Rural Life

Joan Didion's electrifying first novel is a haunting portrait of a marriage whose wrong turns and betrayals are at once absolutely idiosyncratic and a razor-sharp commentary on the history of California. Everett McClellan and his wife, Lily, are the great-grandchildren of pioneers, and what happens to them is a tragic epilogue to the pioneer experience, a story of murder and betrayal that only Didion could tell with such nuance, sympathy, and suspense.

In her debut novel, Carol Dunbar draws from her own lived experiences, vividly describing the wonder and harshness of life off the grid. Told over the course of a year, The Net Beneath Us is a lyrical exploration of loss, marriage, parenthood, and self-reliance; a tale of how the natural world—without and within us—offers us healing, if we can learn where to look.

For years, Isobel Latimer has composed serious novels for serious people, but to dwindling acclaim and ever-more dwindling gain. Now her husband is ill and she must carry their financial burden alone, and in secret. But if the public don’t want careful moral fables any longer, why not provide an outrageous tale of sex and satanism, and an author to match? The incomparable, uncontrollable Zelda de Vere is born.

A girl dies one late, rainy night a few feet from the back door of her home. The girl, Abeba, was born in Ethiopia. Her adoptive parents, Delvin and Betsy Harvey—conservative, white fundamentalist Christians—are charged with her murder.

Michelle Turner thought she lost everything at 17. Her father, a Hollywood legend, had finally summoned her to his Montana ranch. But when he learned of her affair with Sam McPhee, a hired hand, he had Sam fired and destroyed his family. Michelle, pregnant and alone, fled to Seattle. Now a successful advertising exec, Michelle is safe-safe from love, safe from hurt. But her son is lost to her, a troubled teen on the verge of self-destruction, a boy who blames her for the absence of his father and grandfather.

When she was still a child, Lucy Nelson had her alcoholic failure of a father thrown in jail. Ever since then she has been trying to reform the men around her, even if that ultimately means destroying herself in the process. With his unerring portraits of Lucy and her hapless, childlike husband, Roy, Roth has created an uncompromising work of fictional realism, a vision of provincial American piety, yearning, and discontent that is at once pitiless and compassionate.

In the bestselling tradition of Fannie Flagg and Jenny Colgan comes Felicity Hayes-McCoy’s U.S. debut about a local librarian who must find a way to rebuild her community and her own life in this touching, enchanting novel set on Ireland’s stunning West Coast.

Jay Austin did what it took to get ahead and make the quick sell at work. Problem was - the more successful he was, the more he traded what really mattered. His integrity. His relationship with his wife. His time with his son. He was chasing things that had no eternal significance. It wasn’t until God slowly unraveled everything that he saw how empty his life had become.

When 18-year-old Tam Lambert learns that her family’s upscale home is in foreclosure, the life she's known is forever changed. Tam and her family must move into a tiny house in a changing Dallas neighborhood called Blue Sky Hill.... New resident Shasta Reid-Williams knows nothing of real estate schemes when she and her husband purchase a home in Blue Sky Hill. To her, it’s the perfect place to raise her children. Better yet is getting to know Tam, who lives right across the street.

Ira Levinson is in trouble. At 91 years old, in poor health, and alone in the world, he finds himself stranded on an isolated embankment after a car crash. Suffering multiple injuries, he struggles to retain consciousness until a blurry image materializes and comes into focus beside him: His beloved wife, Ruth, who passed away nine years ago. Urging him to hang on, she forces him to remain alert by recounting the stories of their lifetime together - how they met, the precious paintings they collected together, the dark days of WWII and its effect on them and their families.

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.

When Leelo can no longer identify herself by the roles that once defined her, it's both terrifying and liberating. Oh, she feels the loss, the grief, and then the anger, but when she inherits property up north, she jumps at the promise of freedom and independence. Yet not everyone in her new community is what they seem, starting with the surly mountain man down the road.

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.

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.

A tragic accident leaves the tight-knit book club in the small seaside town of Fairweather reeling. Then stranger Tom McLysaght arrives in the community, and the members of the club find their lives changing in ways they never could have imagined. None of them realise that Tom is hiding a secret. On the surface, his move to Fairweather was to escape his highflying life in London and to put some much-needed distance between him and his ex-fiancée - but deep down Tom knows that there are some things he cannot run from.

Jaxie dreads going home. His mum’s dead. The old man bashes him without mercy, and he wishes he was an orphan. And then, in one terrible moment, his life is stripped to little more than what he can carry and how he can keep himself alive. There’s just one person left in the world who understands him and what he still dares to hope for. But to reach her he’ll have to cross the vast saltlands on a trek that only a dreamer or a fugitive would attempt.

Margot Hart travels to Ireland to write a biography of the famous Deverill family. She knows she must speak to the current Lord Deverill - JP - if she is to uncover the secrets of the past. A notorious recluse, JP won’t be an easy man to crack. But Margot is determined - and she is not a woman who is easily put off. What she never expected was to form a close bond with JP and be drawn into his family disputes. Shouldering the blame for running up debts that forced him to sell the family castle, JP is isolated and vulnerable.

As fall paints the Pennsylvania countryside in flaming colors, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson is contemplating the future of her beloved Elm Creek Quilts. The Elm Creek Quilt Camp remains the most popular quilter’s retreat in the country, but unexpected financial difficulties have beset them and the Bergstrom family’s stately nineteenth-century manor. Now in her eighth decade, Sylvia is determined to maintain her family’s legacy, but she needs new resources—financial and emotional.

The latest in this enchanting and fast-selling series, featuring the beloved ghost Aunt Dimity, opens in a picturesque English cottage where the lovable Lori Shepherd is up to her elbows in pureed carrots and formula bottles, striving to be the perfect mother to twins! Luckily, a beautiful Italian nanny arrives just in time - so Lori can help settle the local civil war stirred up by a visiting archaeologist's excavation. With Reginald, the stuffed pink rabbit, and Edmond Terrance, the stuffed tiger in tow, Lori hunts down a missing document.

Twice in her life, college counselor Gayla Oliver fell in love at first sight. The first time was with Brian - a lean, longhaired, British bass player. Marriage followed quickly, then twins, and gradually their bohemian lifestyle gave way to busy careers in New York. Gayla's second love affair is with New Bern, Connecticut. Like Brian, the laid-back town is charming without trying too hard. It's the ideal place to buy a second home and reignite the spark in their 26-year marriage. Not that Gayla is worried. At least, not until she finds a discarded memo in which Brian admits to a past affair....