Showing titles in Small Town & Rural

Port Kingerton: the insular cray-fishing town at the butt-end of South Australia, where everyone knows everyone. And everyone knows too that when Abigail Fancy left town at seventeen, she hung out the window of her boyfriend's Corolla, middle fingers held high, swearing she'd never come back. And she hasn't, until now. At her parents' house Abigail finds a party (read: town meeting) in full swing over something iffy found on the beach—a thigh bone.

When 73-year-old Jen announces that she is going to marry Eddie, a man she met just a few months previously on a beach on Boxing Day, her four best friends from aqua aerobics are flabbergasted. The wedding is booked and, when the groom decides to have a stag trip to Las Vegas, the ladies arrange a hen party to beat all others - a week in the city of love, Paris.

Working with kids is totally my jam, and I'm damn good at what I do. Just call me Maxy Frickin' Poppins! When a new job prospect comes my way, I'm intrigued. A chance to move to Mystic Hollow (aka Monsters Hollow) to be a well-paid manny for two adorable orclings? Talk about a dream position. Sold! But when I lock eyes with the seriously sexy orc who's their guardian—and my new de facto boss—for the first time, I'm a goner. Big, muscular, and green all over–he's giving me full-on Hulk meets stern professor vibes—and I like it.

Logan Murphy should come with a warning. He’s as hot as a Carolina Reaper on black asphalt in the middle of July. With perfectly messy dark hair and smoldering blue eyes—and don’t even get me started on the way that black tee stretches across his toned chest… He’s my brother’s best friend. He’s also a football star on track to win the first wide-receiver MVP in league history. Good thing I only date golfers… or I did.

“From exactly midnight until daybreak, the Namiya General Store advice box will be reopening for one night only.” When three delinquents hole up in an abandoned general store after their most recent robbery, to their great surprise, a letter drops through the mail slot in the store’s shutter. This seemingly simple request for advice sets the trio on a journey of discovery as, over the course of a single night, they step into the role of the kindhearted former shopkeeper who devoted his waning years to offering thoughtful counsel to his correspondents.

On 21 January 1804, Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At 31 years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses. Her mother has died, and she has nowhere else to go. Anne is left with no choice. For her new charge—12-year-old Fanny Austen—Anne's arrival is all novelty and excitement.

After making a mistake that felt like the end of the world to her teenage self, Nina Jones fled the small town of Huntingvale. Now 16 years later, her beloved adoptive mother, Bea, has passed away, forcing Nina to return and decide whether to sell her family home, Riverstone Ridge. But even though Bea can't be there to help her through it all, she's left Nina five letters, one sent a week, to finally share the secrets she'd been unable to reveal in life.

In a village in Wiltshire, just off a busy road, Larch Tree Lane winds slowly up a low hill. Among the residents is Maggie Hatherall, full of life despite her advancing years, who worries what she is going to do with her 200-year-old home. Lucia Grey has escaped a bad marriage but her ex is reluctant to let her start a new life free of him. And for architect Corin Drayton, an unexpected inheritance is the start of a complicated family wrangle. From the cottages and farms to the local shop, pub and old manor house, the residents' lives are set to intertwine and relationships bloom.

Vera Gallagher is chasing constant. For four years, her life was anything but normal. And the years before that she refuses to even remember. Dwelling on the past only hurts. Life is fragile, a lesson her mother taught her well. She’s determined not to waste a moment of her newfound freedom. Maybe some would consider her crush on Mateo Eden wasted time. Maybe some would call her a fool for loving a man who hasn’t once dropped a crumb of interest her way. Still, to Vera, it’s Mateo or nothing.

As the Hughes family celebrates bonfire night, a terrible accident leaves the garden shed in flames - and father and grandfather Thomas trapped inside. Tragic though it is, Thomas’ death passes without suspicion - until a local journalist makes accusations of a police cover-up in the press. WPC Trudy Loveday is sent to investigate and asks Coroner Clement Ryder to help.

A collection of stories capturing what it means to be a cowboy.

Small town handywoman Hazel Lee has learned to live her best life regardless of what the universe throws at her. But her patience is sorely tested when a bossy, big-city executive blows in and starts questioning Hazel's motives for helping an elderly friend. High-powered businesswoman Imogen Alexander has her career all set. Then her elderly uncle takes a bad fall in his home. Imogen figures she can surely run his life as tightly as her work, but she doesn't count on an annoying local woman being all up in his business.

Elsa Remington Steel pledged to love one man for the rest of her life. Aiden was a bright light, a wild personality, a beautiful soul. He was her husband and the father of her three wonderful children. Two years before, when they learned of his diagnosis, Elsa felt his death coming like a storm. After all, her brother had died at age ten, her mother had died when she was sixteen, and her father's health was on the decline. In Elsa's eyes, her world quickly fell apart. It was just expected.

After 30 years of marriage, and a wonderful family Christmas, Louisa is stunned when husband Kip asks for a divorce on Boxing Day. He’d never seemed unhappy – and they’ve raised three children together. For months, Kip has been secretly seeing a younger woman – and if that wasn’t bad enough – it’s the woman who broke their youngest son’s heart. Now Kip is moving out and embarking on a new life with Zoe, and Louisa is left to pick up the pieces. Their beloved family home, Charity Cottage, is up for sale, and tensions are running high.

I've spent my entire life running. No more. The past is finally catching up to me, and my secrets won't stay buried as trouble looms on the horizon. I must face the monster who spent a decade torturing me. For myself. My daughter. The countless other victims that he silenced with his brutality. This town gave me everything. I have to protect it, or I'll lose the ones I love forever.

For years, Isobel Latimer has composed serious novels for serious people, but to dwindling acclaim and ever-more dwindling gain. Now her husband is ill and she must carry their financial burden alone, and in secret. But if the public don’t want careful moral fables any longer, why not provide an outrageous tale of sex and satanism, and an author to match? The incomparable, uncontrollable Zelda de Vere is born.

Paige Bennett is fulfilling her childhood dream of working and living on the land as a station hand on Whitetail Ridge. Getting her hands dirty, riding horses, working with cattle and kicking up red dust. Life can't get much better. Or so she thinks, until a devastating act of violent betrayal leaves her unemployed, homeless and broken. A fight with his father drove Jackson Brady off Karilga, his family's cattle station in the Queensland outback. Now he's made a life for himself away from the land, joining a band and settling into the city.

Fiona is devastated when her husband Charlie commits suicide after the accidental shooting of his friend. Though Fiona decides to keep farming their successful property, rumours that she intends to sell keep circulating. When Detective Burrows arrives to sign off on the investigation into Eddie's death, his suspicions are aroused by some strange anomalies at the scene. As Dave becomes increasingly convinced that something sinister is going on, Fiona finds herself dealing with disasters at the farm.

Arriving at High Wraith cottage, Detective Morgan Brookes joins her horrified team, who have found a woman’s body chained and dangling from the gnarled branch of an old oak tree. It’s a race against time to preserve any evidence as heavy rain destroys the scene, but they’ve already identified the victim as a woman who once tried to kill her own family. Twenty years ago, Margery Lancaster went to prison for poisoning her husband and infant son. They both survived, and Morgan must treat the pair as her first suspects.

Savannah Abbott was my best friend growing up, and the reason I could be the best version of myself. But then, without warning, she was gone. And my life began unravelling the day she left. My guard went up, and my ability to trust people disappeared. But now, Savannah is back in Magnolia Falls, and she’s acting like I’m the enemy. That is, until she needs a favour. A temporary husband.