Rural Town Fiction

At Crewel World - the needlework shop in Excelsior, Minnesota, run by Betsy Devonshire - an array of beautifully hand-dyed yarns are supplied by Hailey Brent, an avid hand-dyer as well as a customer. But shortly after her most recent delivery of yarn, Hailey is found dead in her home, with a gunshot wound to the head. Betsy can't imagine who might have killed Hailey, but she is determined to find out.

At 27, having fled an abusive marriage with little more than her kids and the clothes on her back, Ivy Peterman figures she has nowhere to go but up. Quaint, historic New Bern, Connecticut, seems as good a place as any to start afresh. With a part-time job at Cobbled Court Quilts and budding friendships, Ivy feels hopeful for the first time in ages.

One shocking argument and 10-year-old Alice Parker’s world was turned upside down. Her peaceful life at Honeysuckle Farm in the quiet rural village of Brook Bridge swapped for the bustling metropolis of New York City. Alice’s life was changed forever. Now, 13 years later, Alice’s American dream is over. With her life in tatters, there is only one place Alice wants to be...home at Honeysuckle Farm. So, when Alice learns her beloved Grandie is ill, she knows this is her last chance to heal the family rift.

From New York Times best-selling author Marie Bostwick comes a beautiful novel of sisterhood lost and found - and of the ways we create the rich tapestries that encompass the past and the future. The economic downturn has hit New Bern, Connecticut, and Tessa Woodruff’s herbal apothecary shop, For the Love of Lavender, is suffering. So is her once-happy 34-year marriage to Lee. They’d given up everything to come back to New Bern from Boston and start their business, but now they’re wondering if they made the right decision.

When Jennifer Smiley’s grandmother, Ginny, leaves her an old farmhouse on Edgewater Road in seemingly quiet Ross County, Ohio, Jennifer can’t pass up the opportunity for a new beginning. Almost immediately, she meets a group of men who generously help her move in. When she realizes that they work for Lincoln Bennett, her next-door neighbor, she’s intrigued. Lincoln is gorgeous and has dark lapis-blue eyes she could get lost in...but he doesn’t seem all that friendly. She’s torn between getting to know him and sticking with the solitude she knows so well.

Barns are burning in Amish author Linda Byler's second book in the Lancaster Burning series, and no one knows who's doing it or why. Can Sarah Beiler end the terror that is pulling apart her community, even as her own heart is pulled between two young men? Sarah Beiler's barn was the first to burn, and it was quickly followed by two other barn fires.

It isn't that Lizzie doesn't want to stay Amish. It's just that there is so much to figure out. Like why can't she let her hair a little looser on top? And why can't she wear shoes with a little bit more of a heel? And will she ever really just know for a fact who she is going to marry, like her next-older sister, Emma, does? And how does it happen that her just-younger sister, Mandy, is going on a date before Lizzie ever has a real one?

Forced from San Francisco by the slanders of her ex-fiancé, Eden Paxton heads for the wilds of Colorado. But on her way, she’s abducted and abused by ruthless outlaws—until she’s rescued by Matthew Coulter, still obsessed with avenging his wife’s murder. As Eden and Matthew try to elude their pursuers, these two wounded souls struggle to reconcile their tragic pasts—and their growing attraction to one another.

High up on a mountain, young Clay-Boy Spencer joins his father and eight uncles to hunt the mythical white deer. What he finds on the mountainside changes his life - and marks him for a special destiny. Years later, Clay-Boy is the first in his family to get the chance to go to college; but success as an adult is much more complicated and bittersweet than the legendary success of Clay-Boy’s childhood quest.

Hotel magnate Brent Albright is poised to marry a woman he’s not totally wild about purely for business reasons. His betrothed, busy wedding planner Jackie Webb, has an equally impersonal agenda. Hope Webb has spent her entire life getting her twin sister Jackie out of fixes, and now Jackie’s in the biggest fix of all. She can’t eke out enough time to attend her own pre-wedding parties in beautiful Blue Hill, Maine. What starts out as a favor to impersonate the bride-to-be for one event turns into an all-week affair....

