Showing titles in Small Town & Rural

In my perfect world I would be selling gourmet donuts, creating art that people loved, be married to my high school sweetheart, live in an adorable dream house. I had big plans for my life once, but nothing was turning out like I thought it would. One day I looked in the mirror and the strong, creative girl of my childhood wasn’t smiling back at me anymore. My aunt must’ve known something that I didn’t, because when she left me her cottage on Sweetwater Island, a tiny spark lit inside me. Could this be a second chance at the life I always dreamed of?

Violet Jacobs is fearless. At least, that's what the cowboys she snatches from under the hooves of bucking horses think. Outside the ring, she's got plenty of worries rattling her bones: her young son, her mess of a love life, and lately, her family's struggling rodeo. When she takes business into her own hands and hires on a hotshot bullfighter, she expects to start a ruckus. She never expected Joe Cassidy. Joe came to Texas to escape a life spiraling out of control. He never planned on sticking around.

Pregnant with her second child, Martha King finds her marriage to lawyer Austin King more and more frustrating when her husband befriends his young foster cousin, Nora, and, in the process, unwittingly jeopardizes his marriage, career, and place in the community.

Brody Green is finding it hard to recover after being dumped by his fiancée, Jenna Jones, then watching her walk down the aisle with someone else. Jenna is determined to make up for her love defection and find him the perfect woman, but Brody is done with love. First a divorce, then a broken engagement. From now on he’s keeping things light, no commitments. Luckily Brody’s business is booming. Beach Dreams Realty is the best real estate company in town. And the only one. Until…

Fourteen-year-old Cindy and her two older brothers live in rural Pennsylvania, in a house with occasional electricity, two fierce dogs, one book, and a mother who comes and goes for months at a time. Deprived of adult supervision, the siblings rely on one another for nourishment of all kinds. As Cindy's brothers take on new responsibilities for her care, the shadow of danger looms larger and the status quo no longer seems tolerable. So when a glamorous teen from a more affluent, cultured home goes missing, Cindy escapes her own family's poverty and slips into the missing teen's life.

A new life begins on Coconut Key when Beck and her family and friends are blessed with a beachfront sanctuary after the hurricane damages their side of the island. Although it is a haven where life and love carries on in an unforeseen way, they face a new set of challenges. As Beck rebuilds Coquina House into a beachfront B&B, she finds safety in a new romance. Her daughter, Savannah, learns how to be a mother and lands in a relationship unlike any she’s ever known.

When Rosie inherits the café on Marigold Marina, following her husband’s tragic death, she is determined to pour her heart into his dream. But when Kit, the owner of a bookshop barge, starts to come by regularly, she finds it difficult to ignore his dark eyes, disheveled curls, and warm smile. And just as Rosie starts to hope, letting herself open her heart a second time, she discovers the shocking secret that the husband she loved for so many years kept hidden from her.

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.

There is only one thing wrong with the charming community of Fool’s Gold, California: the men don’t stick around! This problem has to be fixed, fast, and Charity Jones may be just the city planner up to the challenge. Charity immediately falls in love with all the storybook town has to offer – except its sexy, famous, world-class cyclist Josh Golden. With her long list of romantic disasters, she’s not about to take a chance on another bad boy…but it may just be what they both need!

Isabel, the long-lost Gibson sister, is finally back home on Brinkley’s Island, Maine. With Sophie and Violet, her sister and her niece, she’s got the family bookstore—and with Johnny Lenox, she’s got something even more special. But even as life settles, not everything is falling into place. Isabel and Johnny have set the date three times, baked three wedding cakes, invited the whole island to three parties, only to have each attempt at matrimony fall apart at the last minute.

The job was simple. Answer the phone, solve the single dad’s dilemma, and move on. I’m the temporary solution. The fill-in. The short-term Single Dad Hotline Helper until a more suitable one can be found. I don’t get attached, I don’t stick around, and I certainly don’t fall for the single dad. Until the job said, “Hold my beer,” and tipped my world upside down.

In the vein of Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone and the works of Ron Rash, a novel set in a tough-and-tumble Mississippi town where drugs, whiskey, guns, and the desire for revenge violently intersect.

It's 1972 and times are changing. In the small farming community of Mason, Kansas, Vera and Kelly Exton are known for their ambitions. Vera is an activist who wants to join her boyfriend in the Peace Corps. But she is doing her duty caring for her widowed mother and younger sister until Kelly is firmly established. Kelly is studying to become a veterinarian. She plans to marry her childhood sweetheart and eventually take over his father's veterinary practice. But it's a tumultuous time and neither sister is entirely happy with the path that's been laid out for her.

Twenty-one years ago Jewel Sabatino left her childhood behind and never looked back. After a magical taste of fame, she found herself alone with a son to raise and not much else. She survived with the help of Michael, her one true friend. But now Michael is too sick to care for himself, and Jewel has run out of options. She leaves New York for the hills of Colorado, unsure if the family she ran from will welcome her back.

Ever since childhood, Emma Merrill and Sophia Mason were bound by a passion for painting. Like all young best friends, they promised to never lose touch. But the girls came from different worlds, and their paths diverged when Emma went to an elite college and Sophie worked her way through state school. After a decade they’ve reconnected, both in a time of need. Emma has been struggling with depression since her college years, and she’s lost herself under the suffocating influence of her controlling and manipulative mother.

In her debut novel, Carol Dunbar draws from her own lived experiences, vividly describing the wonder and harshness of life off the grid. Told over the course of a year, The Net Beneath Us is a lyrical exploration of loss, marriage, parenthood, and self-reliance; a tale of how the natural world—without and within us—offers us healing, if we can learn where to look.

Martha Detweiler has a problem many Amish women her age would envy: She’s the only single woman in a community of young men, and they’re all competing for her favor. Overwhelmed by the unwanted attention, Martha finds herself constantly fleeing from her would-be suitors, dismayed at what her life has come to. Birch Creek’s resident matchmaker, Cevilla Schlabach, suggests a solution: Martha and the bishop’s son, Seth Yoder, should pretend they are dating.

Rule number one: Never fall for the enemy. Rule number two: Never get involved with a local. Luna Copeland lives by those rules, which complicates things tremendously when her new boss turns out to be a former one-night stand. When Nate Warren left Whitecap years ago, he was certain he wouldn’t come back. But when his daughter starts acting up and getting into trouble, the small coastal town proves to be the best place for her. With an unruly teen on his hands, the last thing he has time for is romance. Unfortunately, he can’t get his sassy assistant out of his head.

With the ownership of the property settled, Eliza knows that she’s found the place where she belongs. But she can’t take a chance on something completely new until she finally lets go of the grief that has gripped her heart, and saying that last goodbye is one of the hardest things she’s ever had to do. Her sister, Claire, is tackling her own emotional challenges. While her lifelong fantasy for a reunion has finally happened, it comes with a cost. She must face the choices of her past, and fight for a love she never thought she could have…and still could lose at any minute.

Hadley Donavan can’t believe she has to go home to Nebraska for her sister’s wedding. She’s gonna need a wingman and a whole lot of vodka for this level of family interaction. At least her bestie agreed he’d man up and help. But then instead of her best friend, his evil twin strolls out of the airport.