Rural Small Town Fiction

Colton Gentry is riding high. His first hit in nearly a decade has caught fire, he’s opening for country megastar Brant Lucas, and he’s married to one of the hottest acts in the country. But he’s hurting. Only a few weeks earlier, his best friend, Duane, was murdered onstage by a mass shooter at a country music festival. One night, Colton stands before a sold-out arena crowd of country music fans and offers his unfiltered opinion on guns. It goes over poorly. Immediately, his career and marriage implode. Left with few choices or funds, he retreats to his rural Kentucky hometown.

There are two things Joey Greer is great at: Raising horses and holding grudges. Eight years ago, her high school sweetheart abandoned her, skipped out on his family, and fled to Hollywood, of all places. She vowed never to forgive or forget. Now big-shot screenwriter Jackson Pierce is back in Blue Moon demanding another chance. No matter how good it feels when he sneaks past her defenses to land a kiss or a compliment, she is determined to pretend he doesn’t exist. Except maybe when he’s naked in her bed.

The population of Falls Creek, North Carolina, is a collective menace to society. Layla thought the first line of her orientation packet was a joke, but she soon realized it was all facts. After only a few hours on the job, the whip-smart flight nurse found herself flying headfirst into small-town drama.

Karen Sommerfield has been hiding from the big questions of her life - the emotional distance in her marriage, her inability to have children, and her bout with cancer. Getting lost in her high-powered career provides the sense of purpose she yearns for. Until the day she's downsized out of her job and the doctor tells her the cancer may be back. It's a double blow that would send anyone reeling.

At 25, after five years as her mother’s caregiver, it’s time for Shelby to experience freedom and adventure. Time for travel, college, and romance. But when she visits Virgin River, she runs into Luke Riordan, decidedly not whom she has in mind. A handsome Blackhawk pilot, Luke exited the army after 20 years, four wars, and having been shot out of the sky three times. At 38 he’s tough and jaded. His major was in one-night stands, with a minor in commitment avoidance.

On the little Scottish island of Mure—halfway between Scotland and Norway—Flora MacKenzie and her fiancé Joel are planning the smallest of “sweetheart weddings,” a high summer celebration surrounded only by those very dearest to them. Not everyone on the island is happy about being excluded, though. The temperature rises even further when beautiful Olivia MacDonald—who left Mure ten years ago for bigger and brighter things—returns with a wedding planner in tow.

Bud Threadgoode grew up in the bustling little railroad town of Whistle Stop with his mother, Ruth, church-going and proper, and his Aunt Idgie, the fun-loving hell-raiser. Together they ran the town's popular Whistle Stop Cafe, known far and wide for its fun and famous fried green tomatoes. And as Bud often said of his childhood to his daughter, Ruthie, "How lucky can you get?"

A touching modern fairytale that won't let go of your heart. Gamekeeper Carol Lund knows she's not special enough to attract an alpha male like Mathias, so his offer to help her adopt a herd for her lonely giraffe is surprising - and his determined seduction even more so. But just as she finally welcomes him into her bed, his careless actions crush her heart. Will she give him a second chance to prove she'll always come first in his heart?

When Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after her mother’s death, she’s focused only on saying goodbye to that dark and dismal part of her life. Her childhood home is packed solid with useless junk, her mother’s presence already fading. But within this mess, she discovers a small stash of letters — and ultimately, the truth. Forty years earlier, a young woman stumbles from a remote stone house, the night quiet except for the constant wind that encircles her as she hurries deeper into the darkness away from the cliffs and the sea.

A Penguin Classic. First published in 1938, this volume of stories collected with the encouragement of his longtime editor Pascal Covici serves as a wonderful introduction to the work of Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Set in the beautiful Salinas Valley of California, where simple people farm the land and struggle to find a place for themselves in the world, these stories reflect Steinbeck’s characteristic interests: The tensions between town and country, laborers and owners, past and present.

When confronted by raging fires or deadly accidents, volunteer fireman Taylor McAden feels compelled to take terrifying risks to save lives. But there is one leap of faith Taylor can't bring himself to make: He can't fall in love...

With snow falling over the redwood forests, secluded Virgin River is the ideal place to spend the holidays. Each year, the close-knit community gathers in the town square to decorate and light a massive tree. Carols are sung, hot chocolate is shared - and a surprise left under the Christmas tree is about to bring two special people together!

Wynn Beauchene has a thriving business, a great kid, and a mildly embarrassing crush on the guy next door — local cop Garrick McCabe. She’s a strong, independent woman who can’t help dreaming what-if about a man she barely knows. Until he needs her help....

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.

New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Jodi Thomas won the coveted Romance Pioneer Award and a 2011 Reviewers’ Choice Award for Texas Blue. Lewton Paterson is a gambling man hoping to put his rough-and-tumble past behind him and marry into a quiet, respectable family. Arriving in Whispering Mountain, Lewt sets his sights on one of the McMurray sisters. But it doesn’t take long for Lewt to realize that gambling on love is his riskiest proposition yet.

Sisters Abby and Dusti Delaney have spent their entire lives on Rainbow Lane, but they dream of something bigger. So when a poker tournament comes to town, Dusti is determined to win enough money to leave. Enlisting expert Kieron O’Brian to teach her the game, sparks begin to fly as they play their hands. But Kieron refuses to stand in the way of her dream, even if it means losing her forever.… After a year of traveling, Ronny Logan is settling into a home on Rainbow Lane, but that’s all the settling she’ll be doing. Ronny refuses to fall for anyone, regardless of the chemistry she has with her neighbor Austin Hawk.

Emily, the local librarian, has started a writing group, but as the group stumbles through both the fiction and reality of their lives, they’re learning much more than how to write. But Emily suddenly has other things on her mind when a friend from her past shows up in Harmony's library. Now she must deal with a secret she’s kept for fifteen years - a secret that changed her life and threatens to shatter her future. Meanwhile, new lawyer Rick Matheson thinks he’s in charge of his world until accidents start happening all around him.

Baking a multitude of tartes tatins for local restaurants, an Ohio housewife contemplates her four kids, husband, cats and chickens. Also, America's ignoble past, and her own regrets. She is surrounded by dead lakes, fake facts, open carry maniacs, and oodles of online advice about survivalism, veil toss duties, and how to be more like Jane Fonda. But what do you do when you keep stepping on your son's toy tractors, your life depends on stolen land and broken treaties, and nobody helps you when you get a flat tire on the interstate? When are you allowed to start swearing?

In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on 44 acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the local legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago.

It’s 1985. Rachel O’Brien arrives in Little Cove seeking a fresh start after her father dies and her relationship ends. As a new teacher at the local Catholic high school, Rachel chafes against the small community, where everyone seems to know her business. The anonymous notes that keep appearing on her car, telling her to go home, don’t make her feel welcome either. Still, Rachel is quickly drawn into the island’s distinctive music and culture, as well as the lives of her students and fellow teacher Doug Bishop.