Rural 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.

Set in familiar Steinbeck territory, To a God Unknown is a mystical tale, exploring one man's attempt to control the forces of nature and, ultimately, to understand the ways of God.

Lucas Goodgame lives in Majestic, Pennsylvania, a quaint suburb that has been torn apart by a recent tragedy. Everyone in Majestic sees Lucas as a hero—everyone, that is, except Lucas himself. Insisting that his deceased wife, Darcy, visits him every night in the form of an angel, Lucas spends his time writing letters to his former Jungian analyst Karl. It is only when Eli, an 18-year-old young man whom the community has ostracized, begins camping out in Lucas’s backyard that an unlikely alliance takes shape and the two begin a journey to heal their neighbors and themselves.

1940, Great Paxford, Cheshire. When a spitfire crashes in the village, the lives of an extraordinary community of women will change forever: Frances Barden's greatest challenge is only just beginning; Pat Simms received a respite when her abusive husband went to war, but now he's home Pat doesn't know who to turn to; and for newlyweds Teresa and Nick, the plane crash on their wedding day may just be the start of their troubles.

In 1916, Sven Ormson leaves a restless life in Stockholm to seek adventure in Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago where darkness reigns four months of the year and he might witness the splendor of the Northern Lights one night and be attacked by a polar bear the next. But his time as a miner ends when an avalanche nearly kills him, leaving him disfigured, and Sven flees even further, to an uninhabited fjord. There, with the company of a loyal dog, he builds a hut and lives alone, testing himself against the elements.

Single mom Annie has spent years rebuilding her life and trying not to have regrets. After giving up her dream of music stardom, she returned to her Adirondack hometown—and convinced herself she’s content with a simpler life. A divorced dad, Seth Taggart used to be a successful LA songwriter. But now his reputation is in tatters, he’s burnt out, and estranged from his adult son. Inheriting a small-town radio station just might be the do-over he needs. When working with Annie turns into sharing music and more, Seth realizes second chances—and home—are where he least expects.

A daring WWII pilot who grew up among the clouds, Juliet Caron’s life was one of courage, adventure - and a love torn apart by war. Every nook of her Cornish cottage is alive with memories just waiting to be discovered. Katherine Henderson has escaped to Cornwall for Christmas, but she soon finds there is more to her holiday cottage than meets the eye. And on the eve of Juliet’s 100th birthday, Katherine is enlisted to make an old lady’s final Christmas wish come true....

From best-selling authors in the Amish genre come four delicious stories perfect for celebrating love, joy, and the holiday season. "Cookies and Cheer" by Amy Clipston: Alyssa Byler wants to build a sugar cookie nativity scene for her bakery’s Christmas window display - all she needs is the right cookie cutters. She turns to handsome blacksmith Kyle Smoker.

Sullivan Bradshaw is in way over his head. A car crash killed his brother, Matthias, and critically injured his sister-in-law. It's Sullivan's turn to care for the couple's six children and the ancestral farm, but the die-hard bachelor and art professor is hardly family-man material. What he needs is the perfect nanny/miracle worker/saint. What he gets is pretty Rumer Truehart, a free spirit who will change everything he ever thought he wanted....

Librarian Chloe Sampson has been struggling: to take care of her three younger siblings, to find herself, to make ends meet. She’s just about at the end of her rope when she stumbles across a rare edition of a book from the 1960s at the local flea market. Deciding it’s a sign of her luck turning, she takes it home with her—only to be shocked when her cranky hermit of a neighbor swoops in and offers to buy it for an exorbitant price. Intrigued, Chloe takes a closer look at the book only to find notes scribbled in the margins between two young lovers back when the book was new.

Marshall Miller would’ve remembered her face even if he hadn’t seen it on a MISSING poster. When a young woman disappears in his small town, the investigation hinges on Marshall’s haunted sighting of her, crying in the back seat of a police car driven by a cop named Maddox. There’s only one problem: no local cop named Maddox exists. But the speeding ticket he handed to Marshall certainly does.

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?

After surviving a devastating tragedy, combat reporter Nate Garrison returns to the only place that ever felt like home: Starfish Bay on the Northern California coast. But his reunion with childhood friend Lindsey Collier is nothing like he’d imagined. The wary widow who runs Starfish Bay Mercantile was once the girl who made young Nate dream—of a future, of family ties, of deep roots. Now Lindsey avoids love, loss … and Nate. Yet when they join forces to save a beloved town landmark and help a hurting little boy, might they also find healing, hope—and love?

My life was perfectly fine before I jumped into the ocean fully clothed. Great job, perfect apartment, good enough boyfriend. So why did I turn up soaking wet at the beach bar of a very rough around the edges, very hot single dad and insist he hire me?

Adopted at 13, Dell Jordan was loved, mentored, and encouraged to pursue her passion for music. Now, at 20, after a year abroad with a traveling symphony, a scholarship to Julliard is within reach. But underneath Dell's smoothly polished surface lurk mysteries from the past. Why did her mother abandon her? Who was her father? Are there faces somewhere that look like hers - blood relatives she's never met? Determined to find answers, Dell sets off on a secret journey into Oklahoma's Kiamichi Mountains, drawn by the only remaining link to her origins.

Part love story and part ghost story, this is an unforgettable New York Times best seller about a science journalist and a North Carolina librarian who dare to believe in the impossible. As a science journalist with a regular column in Scientific American, Jeremy Marsh specializes in debunking the supernatural - until he falls in love with the granddaughter of the town psychic. When Jeremy receives a letter from Boone Creek, North Carolina, about ghostly lights appearing in a cemetery, he can't resist driving down to investigate.

The first time I met the grumpy lumberjack next door, I almost burnt down his cabin. The second time, I was throwing tampons at a moose (don't ask). The third time, I was naked. Henri Gagnon is not just my neighbor and landlord but a pain in my optimistic, plus-sized ass. He's got a protective streak under his grumpy exterior, and he's convinced I won't make it through the Maine winter.

Twenty miles across the North Dakota border, where the scenery goes from rolling grass prairie to pipeline fields, detective Cassie Dewell has been assigned as the new deputy sheriff of Grimstad - a place people used to be from but were never headed to. Grimstad is now the oil capital of North Dakota. With oil comes money, with money comes drugs, and with drugs come the dirtiest criminals hustling to corner the market.

Back in the summer of 1988, a young Richard Chizmar was catapulted into the center of a living nightmare as the serial killer Joshua Gallagher—dubbed by the media as “The Boogeyman”—stalked his tranquil Maryland town. A lot has changed in the intervening years. These days, Chizmar enjoys a certain level of celebrity and notoriety himself, being the only person that an incarcerated Josh Gallagher will speak to on or off the record.

Tucker Cahill destroyed everything he touched. He disappeared from Gilt Edge, Montana, to become a better man. But time never erased the past and when a teenage girl's remains and a mysterious stranger are found on his family's ranch - he has no choice but to face his demons. The truth that sent him running years ago could take away his freedom now. Serena Culbertson came to town in search of a killer. What she finds is a tortured and irresistible man who's not what he appears. Unconvinced that Tucker is a cold-blooded murderer and drawn deeper into twisted game that's not over yet, she must prove his innocence. If she doesn't, the consequences may prove fatal for them both.