Small Town & Rural

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival....

After a wild bet, gourmet grilled-cheese sandwich, and cuddle with a baby goat, Alexis Montgomery has had her world turned upside down. The cause: Daniel Grant, a ridiculously hot carpenter who’s ten years younger than her and as casual as they come....

Knox lives alone, and he likes it that way. Unfortunately, runaway bride Naomi is about to have her life implode on his doorstep.

A gripping literary puzzle that unwinds the private lives of ten women as they confront tragedy in a small Massachusetts town.

Grace Evans, an overworked New Yorker looking for a total escape from her busy life, books an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming. When she arrives at the idyllic getaway, she’s pleased to find that the owner is a handsome man by the name of Calvin Wells....

Set amid Colorado’s wild beauty, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story of a resilient young woman whose life is changed forever by one chance encounter....

In the highly-anticipated sequel to the national best seller The Life We Bury, Joe Talbert returns to investigate the murder of the father he never knew, and to reckon with his own family's past....

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....

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....

The year 1996 was the one that changed everything for Maggie Dawes. Sent away at 16 to live with an aunt she barely knew in Ocracoke, a remote village on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, she could think only of the friends and family she left behind - until she met Bryce Trickett....

A Black sheriff. A serial killer. A small town ready to combust....

He proposed . . . and I said yes. Normally a jovial occasion for a couple in love, but this proposal has a very different feel. Because the man that I'll be calling my husband blew into town with one thing on his mind . . . to make my life a living nightmare....

The beloved #1 New York Times bestselling author brings her Nantucket novels to a brilliant finish: when rich strangers move to the island, social mayhem and a possible murder follow....

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink....

Summer Sullivan, the youngest founding member of Elm Creek Quilts, has spent the last two years pursuing a master’s degree in history at the University of Chicago. Her unexpected return home to the celebrated quilter’s retreat is met with delight but also concern....

From the award-winning author of The One-in-a-Million Boy comes a heartfelt, uplifting novel about a chance encounter at a bookstore, exploring redemption, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.

When life took an unexpected turn, I decided to get out of New York for a while. What better place to go than the idyllic small town my father spoke about so fondly when I was growing up? Laurel Lake held the title America’s Friendliest Town for seventeen years running....

Jess Metcalf is perfectly content with her quiet, predictable life. But when her beloved grandmother passes away and she loses her job at the local library, Jess’ life is turned upside down....

From the bestselling author of In an Instant comes the moving story of a family grappling with grief and a woman with the power to help them through it—or stand in their way....

Maggie is 36, recently divorced and embarrassingly unemployed. With a bank account nearing zero, she does the only thing she can think of: make a business proposition to her gorgeous and successful estranged mother. To Maggie’s utter surprise, her mother agrees....

The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything - everything except books, that is. Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. She's also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else....

Minnesota, 1977. For the teens of one close-knit community, summer means late-night swimming parties at the quarry, the county fair, and venturing into the tunnels beneath the city. But for two best friends, it’s not all fun and games....

In the romantic tradition of Dear John, an injured Navy doctor meets two extremely important women whose secrets will change the course of his life in this number one New York Times best seller....

Revisit the packhorse librarians of Kentucky with this stunning companion to the New York Times best seller The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek....

After everything that the citizens of Beartown have gone through, they are struck yet another blow when they learn that their beloved local hockey team will soon be disbanded. What makes it worse is the obvious satisfaction that all the former Beartown players take in that fact....

Nashquitten, MA, is a decaying coastal enclave that not even tourist season can revive, full of locals who have run the town’s industries for generations. When a young woman dies at a house party, the circumstances around her death suspiciously unclear, the tight-knit community is shaken. As a mother grieves her daughter, a teacher her student, a best friend her confidante, the events around the tragedy become a lightning rod: blame is cast, secrets are buried deeper.

It is the summer of 1919, and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas.

From the award-winning author of The One-in-a-Million Boy comes a heartfelt, uplifting novel about a chance encounter at a bookstore, exploring redemption, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.

Karissa Newcomb is ready for a new start in a new neighborhood, as far away as she can get from Seattle, where her husband cheated on her with the neighbor who was supposed to be her best friend. She and her nine-year-old daughter are moving on to the city of Gig Harbor on the bay in Puget Sound. She even has a new job as an assistant at a small publishing company right in Gig Harbor. Her new boss seems like a bit of a curmudgeon, but a job is a job, she loves to read, and the idea of possibly meeting writers sounds fabulous.