Naomi wasn’t just running away from her wedding. She was riding to the rescue of her twin. Too bad for Naomi, her evil twin hasn’t changed at all. After helping herself to Naomi’s car and cash, Tina leaves her with a niece she didn’t know she had. Now, she’s stuck in town with no car, no job, no home - and an 11-year-old to take care of. Since Naomi’s life imploded right in front of him, the least Knox can do is help her out. And just as soon as she's out of trouble, he can get back to his peaceful, solitary life. That’s the plan, until the trouble turns to real danger.

Claire has a problem with setting limits. All her life she has taken on every responsibility, assumed every burden, granted every request. Claire wants it all—and in the eyes of her friends, she has it: a devoted husband, four beautiful children, even a successful career as an artist. So when she agrees to chair the committee for Nantucket's social event of the year, she knows she can handle it. Claire can handle anything. But when planning the gala propels her into the orbit of billionaire Lock Dixon, unexpected sparks begin to fly.

Celebrating its 75th anniversary, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men remains one of America's most widely read and beloved novels. Here is Steinbeck’s dramatic adaptation of his novel-as-play, which received the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play in 1937-1938 and has featured a number of actors who have played the iconic roles of George and Lennie on stage and film, including James Earl Jones, John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.

Casey Duncan is a homicide detective with a secret: When she was in college, she killed a man. She was never caught, but he was the grandson of a mobster, and she knows that someday this crime will catch up to her. Casey's best friend, Diana, is on the run from a violent, abusive ex-husband. When Diana's husband finds her, and Casey herself is attacked shortly after, Casey knows it's time for the two of them to disappear again. Diana has heard of a town made for people like her, a town that takes in people on the run who want to shed their old lives.

The Amish community of Lancaster is being terrorized by barn fires. David and Malinda Beiler's barn was the first to go. The clues are sparse, but Levi, the Beilers' oldest son, happened to be awake in the middle of the night and spotted a white vehicle driving past the house with its lights off. Sarah, David and Malinda's daughter, observes her parents' agony. Not only is she afraid and wishing she could protect her parents, she's entranced by the flirtatious Matthew Stoltzfus.

An elderly gentleman checks into a B&B in a small village in rural Ireland where he knows nobody. Four days later, his body is found in the lake. The identity of their unknown guest raises questions for one family in particular, twin sisters Liv and Marianne, and their mother, Ethel, each of whom is searching for her own place in the world. The Ghostlights brilliantly evokes the lives of the people in the town and explores the aftershocks of a stranger’s tragedy.

Jane Bancroft has returned to Lovett, Tasmania after 20 years away, minus one ex-husband but plus one outraged teenage daughter. Life in the city – life in general – hasn’t quite panned out as she would have liked. With her mother unwell, now seems as good a time as any to come back to where it all began, and perhaps even start a new life here in the heart of Tasmanian apple country. But the legacy of Jane's wild apple youth has not been forgotten by small-town Lovett and her homecoming is haunted by past tragedy.

With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again.

Piper Kate McKenzie, mayor of Honey Creek, won't let a major scandal rip her quirky hometown apart, or jeopardize her dream of one day running for higher office. So she calls for reinforcements to find the source of corruption in the sheriff's office - two men recommended by her Texas Ranger brothers....

Leland Gaunt opens a new shop in Castle Rock called Needful Things. Anyone who enters his store finds the object of his or her lifelong dreams and desires: a prized baseball card, a healing amulet. In addition to a token payment, Gaunt requests that each person perform a little "deed", usually a seemingly innocent prank played on someone else from town. These practical jokes cascade out of control, and soon the entire town is doing battle with itself. Only Sheriff Alan Pangborn suspects that Gaunt is behind the population's increasingly violent behavior.