Rural Life

When sisters Ivy and Shelly Bay discover crates of vintage Christmas decorations at the Seabreeze Inn, they decide to open their historic beach house to the residents of Summer Beach. From a Gingerbread Bake-off and a Santa Sprint on the beach to a mysterious guest who has an unusual effect on those around him, the Seabreeze Inn is the place to be this holiday season. Families and friends come together, and love is in the air—until a priceless discovery at the beachside inn complicates matters.

For decades J.J. Tucker has brought laughter and sunshine to the Sandbar Sisters. But her life has spiraled out of control. A disaster has turned Irish Hills upside down and has left J.J. alone and unsure. She can't bear to look back on her life and moving forward hurts too much. Her future, once bright and filled with love, feels lonely and hopeless. J.J. faces a very different future than she had planned and one she's not sure if she wants. She will have to face her fears and her past if she wants to find the laughter in her life again.

Sisters Ivy and Shelly Bay are looking forward to hosting a joyful, long-awaited family reunion at the Seabreeze Inn to introduce their new husbands to distant kin. Beach barbecues, games, and other festivities are planned, but everyone is shocked when hidden family secrets emerge. This season, gather on the shores of Summer Beach for sunny shenanigans and warm ocean breezes, as well as unexpected events that will change lives and family dynamics.

Marina and her sister Kai, entrusted with managing Summer Beach's one-hundred-year celebration, navigate treacherous waters. Age-old grudges and family secrets soon resurface. Their grandmother's hidden past casts a shadow, forcing them to confront dangerous truths. While Marina's daughter Heather grapples with boyfriend troubles, she discovers her new husband Jack is harboring secrets of his own. As tensions rise and love is tested, the bonds of family and friendship will be stretched to their limits.

Cherry, Maggie and Rose are mother, daughter and granddaughter, each with their own hopes, dreams and even sorrows. They have always been close, so when, in a moment of impulse, Cherry buys a gorgeous but run-down pub in the village she grew up in, it soon becomes a family affair. All three women uproot themselves and move to Rushbrook, deep in the heart of Somerset, to take over The Swan and restore it to its former glory. Cherry is at the helm, Maggie is in charge of the kitchen, and Rose tends the picturesque garden that leads down to the river.

Boston-born first-responder Alex Flynn is back with wry wit and still chasing emergencies in rural Vermont in this tale involving a gas line, a chainsaw, and other things that might or might not go boom and that might or might not go horrible wrong. Eavesdrop on emergency personnel as they attempt to diffuse a dicey situation in this, the first in the Trowbridge Dispatch collection of short stories.

Deftly plotted, defiantly honest, Where You Once Belonged sings the song of a wounded prairie community in a narrative with the earmarks of a modern American classic. In prose as lean and supple as a spring switch, Haruf describes a high school football star who wins the heart of the loveliest girl in the county and the admiration of men twice his age. Fun-loving, independent, Burdette engages in the occasional prank. But when he turns into a man, his high jinks turn into crimes.

It’s the summer of 1919, and Ellen O’Brien has her whole life ahead of her. Young, in love and leaving home for her first job, the future seems full of shining possibility. But war is brewing, and before long, Ellen and everyone around her are swept up by it. As Ireland is torn apart by the turmoil, Ellen finds herself facing the ultimate test of love and loyalty. A hundred years later and Clare Farrell has inherited a dilapidated old farmhouse in County Meath.

A charming and evocative tale of family and fortune from the queen of the West Country saga, Linda Finlay. Isabella Carrington has been brought up in a life of privilege in London. Her life seems perfect until her father suddenly announces bankruptcy. To save Isabella from destitution he sends her to stay with family she has never met, far away on a violet farm deep in Devon. Isabella is horrified to find her uncle expects her to work for her keep, packing up the flowers and selling them in the nearby market.

Patience Avery is a dowser—a "water witch". Her natural gifts enable her to locate lost items, missing people, and aquifers deep within the earth. This last skill is more in demand than ever, as her home state of Vermont is in the grip of the worst drought in years. Patience knows better than most that this crisis is only the start: a sign of worse things to come.

