Rural Life

Baked, mashed, boiled or fried, Mr Doubler knows his potatoes. But the same can’t be said for people. Since he lost his wife, he’s been on his own at Mirth Farm - and that suits Doubler just fine. Crowds are for other people; the only company he needs are his potato plants and his housekeeper, Mrs Millwood, who visits every day. So when Mrs Millwood is taken ill, it ruins everything - and Mr Doubler begins to worry that he might have lost his way. But could the kindness of strangers be enough to bring him down from the hill?

It’s the summer of 1935, and 11-year-old Stella Walker is preparing to leave her home forever. Forced to evacuate to make way for a new reservoir, the village of Brackendale Green will soon be lost. But before the water has even reached them, a dreadful event threatens to tear Stella’s family apart. Present day, and a fierce summer has dried up the lake and revealed the remnants of the deserted village. Now an old woman, Stella begs her granddaughter Laura to make the journey she can’t.

It’s been 17 years since the tragic summer the McAvoy sisters fell apart. Lindy, the wild one, left home, carved out a new life in the city, and never looked back. Delia, the sister who stayed, became a mother herself, raising her daughters and running the family shop in their small Ohio hometown on the shores of Lake Erie. But now, with their mother’s ailing health and a rebellious teenager to rein in, Delia has no choice but to welcome Lindy home.

In the first line of Ocean State, we learn that a high school student was murdered, and we find out who did it. The story that unfolds from there with incredible momentum is thus one of the buildup to and fallout from the murder, told through the alternating perspectives of the four women at its heart. The murderer Angel, her mother Carol, and the victim Birdy, all come alive on the page as they converge in a climax both tragic and inevitable. Watching over it all is the retrospective testimony of Angel’s younger sister, Marie.

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.

When Marina Moore’s life blows up on national television, she seeks refuge at her grandmother’s beach house called the Coral Cottage. Now in her mid-forties with children in college, Marina is in dire need of her grandmother's gutsy advice to a well-lived life. Marina meets an old friend, Ivy Bay, proprietor of the Seabreeze Inn, who encourages her to share her love of food at the local farmer’s market. Soon Marina’s sister Kai arrives on a summer break from her musical theater troupe.

When Marina Moore decides to expand her farmers market and pop-up dinner business, the next step is a cafe on the shores of Summer Beach. But challenges loom, and Marina must quickly become more creative than ever, especially when her children need help. Her sister Kai's position with a musical theater troupe forces more changes. Their sister Brooke is having marital challenges, while grandmother Ginger continues to contribute her advice on the life well-lived—if only her granddaughters will listen.

After witnessing the death of his younger brother in a terrible home accident, 14-year-old Kevin and his grieving mother are sent for the summer to live with Kevin's grandfather. In this peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The events of this fateful summer will affect the entire town of Medgar, Kentucky.

Meet Linda Breland, single parent of two teenage daughters. The oldest, Lindsey, who always held her younger sister in check, is leaving for college. And Gracie, her Tasmanian devil, is giving her nightmares. Linda's personal life? Well, between the married men, the cold New Jersey winters, her pinched wallet and her ex-husband who marries a beautiful, successful woman ten years younger than she is - let's just say, Linda has seen enough to fill 1000 pages.

Today most LGBTQ rights supporters take for granted the virtue of being "out, loud, and proud." Most also assume that it would be terrible to be LGBTQ in a rural place. By considering moments in which queerness and rurality come into contact, Visibility Interrupted argues that both positions are wrong. In the first monograph on LGBTQ women in the rural Midwest, Carly Thomsen deconstructs the image of the rural as a flat, homogenous, and anachronistic place where LGBTQ people necessarily suffer. And she suggests that visibility is not liberation and will not lead to liberation.

After the sudden death of her husband, Hope finds herself reeling from the loss in more ways than one. First a young wife and now a grieving widow, she feels like fodder for never-ending town gossip. But when Hope meets Will, a screenwriter back in town to run his family’s inn, she sees in him another resident oddball. And like her, Will has been navigating a loss of his own.

Connie Mulligan, daughter of a fourth-generation Tasmanian dairy farmer, feels like she doesn't belong–anywhere. She's got big dreams and big ideas, but she made a mess of her university degree and has been sent home in disgrace. The man who was responsible for her failure won't get out of her nightmares, her father won't listen to any of her ideas on how to make environmentally positive changes to the way the dairy farm is being run, her mom thinks she should go on anti-depressants, and she keeps having what her psychologist calls 'episodes'.

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.

In the final chapter of the beloved Coral Cottage series, Ginger Delavie takes center stage as the family unravels her grandmother’s extraordinary life. Ginger is a woman whose brilliance in mathematics and codebreaking has taken her around the globe, through corridors of power, and into the heart of high society. Now, in the autumn of her years, Ginger decides it’s time to pen her story. She enlists the help of Marina and her talented grandson-in-law, Jack. Together, they embark on a journey that is as much about recording history as it is about discovering it.

It's 1984 - and it's an important time for the children of Ragley-on-the Forest school.... Their school choir is to sing a carol in a church in York, and it's actually going to be on television! Helping to keep his excited children - not to mention their parents - under control during these momentous events taxes Jack and his staff to the limit. And at the same time, Jack has his own problems to deal with....

When Vanessa Young finds herself aged out of her job as a Hollywood stylist and facing the loss of her father, she acts on a bold impulse and reconnects with the daughter she gave up for adoption thirty years ago. To her surprise, Emily is also at a crossroads in her life, equally eager for change and a fresh start. Together, they travel to Vanessa's hometown of Rosemary Beach, Florida, to embark on a journey of self-discovery and second chances.

After the death of their beloved aunt, the estranged Burke sisters reunite at their childhood home for an unforgettable summer, each harboring a secret. With their family once again at a turning point, they must overcome their differences to discover what the future holds for the lakefront house and each other.

In this delightful memoir, Jared Gulian describes the first four years of their new life in the country, its disasters, small triumphs, surprises, and pleasures. But most of all, he describes the warmth of the local community that welcomed them, saved them from certain peril, taught them how to cook, how to care for animals, and how to understand and love the land.

Laura Humphrey has had her share of ups and downs. She's loved her job teaching high school music for over twenty-five years in her hometown with a special gift for musical theater. She is devoted to her church, family, and friends. In addition, a romance may be on the horizon with the high school coach, a widower and longtime friend. On the negative side, however, Laura has always doubted her worth to others and has always struggled with sadness over a failed marriage and having no children of her own.

A hilarious tale of dogs, fogs, bogs and moving to Ireland. For many years, Nick and Lesley Albert had shared a dream of living far away from the stress of modern life, and when the opportunity arose, they jumped in with both feet. Almost overnight, they decided to move to beautiful County Clare, in the west of Ireland - a country they had never before visited. With little experience or money they set about renovating a derelict farmhouse and building a new life together.