Rural Town

This magisterial collection of short works by Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner reminds listeners of his ability to compress his epic vision into narratives as hard and wounding as bullets. Among the 42 selections in this audiobook are such classics as "A Bear Hunt", "A Rose for Emily", "Two Soldiers", and "The Brooch".

In the seaside town of Kinlough, on Ireland’s west coast, three old friends are thrown together for the first time in years. They—Helen, Joe, and Mush—were part of an original group of six inseparable teenagers in the summer of 2003, with motherless, reckless Kala Lanann as their group’s white-hot center. Soon after that summer’s peak, Kala disappeared without a trace. Now it’s fifteen years later.

The quiet 1960s midwestern life of the Land family is upended when son Davy kills two marauders who have come to harm the family. The morning of his sentencing, Davy (a hero to some, a cold-blooded murderer to others) escapes from his cell, and the Lands set out in search of him. Their journey is touched by serendipity and the kindness of strangers, and they cover territory even more extraordinary than the Badlands, where they search for Davy from their Airstream trailer.

Lottery winner and ex-journalist Donal Fitzgerald joins forces with his girlfriend, DNR conservation officer Mercy Virdon, to solve the mysterious death of a beloved angler, Charlie, who was murdered in his tent in a state campground and who was known by all - and who may have known too much. Set in the engaging small town of Ossning on the Borchard River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula - an angler’s dream, filled with eccentric, believable, sympathetic, and unforgettable characters - Riverwatcher is a classic whodunit.

December 1965. ‘Tis the season once again in the cozy Irish village of Ballybucklebo, which means that Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, his young colleague Barry Laverty, and their assorted friends, neighbors, and patients are enjoying all their favorite holiday traditions: caroling, trimming the tree, finding the perfects gifts for their near and dear ones, and anticipating a proper Yuletide feast complete with roast turkey and chestnut stuffing. There’s even the promise of snow in the air, raising the prospect of a white Christmas.

Marshall is still trying to put the pieces together after the death of her husband. After she is involved in a terrible accident, her editor sends her to the small, backwards town of Raeford to investigate a clearly ridiculous rumor: that a horse has given birth to a healthy, human baby boy. When Marshall arrives in Raeford, she finds an insular town that is kinder to the horses they are famous for breeding than to their own people. But when two horribly mangled bodies are discovered in a field—one a horse, one a human—she realizes that there might be a real story here.

Quatre femmes, quatre époques, quatre destins tragiques. Katia Gagnon nous surprend avec un roman sombre, aux tonalités fantastiques et au suspense haletant. Il y a d’abord Thérèse, dans les années 1990, qui soudain voit surgir de son passé un être qui viendra l’aider à se libérer enfin d’un fardeau qu’elle porte depuis des années. Il y a Michèle qui, à la faveur de la révolution sexuelle des années 1970, veut réinventer la vie, le couple, et oublier la mort que quelqu’un a déposée au plus profond de son être quand elle était toute petite.

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.

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village”, since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left - a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn - have plagued her. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.

There was a time when the world was sweeter...when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats.... Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort High. Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn that he'd been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he'd fall for was Jamie, the shy, almost ethereal daughter of the town's Baptist minister....

Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its uproarious humor and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, is storytelling at its most generous. Nobody’s Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, and Melody Griffith.

Sculptor Nick Mitchell grew up in a family of artists and learned from his volatile father that passion leads only to pain. As he waits on a new commission, he takes a day job as a humble carpenter at a theme wedding venue. The job has its perks - mainly the venue's captivating owner, Pallas Saunders. Although he won't let love consume him, for ecstasy with an expiration date, he's all in.

In "A Taste of Murder," the third Bunburry book, a local beef farmer is found dead and Betty Thorndike, vegetarian and Bunburry's only Green Party member, is in the frame. Despite what everyone thinks, Betty is absolutely not Alfie McAlister's girlfriend. But Alfie knows what it's like to be wrongly accused, and enlists the help of his fellow amateur detectives, Liz and Marge, to find out who's responsible. There's just one problem about a farm-based investigation - Alfie's scared of cows.

Gemma Guillory has lived in the Australian Outback enclave of Rainier her entire life. She knows the tiny, red-dust town’s ins and outs by heart, knows the people like they are her family, their quirks as if they were her own. She also knows her once charming town is now remembered for one reason and one reason only: three innocent people died there at the hands of a serial killer. The last stop on the Rainier Ripper’s trail of deaths fifteen years ago was her picturesque little tea shop.

Cecil Younger is a man who takes comfort in the absurdity of the universe, and the universe is obliging him when he gets a call from his lawyer and psychiatrist, who offers him a job. A client wants to hire Younger to kill someone. Though common sense tells him murder just isn't a good career move, his finances tell him it can't hurt to meet his potential client, hoping he can succeed in appeasing him - without a dead body.

The New Year brings challenges and changes to the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. The Christmas holidays have barely passed before a fire engulfs the humble thatched cottage housing of Donal Donnally and his family. Although the family escapes the blaze more or less unsinged, Donal, his wife, their three small children, and their beloved dog find themselves with nothing left but the clothes on their back.

It's been a few months since murder tore apart the community of Champton apart. As Canon Daniel Clement tries to steady his flock, the parish is joined with Upper and Lower Badsaddle, bringing a new tide of unwanted change. But church politics soon become the least of Daniel's problems. His mother - headstrong, fearless Audrey - is obviously up to something, something she is determined to keep from him. And she is not the only one.

Long before Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly became a fixture in the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, he was a young M.B. with plans to marry midwife Dierdre Mawhinney. Those plans were complicated by the outbreak of World War II and the call of duty. Assigned to the HMS Warspite, a formidable 30,000-ton battleship, Surgeon Lieutenant O'Reilly soon found himself face-to-face with the hardships of war, tending to the dreadnought's crew of 1,200 as well as to the many casualties brought aboard.

Ten years later, I'm back on the island for my best friend's wedding as her maid of honor. Who's the first person I literally stumbled into? Riley Dixon. Even worse? He's the groom's best man and a self-made billionaire to boot. Being forced to spend an entire week together for wedding festivities quickly leads to more—hot hate sex, late nights of sneaking out, and unexpected revelations. The boy I knew a decade ago is gone, and the hate becomes… something else entirely. And I begin to wonder if Riley is hiding some secrets of his own.

In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island where they can make a life together. Over a century later, the Honeys’ descendants and a diverse group of neighbors are desperately poor, isolated, and often hungry, but nevertheless protected from the hostility awaiting them on the mainland.