It’s June 2021, and three old college friends are heading to New England and the twenty-fifth reunion that was delayed the year before. Hope, a stay-at-home mom, is desperate for a return to her beloved campus, a reprieve from her tense marriage, and the stresses of pandemic parenting. Adam is hesitant to leave his bucolic but secluded life with his wife and their young sons. Single mother Polly hasn’t been back to campus in more than twenty years and has no interest in returning—but changes her mind when her struggling teenage son suggests a road trip.

In the midst of family heartaches, can two young Amish people move past their grief and trust that God’s will includes finding happiness again?

Cecilia Lapthorne always vowed she’d never go back to Dune Cottage. So no one is more surprised than Cecilia to find herself escaping her own seventieth birthday party to return to the remote but beautiful cottage on Cape Cod—a place filled with memories. Some are good—especially memories of the early days with her husband, volatile artist Cameron, before his fame eclipsed their marriage. But then there are the memories she has revealed to no one. Especially not her daughter, Kristen, who hero-worshipped her father.

In the quiet seaside town of Blaine, Washington, the most serious police work involves dealing with stray coyotes or ticketing speeders along the I-5. But on Ethan Brand's first day as the town's chief of police, he finds a threat on his porch, along with a gruesome souvenir, a bloody animal heart. There are plenty of people who are upset about Ethan replacing the last Chief, but when a body shows up on the railroad tracks, Ethan has to turn his focus from the threats against him to the first homicide case the town has seen in years.

They last spoke as teens, but on a country road twelve years later, a surprise encounter reunites ornithologist Celia Burke with veterinary surgeon Burnaby Hayes, and they plunge into the most unusual romance of her life. After a decade of marriage, Celia and Burnaby have found a unique and beautiful rhythm. Then tragedy strikes while Celia hunts for the nest of a research hawk near the Snake River. Reeling with grief, she’s certain Burnaby won’t understand her anguish or forgive the choice that initiated it.

For someone so strong-willed and certain, Ella Yoder has never been more unsure of her life. It's been a year since she convinced her father to move with her and her younger sister Junia to Marigold, Ohio, to open E and J Grocery. Ella's got a keen eye for running a business and has big dreams to expand. But her plans are stalled because Junia refuses to lift a finger at the store—or listen to her about anything.

Every summer the peaches ripen in Port Peter, and the tourists arrive to gorge themselves on fruit and sun. They don't see the bird women, who cavort on the cliffs and live in a meadow beneath the lake. But when summer ends and the visitors go back home, every pregnant Port Peter girl knows what she needs to do: deliver her child to the Birds in a laundry basket on those same lakeside cliffs. But the Birds don't want Georgia Jackson.

It is 1936 in the small Italian city of Monza. On the pebbled bank of the Lambro, two frantic girls scramble to hide a body. A year earlier, Maddalena attracts stares everywhere she goes. ‘The Cursed One’, they whisper, as tales of the harm she’s inflicted upon those that have crossed her ignite fear and scorn amongst the townspeople. Francesca is not scared like the others. Respectable, well-behaved and yearning for a life beyond provincial conformity, she is drawn to Maddalena’s rebellious spirit.

Mandy Rockwell has a bun in the oven and sugary dreams dancing in her head. Sure, she's hit pause on the whole "men" thing, but opening her dream bakery? That's a recipe she's still perfecting, even if it involves moving back to grandma's cozy nook. Enter Luke Ward. Once a pediatric pro, a heart-wrenching event has him shifting gears. While the idea of treating kids is off the table, his passion for healing hasn't dimmed a bit. And now tending to a lively community of retirees feels like it just might be the perfect fit.

Riley McKinley adores Christmas. But this year, instead of decking the halls, she's chasing a career-defining deal away from home. Sebastian Rockwell, on the other hand, is a total grinch, who'd rather be out playing in the snow than taking part in a frenzy of festivities. When a devastating avalanche traps them together, it will have them questioning the meaning of the holidays. Could an unexpected romance redefine the spirit of the season for them both?

When Louise Gordon left her small Alaskan hometown, she vowed to keep those snow-touched memories—and a certain heartbreak—far behind her. But a call from the past tugs her back, with every intention of making it a whirlwind visit to settle an estate. Easy in, easy out, without so much as a glance at the one who once shattered her dreams. Brady Rockwell, on the other hand, has his cowboy boots firmly planted in Alaska's soil. The star rodeo rider has seen many horizons but always felt the shadow of the one that got away. In a town where everyone knows everyone, it's hard not to think of her.