Rural Life

Edie - smart, self-assured, beautiful - always worked hard. She worked as a teller at a bank, she worked to save her first marriage, and later, she worked to raise her daughter even as her second marriage came apart. Really, Edie just wanted a good life, but everywhere she turned, her looks defined her. Two brothers fought over her. Her second husband became unreasonably possessive and jealous. Her daughter resented her. And now, as a grandmother, Edie finds herself harassed by a younger man. It’s been a lifetime of proving that she is allowed to exist in her own sphere.

Following her "marvelous" (Wall Street Journal) first novel, Caitlin Horrocks returns with a much-anticipated collection of short stories. In her signature, genre-defying style, she explodes our notions of what a story can do and where it can take us.

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.

Rientrato devastato dal Vietnam, Ernt Allbright decide di trasferirsi con la famiglia nella selvaggia Alaska, l'ultima frontiera americana, e iniziare una nuova vita con la moglie Cora e la figlia adolescente Leni. L'inizio è promettente, ma con l'avanzare del lungo inverno artico lo stato mentale di Ernt peggiora. Leni e Cora si trovano sole, in un luogo feroce ai confini del mondo, dove nessuno può salvarle.

Max Wendt has a family...but it's sliding sideways, and he has been complicit in its faltering. His wife and his daughter have pulled away from him amid his frequent absences, leaving him to bridge the distance between what he remembers and the way things are now. Max Wendt has a job...but it carries him away from home most of the time, and its dynamics are quickly changing. There's a surprising new hire on his pipeline crew, strife among coworkers, and a boss whose proclivities put everything in peril.

Morning rush hour on the Golden Gate Bridge. Amid the river of metal and glass, a shocking event occurs, leaving those who witnessed it desperately looking for answers, most notably one man and his son, Jake, who captured the event and uploaded it to the Internet for all the world to experience. As the media swarms over the story, Jake will face the ramifications of his actions, as he learns the perils of our modern disconnect between the real world and the world we create online.

Following a painful breakup, Abby protects her emotions by hiding from life, until a head injury causes her brain to start losing new memories. Determined to fight it, Abby sets out to prove her diagnosis wrong by grabbing life with both hands. She’ll save her memory by embarking on a list of experiences that will be simply unforgettable. All seems to be working well, until a trip of a lifetime to New York City, where she bumps into a friendly stranger called Finn. But is he a stranger after all?

Fatima, Farah, Bubblee and Mae, the four sisters of the Amir family, are sometimes tired of being the only Muslim young women in a rural British village, not helped by their eccentric neighbours, including the hippie nudists next door. Oldest sister Fatima - or, as her family have always nicknamed her, Fatti (which, she worryingly suspects, has just as much to do with her inability to lose weight and guilty-pleasure love of Primula squeezy cheese as it does her birth name) - is having a particularly hard time finding her place in the world.

Angela can feel the clock ticking. She is single in New York City, stuck in a job she doesn't want and a life that seems to have somehow just happened. She inherited a flair for Italian cooking from her grandmother, but she never seems to have the time for it - these days, her oven holds only sweaters. Tacked to her office bulletin board is a photo from a magazine of a tidy cottage on the coast of Maine - a charming reminder of a life that could be hers if she could only muster the courage to go after it.

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.

Cape Cod, Massachussetts. Harlow Smith est fière de la librairie qu'elle tient avec son grand-père, et de l'ambiance cosy qu'elle a réussi à y créer. Une cheminée, un petit café, beaucoup d'alcôves aménagées en coins lecture ainsi qu'un jardin fleuri font le succès de sa boutique. Célibataire, elle mène une vie tranquille jusqu'au jour où Matthew fait irruption dans la librairie. Car ce dernier n'est autre que l'enfant qu'elle a décidé de placer à l'adoption dix-huit ans plus tôt, sans en parler à personne...

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'.

Bankrupt dairy farmer Tom Murray decides he'd rather sell off his herd and burn down his own house than hand them over to the bank. But something goes tragically wrong, and Tom dies in the blaze. His wife, Dawn, doesn't want him to have died for nothing and decides to hold a funeral procession for Tom as a protest, driving 350 kilometres from Yardley in country Victoria to bury him in Melbourne where he was born. To make a bigger impact she agrees with some neighbours to put his coffin on a horse and cart and take it slow—real slow.

A year ago, a devastating bushfire ripped Annie's world apart—killing her grandmother, traumatizing her young daughter and leaving her mother's home in the mountains half destroyed. Annie fled back to the city, but the mountain continues to haunt her. Now, drawn by a call for help from her uncle, she's going back to the place she loves most in the world, to try to heal herself, her marriage, her daughter and her mother.

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.

In an increasingly lonely world, three women strike up an unlikely friendship and find that community, female friendship and the wonders of nature can truly be powerful healers.

Port Kingerton: the insular cray-fishing town at the butt-end of South Australia, where everyone knows everyone. And everyone knows too that when Abigail Fancy left town at seventeen, she hung out the window of her boyfriend's Corolla, middle fingers held high, swearing she'd never come back. And she hasn't, until now. At her parents' house Abigail finds a party (read: town meeting) in full swing over something iffy found on the beach—a thigh bone.

For many years Elizabeth Lawson has battled single-handedly to run the family's historic horse stud in memory of her beloved father. But a devastating loss puts her dreams at risk. With no options left, Liz is forced to turn to her estranged sister Kayla for help. Kayla has built a new life in the city as a wedding planner, far removed from the stableyard sweat and dust of her rural upbringing. She never thought she'd go back. But when Liz calls out of the blue, Kayla forms a plan that could save their childhood home.

Esmae Grace Williams has settled into life in the country quite well. She has found contentment and happiness in the small town of Meadow Creek. After having her heart broken and swearing off men, Esmae has decided to date once again. The problem is, which guy should she choose? Esmae is finally ready to move forward. That is, until Brooklyn arrives in town. Who is this Southern Belle? Quickly, Esmae discovers that her dating plans may all come to a screeching halt. Now, Esmae wonders if she will find the man of her dreams—or will she end up all alone?

Lola Getz and Webster Bond felt an instant spark when they met as high school students in Victory Shores. But their budding romance was cut short when Lola’s parents died in a plane crash and she had to return to Mexico. There, she became a famous artist and married a man who turned out to be a fraud. Webster, meanwhile, joined the army, earned medals of honor, and came back to his hometown as a cop. Years later, Lola’s life is in danger when armed men break into her house.