Rural Life

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 title story tells of a typical Christmas at the farm before the coming of Flora Poste. It is a parody of the worst sort of family Christmas: Adam Lambsbreath dresses up as Father Christmas in two of Judith's red shawls. There are unsuitable presents, unpleasant insertions into the pudding and Aunt Ada Doom orders Amos to carve the turkey, adding: 'Ay, would it were a vulture, 'twere more fitting!'

For as long as she can remember, June Bug and her father have traveled the back roads of the country in their beat-up RV, spending many nights parked at Walmart. One morning, as she walks past the greeter at the front of the store, her eyes are drawn to the pictures of missing children, where she is shocked to see herself. This discovery begins a quest for the truth about her father, the mother he rarely speaks about, and ultimately herself.

Linston End on the Norfolk Broads has been the holiday home to three families for many years. The memories of their time there are ingrained in their hearts: picnics on the river, gin and tonics in the pavilion at dusk, hours spent seeking out the local swallowtail butterflies. Everyone together. But widower Alastair has been faced with a few of life's surprises recently. Now, he is about to shock his circle of friends with the decisions he has made - and the changes it will mean for them all. For some, it feels like the end. For others, it might just be the beginning....

The story of Flem Snopes' ruthless struggle to take over the town of Jefferson, Mississippi, this is the second volume of Faulkner's trilogy about the Snopes family, his symbol for the grasping, destructive element in the post-bellum South.

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.

The Quality Street Factory is fizzing with the news that the King and Queen and the two young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, are going to visit the Mackintosh Factory where the country’s favourite wrapped chocolate is made. The factory floor is heady with excitement but plans are dealt a blow when a much loved staff member is the victim of a poisoning incident. Everyone is under suspicion, which only adds to Reenie Calder’s woes, anxious that her new promotion has only made her stick out even more like a sore thumb.

Tilly is overjoyed when an estranged relative comes to Heritage Cove wanting to make amends. But as she lets him in to her life and Tilly’s Bits ‘n’ Pieces—the shop she owns and loves—her friends aren’t so sure whether everything is quite as it seems. Benjamin’s parents run Mistletoe Gate Farm, selling Christmas trees, wreaths and mistletoe. Benjamin and Tilly have been falling for one another since the summer but will family complications put an abrupt stop to what is looking like a burgeoning romance?

I Malavoglia è il romanzo più famoso di Giovanni Verga, ambientato ad Aci Trezza, alla fine del 1800. Il romanzo non ha un solo protagonista, né una sola famiglia, i Malavoglia, come protagonista, ma è il coro di tutto il paese e di un tipo di vita che segue , senza ribellarsi, i proverbi e le tradizioni, le convinzioni e i pregiudizi dell’ambiente.

It’s summer and holidaymakers are flocking to the idyllic Brittany coast. But when first an old traveller woman dies in suspicious circumstances, and then a campaign of hate seemingly drives another victim to take his own life, events take a very dark turn. Mila Shepherd has come to France to look after her niece, Ani, following the accident in which both Ani’s parents were lost at sea. Mila has moved into their family holiday home, as well as taken her sister Sophie’s place in an agency which specialises in tracking down missing people, until new recruit Carter Jackson starts.

After 15 years of her husband never having time for her, Lindy Coats moves with her teenaged daughter to their summer cottage on the shores of Lake Michigan outside the town of Blueberry Beach. With a lonely single dad on one side of her, a crochety old business owner on the other, and a young mother with terrible secrets and a son fighting leukemia across the road, it doesn’t take Lindy long to discover that learning to enjoy life is less about what she chooses to do for herself and more about what she chooses to do for others.

It is All Souls Day, and the spirit of Marcus Conway sits at his kitchen table and remembers. In flowing, relentless prose, Conway recalls his life in rural Ireland: as a boy and man, father, husband, citizen. His ruminations move from childhood memories of his father's deftness with machines to his own work as a civil engineer, from transformations in the local economy to the tidal wave of global financial collapse. Conway's thoughts go still further, outward to the vast systems of time and history that hold us all.

Journalist Sadie is home for the first time in fifteen years, staying in her small childhood bedroom as she deals with her estranged father’s death and her surprising inheritance. When Sadie meets Rebecca, the reclusive new owner of the solitary cottage at the edge of nearby Whisper Lake, she’s taken aback by the older woman’s request for help: ‘I need to find my family. Will you help me?’. She’s even more surprised when afterwards, Rebecca acts as if she never made the plea.

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.

Flora's been in love with her husband for 20 years. The trouble is, he's been married to someone else for the past 15. Now she's been invited to spend the summer in the shady lanes and sandy coves of Cornwall. It should be blissful. There's just one small snag: she'll be staying with her former mother-in-law, Belinda. And Flora discovers she's not the only one invited when her ex-husband shows up out of the blue, complete with his new wife. So now there are two small snags.

The Lindsay family has come west hoping to help the father, John, recover from an illness. When they arrive, they are induced to purchase Spanish Peaks Ranch, an abandoned United States military post surrounded by mountains. It seems like a perfect place to settle into their new life as ranchers. As they soon find out, though, this deserted fort is equally suited for both protection and imprisonment.

When Pixie Sampson's husband tragically dies, she inherits the beautiful Château Quiltu in Brittany, Northern France. But unbeknown to her, she also inherits a mysterious lodger, Justine Martin and her four-year-old son, Ferdie. Heartbroken and with her adventurous mum, Gwen, in tow, they travel to France to put the château on the market but are soon drawn into a quest to seek the château's secrets. Who is Justine? Why is she living at the château? How did she know her husband?

The formerly distant Julie Sweeney is home with her daughter, Bliss, and asking for far more than a casual reunion. As the family navigates this new hurdle, John faces troubles of his own while his wife is across the country.\ The renovation of the inn continues, and Sam's relationship with the carpenter deepens. Through it all, Dottie holds the family together, determined to prove that she should be the one to give her granddaughter the greatest gift of all... a second chance at life.

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.

Harley Altmyer should be in college drinking Rolling Rock and chasing girls. He should be freed from his closed-minded, stricken coal town, with its lack of jobs and no sense of humor. Instead, he's constantly reminded of just how messed up his life is. With his mother in jail for killing his abusive father, Harley is an orphan with the responsibilities of an adult and the fiery, aggressive libido of a teenager.