Rural Town

Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the fictional Val de Follet in the Loire Valley. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really that’s the way he likes it. One day, however, one of his older guests disappears, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the wallpaper. Another guest, the exotic Valérie, persuades a reluctant Richard to join her in investigating the disappearance. Richard remains a dazed passenger in the case until things become really serious and someone murders Ava Gardner, one of his beloved hen...and you don’t mess with a fellow’s hens!

Chief of Police Ed Kapenash is about to retire. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce. But when a 22-million-dollar summer home is purchased by the mysterious Richardsons—how did they make their money, exactly?—Ed, Sharon, and everyone in the community are swept up in high drama. The Richardsons throw lavish parties, flirt with multiple locals, flaunt their wealth with not one but two yachts, and raise impossible hopes of everyone they meet. When their house burns to the ground and their most essential employee goes missing, the entire island is up in arms.

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....

At Cold Mountain Penitentiary, the convicted killers on E Block await their turn to walk the Green Mile and keep a date with the electric chair. Paul Edgecombe has seen his share of oddities in his years working as a guard on the Mile, but he's never met anyone like John Coffey.

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.

Set in the eccentric backwater of Karakarook (pop. 1,374), New South Wales, this is the story of Douglas Cheeseman, a shy and clumsy engineer with jug-ears who meets Harley Savage, a woman who is known for being rather large and abrupt. Douglas is there to pull down a quaint old bridge, and Harley aims to foster heritage. They are clearly on a collision course - but when they meet they are unaware that something unexpected is going to happen....

Kelli Montgomery spent the previous twenty years in a loveless and abusive marriage. Last Christmas, after her brother, Andy, arrived home after decades away, she finally found the strength to leave her husband—but as anyone who’s ever been through such trauma knows, what happens next—the healing process, the rebirth which is the hardest, and most grueling part of healing. Years ago, Kelli and her ex took over her parents’ prosperous real estate business. Now that Mike has officially left the island, the work has fallen on Kelli’s shoulders.

Holt Davidson, a Kansas firefighter, hasn’t been back to his hometown of Thompsonville, Colorado, for more than two decades, but when he learns that his estranged mother has taken her own life, he returns for the funeral, hoping to make peace with her memory. He spends the night at his childhood home, rummaging through each room, exploring the past. But instead of nostalgic souvenirs, he discovers a gun, a love letter, and a Polaroid photograph of a man lying in his own blood. Who is the dead man? Was his mother the one who killed him, and, if so, why? Who sent the love letter?

On New Year’s Day, Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance. The body is found close to the home of a lonely outcast and local suspicion falls firmly on him. But when Inspector Jimmy Perez insists on broadening the search for suspects, a veil of distrust and fear is thrown over the entire community.

The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of Rares. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing. Dora becomes Miss B.’s apprentice, and together they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labours, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives.

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.

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?

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.

When a big New York theater production comes to Zinnia, Mississippi, murder takes center stage - and Sarah, it turns out, is the star suspect.

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.

The youth theatre cast are in their places but Gus Lynch’s female lead is missing, that is, until she’s found in the boot of his car. Detective Inspector Stephen Ramsay and Sergeant Gordon Hunter are assigned to head the murder enquiry, meanwhile violence is escalating on the Starling Farm Estate as police battle to contain the latest outbreak of joyriding. Is the death of Gabriella connected to the events at Starling Farm? When another death occurs, investigations suggest a possible link, and Ramsay realizes what could have provoked someone to kill...and kill again.

From the author of A Walk to Remember comes a moving tale of redemption and first love when a rebellious teenager decides to spend the summer with her estranged father in a North Carolina beach town. Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alienated from her parents, especially her father...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him.

Andrew Montgomery is the black sheep of the Montgomery family. Seventeen years ago, Andy and his best friend, Kurt, took off for the army and planned to never look back. Once overseas, they realized the depths of their mistake. But once Kurt died in combat, Andy decided to turn his back on his past for good. Years later, Andrew is bound to the US again with an injury. A phone call a few weeks before Christmas changes everything and beckons him home. His father has been involved in a horrible car accident. When Andrew returns to the island, he finds himself in the center of so many ghosts.

The last place city girl Cecily Kennedy expected to end up was a cattle ranch. But she needs a job—and refuge from her abusive soon-to-be ex-husband. If only her new boss, Austin Wells, would make it clear whether he hates her or wants her. His gaze makes her feel things she hasn't in years. However, getting over her ex by getting under her grumpy boss isn't worth the potential fallout.

Maya Andersson and Benji Ovich, two young people who left in search of a life far from the forest town, come home and joyfully reunite with their closest childhood friends. There is a new sense of optimism and purpose in the town, embodied in the impressive new ice rink that has been built down by the lake. Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it.