It’s the eve of her 25th wedding anniversary and Mary Gooch is waiting for her husband, Jimmy, to come home. But Mary isn’t just waiting for Jimmy. She is waiting for a mother who accepts her, children she is unable to have, a life beyond the well-worn path from her bedroom to the refrigerator. Mary is waiting for her life to start. As she waits for Jimmy, the night passes into day and it becomes clear that he isn’t coming home. A letter left in the mailbox confirms her worst fears and Mary is left alone to make a difficult decision.

Like the small towns J. California Cooper has so vividly portrayed in her previous novels and story collections, Wideland, Oklahoma, is home to ordinary Americans struggling to raise families, eke out a living, and fulfill their dreams. In the early 20th century, Irene and Val fall in love in Wideland. While carving out a home for themselves, they also allow neighbors Bertha and Joseph to build a house and live on their land.

As a boy, Jack Anderson was abandoned by his mother in a Glasgow movie theater. Now living in the United States and facing his impending retirement, Jack and his wife, Anne, travel to Scotland to track down his long-lost sister. Their journey takes them from their home in a quiet Boston suburb to the impoverished mill towns of Ayrshire, the gray cobbled streets of Glasgow, and the majestic Scottish Highlands. Along the way, Jack gets entangled in local affairs and must confront uncomfortable truths about family, legacy, and the wife he thought he knew.

Freddie and Greg Tyler seem to have it all: a comfortable home, a beautiful young daughter, a bond that feels unbreakable. But when Greg is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer, the sense of certainty they once knew evaporates. Throughout their town, friends and neighbors face the most difficult of life’s challenges and are figuring out how to survive thanks to love, grace, and hope.

When Danni Carter moves to Cornwall from London, she hopes it will be the fresh start she so desperately needs. She’s nervous, but hopefully the change of scene will help her to finally forget her feelings for Lucas Newman, a man she can never be with, because he’s already engaged to Danni’s best friend, Esther. But when Lucas and Esther decide to follow Danni to Cornwall, and both announce they will be working with her at the new St Piran’s hospital, Danni is thrown into turmoil again.

After a fishing accident leaves her husband hospitalized across the border in Canada, Jill is left to look after her teenage boys—"the wolves"—alone. Nothing comes easy in their remote corner of Maine: money is tight; her son Sam is getting into more trouble by the day; her eldest, Charlie, is preoccupied with a new girlfriend; and Jill begins to suspect her marriage isn't as stable as she once believed.

Welcome to small-town Connecticut, a place whose inhabitants seem to have it all - the status, the homes, the money, and the ennui.

After suddenly inheriting a funeral home from her father - from whom she hadn't heard in decades - Ilka Jensen has impulsively abandoned her quiet life in Denmark to visit the small town in rural Wisconsin where her father lived. There, she's devastated to discover her father's second family: a stepmother and two half sisters she never knew existed. Then a local woman is killed, seemingly the victim of a home invasion turned violent. But when Ilka learns that the woman knew her father, it becomes increasingly clear that she may not have been a completely random victim after all.

After my marriage crumbles, I run from the scrutiny of my suburban Stepford-wife life to my hometown of Balsam Ridge, Tennessee, with my son to pick up the pieces. The small mountain town offers plenty of opportunities for a fresh start: genuine friendships, reconnecting with my mother, and even finding work with the biggest family in town, the Tuttles. It was only supposed to be for the summer, and catching feelings for someone wasn’t part of the plan, but with his quiet confidence the sexy as sin Graham Tuttle has broken down all my walls.

Already widowed by the age of 40, Ilka Nichols Jensen, a school portrait photographer, leads a modest, regimented, and uneventful life in Copenhagen. Until unexpected news rocks her quiet existence: Her father - who walked out suddenly and inexplicably on the family more than three decades ago - has died. And he's left her something in his will: his funeral home. In Racine, Wisconsin. Clinging to this last shred of communication from the father she hasn't heard from since childhood, Ilka makes an uncharacteristically rash decision and jumps on a plane to Wisconsin.