Rural Small Town Fiction

It's hard to forget a beautiful woman who picks your pocket the first time you meet. Darby Cahill recognizes Mariah Ayres the moment she walks into his bar looking for a job. He shouldn't hire her - or crave more after one impulsive kiss. But what starts as curiosity about her motives turns to concern when he senses how much danger she's in. Mariah has been running ever since she left her fiancé at the altar. Now she's playing the part of the perfect employee, terrified that her past will catch up with her.

Everything has led up to this moment in Lizzie Glick's life. All of her curiosity, concern, and dreams have pointed to this time when she must make some very big decisions. Will she join the Church? Will she continue teaching? Will she marry Stephen? Questions and indecision as well as answers and certainty enter Lizzie's life in Big Decisions, the third and final novel in this series written by an Amish author and based on true-life experiences.

New York Times best-selling author Jodi Thomas captures listeners’ hearts with her sweet tales set in Harmony, Texas. In Just Down the Road, a rowdy night at the bar lands Tinch Turner in the ER under the care of Dr. Addison Spencer, igniting a passion Tinch hasn’t felt since the loss of his wife. Meanwhile, Reagan Truman, grieving her beloved uncle, finds solace in her new Harmony family—and a new baby.

RITA Award winner Jodi Thomas continues her Whispering Mountain series with this second installment. Horse breeder Tobin McMurray doesn’t venture too far from his homestead. But when a Texas senator offers Tobin handsome compensation to deliver a horse to his daughter and teach her how to ride, he grudgingly agrees. Soon Tobin finds himself falling in love with the beautiful woman—but their budding romance is headed straight for danger.

To the delight of her fans, RITA Award winner and New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Jodi Thomas pens contemporary Western-themed romances set in her native Texas. In The Comforts of Home, a tornado rips through the quiet town of Harmony. Emerging from the devastation, Harmony’s citizens struggle with relationships both old and new - and grow stronger by risking their hearts to make connections with others.

Part human comedy and part mystery, Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told is an enthralling, masterful story about what holds a village together and what keeps people apart. When journalist Patrick Bracken returns to Gohen, the Irish village where he was born, he knows the eyes of the townspeople are on him. He has come home to investigate two deaths that happened decades earlier when he was a child, deaths that were ruled accidental.

It is 1916, and Roberta Jewett is surprised to find that her hometown of Camden, Maine, considers a divorced woman little more than a prostitute. Condemned by her mother and scorned by neighbors, she nonetheless perseveres in her struggle to forge a good life for her girls and herself. Embittered by her painful marriage to an unfaithful husband, she has no intention of being any man's victim again. So Roberta is taken aback to find the widowed carpenter Gabriel Farley has somehow found his way into her heart.

When local real estate shark Edgar Coleman is murdered and "good riddance" is the response from every Pecan Spring resident, China Bayles quickly learns that Coleman was no stranger to adultery and blackmail. China's fiancé, the interim police chief, is immersed in the investigation, and the suspect list grows steadily longer. China puts her honeymoon plans aside and starts hunting for the killer. As her investigation gets underway, she digs up dirt and secrets on people she knows.

After the end of a long-term relationship, local weather girl Bea Armstrong has been avoiding her family, and their inevitable 'I-told-you-sos'. But with Christmas fast approaching, she is finally on her way home to Charis House, the school in Sherwood Forest that her mum and dad run in their old family home. And to top it all off, the insufferable Henry Fairfax—who her parents have always wanted her to marry—has also been invited.

Welcome to Magnolia. Victoria is no longer mayor, a sentiment that she is still trying to get used to saying. After the inauguration of the new mayor, she's pretty sure that she has reached bottom - until her parents inform her that they are selling their house in Magnolia, and she has a week to find a new place to live.

Visiting her family's South Carolina estate, socialite Gray Godfrey wakes from a night out to an empty bed. Her husband, Paul, is gone, and a thrashing hangover has wiped her memory clean. At first, she's relieved for the break from her tumultuous marriage; perhaps Paul just needed some space. But when his car is found abandoned on the highway, Gray must face the truth: Paul is gone. And Gray may not want him found. Her life is unraveling. When a stranger named Annie calls claiming to know Paul's whereabouts, Gray reluctantly accepts her help.

In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good.

Blade Hamilton is the last of his line. He's never even heard of Crossroads, Texas, until he inherits land there. Riding in on his vintage Harley-Davidson, Blade finds a weathered ranch house, an empty prairie, and a dark river that cuts a decisive path between the Hamiltons' land and that of their estranged neighbors. When Dakota helps a stranger on the roadside, she isn't prepared for the charisma of the man on the motorbike - or for the last name he bears: Hamilton, of her family's sworn enemies.

Readers’ Choice Award winner Jodi Thomas pens a touching, passionate tale about never giving up on love. Texas Ranger Travis McMurray prefers chasing outlaws to being cooped up in domestic life. But all that changes when he meets Rainey, a stunning beauty who steals not only his heart—but his horse. On the run from an arranged marriage, Rainey wants to start a new life inthe West—but will Travis be able to track her down before she disappears for good?

Cord McMillan gave up his freedom at 18 when he went to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Now, 10 years later, he’s about to give it up again for a piece of land. Nevada Britain, his neighbor, has just made him an offer he can’t refuse: If he’ll marry her, she’ll sign over a section of property that their families have been fighting over for 100 years. Nevada refuses to explain why, but Cord knows the bargain is in his favor. He just has one condition - she has to sleep in his bed every night for as long as their doomed marriage lasts. Nevada only wants to maintain her family’s legacy - and redeem herself for a wrong she did Cord years ago.

Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives in southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches them from an isolated mountain cabin where she is caught off-guard by Eddie Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and her solitary life.

In the aftermath of an EMP blackout, Don Morton battles through a world plunged into mayhem, determined to safeguard his wife and son at their mountain refuge. But as he navigates the lawless land to reach them, a chilling reality unfolds—a merciless cartel has set its sights on their hidden haven. With whispers of an impending siege swirling, the Mortons are catapulted into a high-stakes game of survival.

Clare Wilson is starting over. She's had it with her marriage to a charming serial cheater. Even her own son thinks she's given his father too many chances. With the support of her sisters, Maggie and Sarah, she's ready to move on. Facing her fortieth birthday, Clare is finally feeling the rush of unadulterated freedom. But when a near-fatal car accident lands Clare in the hospital, her life takes another detour. While recovering, Clare realizes she has the power to choose her life's path. With enthusiasm and a little envy, her sisters watch her bloom.

The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything - everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy's not only a book woman, however, she's also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy's family or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble.

The young widower arrives ready to roll up his sleeves and build a place of worship and welcome, but he needs some help. And the Lord works in mysterious ways. With her tight shirts and short skirts, pastor's assistant is not a phrase that springs to mind when Noah meets brassy, beautiful Alicia Baldwin. The former exotic dancer needs a respectable job so she can regain custody of her children. And Noah can't help but admire her spunk and motherly determination.