives and works is damaged and her beloved boss is arrested. With no job and nowhere else to go, Edie returns to Castle's Café and her formidable mother, Nellie. Living with her mother is never easy, but tensions reach boiling point when an old friend of Nellie's arrives looking for a place to stay. Meanwhile, desperate to clear her boss's name, Edie turns to his nephew for help.

Forty-four-year-old Alice Holtzman is stuck in a dead-end job, bereft of family, and now reeling from the unexpected death of her husband. Alice has begun having panic attacks whenever she thinks about how her life hasn't turned out the way she dreamed. Even the beloved honeybees she raises in her spare time aren't helping her feel better these days.

Long before Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly came to the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, young Surgeon-Lieutenant O'Reilly answered the call of duty to serve in World War II. Fingal just wants to marry his beloved Deirdre and live happily ever after. First, he must hone his skills at a British naval hospital before reporting back to the HMS Warspite, where, as a ship's doctor, he faces danger upon the high seas.

Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its uproarious humor and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, is storytelling at its most generous. Nobody’s Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, and Melody Griffith.

When Kate Bowman temporarily moves to her grandmother’s Missouri farm with her husband and baby son, she learns that the lessons that most enrich our lives often come unexpectedly. The family has given Kate the job of convincing Grandma Rose, who's become increasingly stubborn and forgetful, to move off her beloved land and into a nursing home. But Kate knows such a change would break her grandmother’s heart.

Long before Hank Crawford arrived in the waters of Ketchikan, his partners and compatriots were already in love with its shores. Following the final, crushing moments of World War II, Japanese officer Kiyoshi Tsurifune, Sergeant Jones Henry, and Resistance fighter Swede Scorden struggle to regain normalcy and any contact with the shimmering, fish-filled sea. Lost honor, fallen friends, their cultural identities gone in the wake of a nuclear blast - these fishermen-turned-soldiers have a long way to go till they regain the waters in which they feel most at home.

Julie Barenson's young husband left her two unexpected gifts before he died - a Great Dane puppy named Singer and the promise that he would always be watching over her. Now four years have passed. Still living in the small town of Swansboro, North Carolina, 29-year-old Julie is emotionally ready to make a commitment to someone again. But who? Instead, Julie is soon fighting for her life in a nightmare spawned by a chilling deception and jealousy so poisonous that it has become a murderous desire.

Karen Sommerfield has been hiding from the big questions of her life - the emotional distance in her marriage, her inability to have children, and her bout with cancer. Getting lost in her high-powered career provides the sense of purpose she yearns for. Until the day she's downsized out of her job and the doctor tells her the cancer may be back. It's a double blow that would send anyone reeling.

A daring WWII pilot who grew up among the clouds, Juliet Caron’s life was one of courage, adventure - and a love torn apart by war. Every nook of her Cornish cottage is alive with memories just waiting to be discovered. Katherine Henderson has escaped to Cornwall for Christmas, but she soon finds there is more to her holiday cottage than meets the eye. And on the eve of Juliet’s 100th birthday, Katherine is enlisted to make an old lady’s final Christmas wish come true....

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.

Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she has been writing for six years. At 31, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life.

Once, not too long ago, there was just a single Irish country doctor tending to the lively little village of Ballybucklebo: Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly. Now his thriving practice is growing by leaps and bounds. Not only has O'Reilly taken a new trainee under his wing, Doctor Connor Nelson, he's also added a spirited Labrador puppy to his ever-expanding household at Number One Main Street. Meanwhile, his trusted partner, young Doctor Barry Laverty, finds himself wondering if he's truly ready to settle down and start a family with his lovely fiancée, Sue.

No longer tolerating her husband’s borderline abuse, Faith escapes to her parents’ California beach house to plan her next move. She never dreamed her new chapter would involve befriending Sarah, a fourteen-year-old on the run from her father and reeling from her mother’s sudden and suspicious death. While Sarah’s grandmother scrambles to get custody, Faith is charged with spiriting the girl away on a journey that will restore her hope: Sarah implores Faith to take her to Falkner’s Midnight Sun, the prized black mare that her father sold out from under her.

At last, Mitford's rector and lifelong bachelor Father Tim has married his talented and vivacious neighbor Cynthia. Now, of course, they must face love's challenges: new sleeping arrangements for Father Tim's sofa-sized dog, Cynthia's urge to decorate the rectory Italian-villa-style, and the growing pains of the thrown-away boy who's become like a son to the rector.

After 30 years, Wilson Lewis is forced to face a painful truth: the romance has gone out of his marriage. His wife, Jane, has fallen out of love with him, and it is entirely his fault. Despite the shining example of his in-laws, Noah and Allie Calhoun, and their 50-year love affair, Wilson himself is a man unable to express his true feelings. He has spent too little time at home and too much at the office, leaving the responsibility of raising their children to Jane. Now his daughter is about to marry, and his wife is thinking about leaving him.

A warm June evening, a local tradition: The students of Nantucket High have gathered for a bonfire on the beach. But what begins as a graduation night celebration ends in tragedy after a horrible car crash leaves the driver of the car, Penny Alistair, dead and her twin brother in a coma. The other passengers - Penny's boyfriend Jake and her friend Demeter - are physically unhurt, but the emotional damage is overwhelming, and questions linger about what happened before Penny took the wheel.

Big secrets run deep. Former FBI agent Jack McBride took the job as chief of police for Stillwater, Texas, to start a new life with his teenage son, Ethan, away from the suspicions that surrounded his wife's disappearance a year earlier. With a low crime rate and a five-man police force, he expected it to be a nice, easy gig; hot checks, traffic violations, some drugs, occasional domestic disturbances, and petty theft. Instead, within a week he is investigating a staged murder-suicide.

Life in a Medieval Village, by respected historians Joseph and Frances Gies, paints a lively, convincing portrait of rural people at work and at play in the Middle Ages. Focusing on the village of Elton, in the English East Midlands, the Gieses detail the agricultural advances that made communal living possible, explain what domestic life was like for serf and lord alike, and describe the central role of the church in maintaining social harmony.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, flour and vegetable seeds flew off the shelves. But homesteader and entrepreneur Jill Winger believes these longings for sourdough bread and fresh veggies are more than a trend. As our society races toward progress, we’ve left something important behind. We are more connected than ever before, yet we’re still feeling unfulfilled. In Old-Fashioned on Purpose, Winger shows how simplifying our lives and adopting retro skills such as gardening and handiwork can be the key to creating the happy and healthy life we’re yearning for.

His attractive neighbor is tugging at his heart-strings. A wealthy widow is pursuing him with hot casseroles. And his red-haired Cousin Meg has moved into the rectory, uninvited.