Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Small Town & Rural

Gabriela Menchaca and Edwin Saucedo are hardworking, undocumented employees at the Detmer Foods chicken plant in Springdale, Arkansas, just a stone’s throw from the trailer park where they’ve lived together for seven years. While dealing with personal tragedies of their own, the young couple endures the brutal, dehumanizing conditions at the plant in exchange for barebones pay.

When Paul Elias receives a terminal diagnosis, he leaves his physician's office in a fog. Only one thing is clear to him: If he is going to die, he must find someone to watch over his granddaughter, Pearl, who has been in his charge since her drug-addicted father disappeared. Paul decides to take her back to Nysa - both the place where he grew up and the place where he lost his beloved wife under strange circumstances 40 years earlier. But when he picks up Pearl from school, the little girl already seems to know of his plans, claiming a woman told her.

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.

Unspoiled by the trappings of wealth, Judy Lovin shunned the family fortune to take a job teaching preschool. But with her father’s empire on the verge of collapse thanks to a hostile corporate takeover, Judy reluctantly rides to the rescue. Her negotiations bring her face-to-face with the beast himself, a ruthless tycoon who takes what he wants—and what he wants is Judy. Shocked at her attraction to a man she was prepared to loathe, Judy agrees to his terms: alone time with him at his island getaway.

Summer, 1980. Kate Shaw has lived in Baines Creek for ten years, teaching at a one-room schoolhouse on the brink of closure. A skeptic by heart, she rejects superstition and the belief in Appalachian folklore, much to the chagrin of Birdie Rocas, a lively and reclusive witch with a trove of secrets. Yet when Birdie dies and leaves Kate her Book of Truths and a trunk of illuminated manuscripts and journals, Kate is thrown into a mystery, overwhelmed by a collection that spans centuries back to Scotland.

For weeks, Lesley had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of her new neighbor. Since the house next door was the only other home in sight, she hoped that the new tenant would also become a friend. From the moment she saw him, Lesley knew Cole Daniels was an enigma. His dark, mesmerizing eyes didn't excuse his arrogance. His gentle concern for the wild deer in the woods out back didn't clear him of suspicion. There was definitely something mysterious about Cole—a handsome man who seemed to be hiding from the world. What was his secret?

Empty nester and widow Riva Owen lives in the Victorian house that's been in her family for three generations, but finances have become a challenge she can no longer ignore. Her daughter is pushing her to move, and after considering all her options, Riva knows selling would be the smartest course. But she just can't bring herself to leave years of memories—and her cherished library filled with hundreds of books.

From the Ozark mountains edged in oak and pine, to the outlaw paradise of Hot Springs, Arkansas—where gangsters like Al Capone line the bar at the Southern Club—the sisters’ quests for vengeance, healing, and love will drive them forward, in search of a future as transformative and powerful as the purest Strong moonshine.

Rayne Rothchild returns to Polk Island after years away. She left her husband after their impulsive marriage. She can’t believe she wed her boss, Taylor Carrington … and now she’s the mother of their twins! The holiday season is the perfect time to reconnect with her estranged family … until Taylor shows up, hurt, shocked and needing answers.

Starri Knight is a big believer in fate. How else to explain the compelling connection she feels to the stranger she pulls out of a wrecked car on the very same road where her parents died twenty years earlier? Alongside Auntie OnaMay, the only mother she’s ever known, Starri saves Rusty O’Sullivan’s life—just as Ona-May once did when Starri was an orphaned babe. But convincing Rusty he has something to live for is going to take all of Starri’s faith in miracles …

It is 1952, and nearly all the girls 16-year-old Bertha Harding knows dream of getting married, keeping house, and raising children in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. Bertha dreams of baseball. She reads every story in the sports section, she plays ball with the neighborhood boys—she even writes letters to the pitcher for the Workington Sweet Peas, part of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

Usually sensible Layla Price stuns herself when she spends the night with a handsome stranger. Blaming it on a freak rainstorm and Bastian Raynes’s heroic rescue, Layla believes she’ll never see him again. She’s only in this small town to end some silly family feud. Except … Bastian’s family is on the other end of that feud and Layla’s hiding her real identity. Adding this new drama to the old, Layla should steer clear of the former military man. But can she?

Keely Tucker knows designing a showstopping wedding dress for a movie starlet is the career-making opportunity of a lifetime. But Jacob Chatman has sent her focus into a tailspin! When a blackout leaves her stranded with a rancher she can’t resist, their passion practically sets the sheets on fire. Jacob admires her drive … but is their hookup worth Keely risking her hard-earned ambitions for a life in Texas?

Success is everything to chef Terian LaCroix—his demanding father will accept no less. And his drive to be the best meant betraying Aubrie DuGrandpre. Aubrie is stunned when unexpected circumstances push them together to open a restaurant on Polk Island…and Terian is all in. His plans are sound, but he’s just as hard to resist as he was in culinary school. Could forgiving him put love on the menu?

Things in the fishing town of Cold Storage, Alaska, are changing. It's the summer of 1968; the men are wearing their hair long, the Vietnam War is at its height, and multiple assassinations have gripped the country. But some things remain the same. Ellie's bar is still the place to catch up on the town gossip, and there's a lot to talk about, from the boys who have returned from the war (and the ones who haven't), to the robberies that are plaguing the locals, to the new guy in town: a famous monk from Kentucky.

In a dry Kansas riverbed, a troop of young girls finds a human hand. This discovery leads Billy Spire, the tough and broken sheriff of Ewing County, to investigate and confront the depths of his community and of himself: the racism, the dying economy, the lies and truths of friendship, grievances of the past and present, and even his own injured marriage. To flyover folks, Ewing County appears nothing more than a handful of empty streets amid crop circles and the meandering, depleted Arkansas River. The truth of this place—the interwoven lives and stories—is anything but simple.

The small town of Belle Haven, Louisiana, is still struggling with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill, and its residents will do whatever it takes to get it back on its feet. So when local English teacher Carissa Melody Wayne is asked to appear on the weight-loss reality show Losing to Win, she agrees. She doesn't realize that others from her past will be joining her, including her high school nemesis, an acquaintance who's been nursing a long-time crush on her - and most shocking of all, Carissa's ex-fiancé...

Three years ago, someone brutally killed four people on the scow Mygirl. In a crowded courtroom, Cecil Younger helped the accused go free. Now the man charged with the Mygirl murders has disappeared. As a new father, Cecil just wants to move on from the Mygirl killings, but finds he can't just walk away when more and more people associated with the case end up dead. Younger is certain someone is trying to finish the grisly job begun on the Mygirl. He must discover the truth behind what happened three years ago before he can settle what's happening now.

There's no place like home - especially when home is Crocker County, Iowa. Jane Willow may have moved to Los Angeles to become a famous film critic, but when a family tragedy prompts her return to Crocker County, Iowa, for the first time in 18 years, she is forced to confront everything she left behind - including her local fame for the 1993 Corn Queen crowning fiasco. Before Jane can escape her past a second time, disaster strikes, and she will have to find a way to right her mistakes and save herself from her regrets.

Ten years ago, Julie Portland accidentally killed her best friend, Reba. What's worse is she got away with it. Consumed by guilt, she left the small town of Lawrence Mill, Mississippi, and swore nothing would ever drag her back. Now, raising her daughter and struggling to make ends meet in Manhattan, Julie still can't forget the ghost of a girl with golden hair and a dangerous secret.