Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Small Town & Rural

Karen Sommerfield has been hiding from the big questions of her life - the emotional distance in her marriage, her inability to have children, and her bout with cancer. Getting lost in her high-powered career provides the sense of purpose she yearns for. Until the day she's downsized out of her job and the doctor tells her the cancer may be back. It's a double blow that would send anyone reeling.

Penguin presents the audio edition of A Slipping Down Life by Anne Tyler. In a small Southern town teenager Evie Decker becomes obsessed with local rock singer Bertram 'Drumstrings' Casey and decides to take her life into her own hands. When she carves his name on her forehead their two lives become unforgettably entwined in this remarkable novel.

The area surrounding Cashiers, North Carolina, is home to people of all kinds, but the world that Jacob McNeely lives in is crueler than most. His father runs a methodically organized meth ring, with local authorities on the dime to turn a blind eye to his dealings. Having dropped out of high school and cut himself off from his peers, Jacob has been working for this father for years, all on the promise that his payday will come eventually.

In 1977, in the small town of Claire Lake, two men were murdered with the same gun. Beth Greer was the prime suspect - a rich, eccentric 23-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. Ever since her surprise acquittal, she's retreated to her mansion, Greer house, and never commented publicly on the case. 40 years later, Shea Collins is a receptionist by day, and a true crime blogger by night. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To her surprise, Beth says yes. But when they meet in Beth's mansion, Shea immediately senses something isn't right.

When coroner-turned-private investigator Clay Edison is approached to work on a fraud case, he uncovers more than he bargained before: a decades-old scheme targeting the vulnerable. His investigation leads him to a strange town in the remote California wilderness where the residents don't care much for outsiders. They certainly don't like Clay asking questions. And they'll do just about anything to keep him quiet.

This will be a Christmas to remember for the railway girls. Little Max is growing day by day and Joan is adjusting to her new life. But in her heart of hearts, she is desperate to return to work on the railways. Margaret's job in the engine shed is demanding. But when a friend finds herself in crisis, she knows she must do everything she can to help her. Alison is overjoyed at the prospect of organising a Christmas wedding until a long-held secret is revealed. Knowing the truth, can she find the strength to forgive those she holds most dear?

Sweet Home, Alaska, was once a thriving, idyllic town, where A Stone's Throw Hardware and Haberdashery and the Sisterhood of the Quilt were the cornerstones of the community. Then, in one fatal moment, two young lives were cut short, and everything changed. Now the Stone family businesses have closed, the diner is in the red, and the population has dwindled to 573. After the tragic accident that took her sister's life, Hope McKnight discovered she was pregnant, and gave up her dreams of college to raise her daughter.

As the 1982 school year begins, Jack Sheffield returns to Ragley village school for his sixth year as headteacher. Nora Pratt celebrates 25 years in her coffee shop, Ronnie Smith finally tries to get a job, and little Krystal Entwhistle causes concern in the school Nativity play. It's the time of ET and Greenham Common,. Price William's birth, Fame legwarmers and the puzzling introduction of the 20p piece. Meanwhile, for Jack, the biggest surprise of his life is in store.

Tucked into the Welsh valleys and encircled by silver birch and pine, the village of Cwmcysgod may appear a quiet, sleepy sort of place. But beneath the surface, tensions simmer, hearts ache, and painful truths threaten to emerge. In this tender, sly, exquisitely wrought novella, a unique cast of characters give voice to their versions of the truth. But it is the story of Rosalind Bone, of her strength and of all that she has endured, that rises above the rest, shimmering with hope and possibility.

Bonny Blankenship's most treasured memories are of idyllic summers spent in Watersend, South Carolina, with her best friend, Lainey McKay. Now in her early 50s, Bonny is desperate to clear her head after a tragic mistake threatens her career as an emergency room doctor, and her marriage crumbles around her. With her troubled teenage daughter, Piper, in tow, she goes back to the beloved river house, where she is soon joined by Lainey and her two young children.

Monsieur Perdu is back! In this novel from Nina George we return to Jean Perdu's beautiful barge on the Seine, his Literary Apothercary. He's spent many years still prescribing just the right book for his customers in the exact time they need it. His beloved books are his medicine: books that will comfort, guide, envelop and the perfect book to the customer that he know will guide them.

In Woodland Park, a small town nestled in the foothills of Pikes Peak, Anderson Kelly and Chelsea Davis were once the high school “it” couple—the star quarterback and the valedictorian. They broke up when Anderson joined the army and one poor decision at a fraternity party changed Chelsea’s life. Now, she works long shifts in a senior center to support her nine-year-old son, Jack.

In these seven stories of People from Bloomington, our peculiar narrators find themselves in the most peculiar of circumstances and encounter the most peculiar of people. Set in Bloomington, Indiana, where the author lived as a graduate student in the 1970s, this is far from the idyllic portrait of small-town America.

A new era has begun for the Caskey family. Elinor’s relentless determination and the years of struggle are finally beginning to bear fruit: old hostilities have faded and the town is ripe for change. The conflict in Europe has brought new blood to Perdido, men arriving from far afield wanting to ingratiate themselves with the powerful family. But tangling with the Caskeys comes at a cost, and soon they must ask themselves how close is too close…

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of When Light Is Like Water by Molly McCloskey, read by Katie Beudert. 'There are few things on earth smaller than this country.' Alice, a young American on her travels, arrives in the west of Ireland with no plans and no strong attachments - except to her beloved mother, who raised her on her own. She falls in love with an Irishman, marries him, and settles down in a place whose codes she struggles to crack. And then, in the course of a single hot summer, she embarks on an affair that breaks her marriage and sets her life on a new course.

Keely feels alone in the world – grief consumes her, she wants to escape it, to take both her father's and her own pain away. She knows that solace lies in the act of loving and being loved but, struggling in ever-deepening waters, she doesn't know how to find it. Finn has been devastated too. As a young boy, growing up with his grandparents, he feels neglected by those meant to care for him most. With no real friends to turn to, he cannot find the vocabulary to deal with the loneliness and heartache that haunt him.

Welcome to Ballyrowan. This sleepy corner of rural Ireland may seem tranquil, but scratch the surface and you'll find a hotbed of gossip and intrigue - endless material for mouthing - and a town full of people only too happy to oblige in spreading the bad news. Narrated by several generations of villagers, Mouthing traces the fortunes of one small community from the mid-20th century to the early 21st, in a series of highly confessional and darkly hilarious monologues.

Five friends from university; seven summer days in a cabin in rural Denmark. A chance to swim, sunbathe, flirt, read and mess around like in the old days. At least that’s what Sylvia had hoped. But when her friends arrive with real jobs, kids and partners, Sylvia is left wondering what happened to the radical ways of living they embraced at university. Worse, Esben and Karen announce their wedding, striking a blow to Sylvia’s simmering, decades-long crush on Esben – a crush that her monogamous girlfriend Charlie would definitely not approve of.

Twenty-one-year-old Jenilee Lane's dreams are as narrow as the sky is wide. She doesn't imagine any good could come out of the tornado that has ripped across the Missouri farmland where she's made her home. But some inner spark compels her to take action. To rescue her elderly neighbor, Eudora Gibson, from the cellar in which she's been trapped. To make her way to the nearby town of Poetry, where the townspeople have begun to gather in the only building left standing. To collect from the devastated landscape fragments of life that lie strewn about in the tornado's wake.

For 35-year-old Charlotte Emory, leaving her husband seems to offer the only way out from the mundaneness of every day life's earthly possessions and emotional complications. In the bank, she withdraws enough money to escape a life and a marriage gone sour. But Charlotte is about to escape in a way she never expected, as a young bank robber takes her hostage, and they head south for Florida in a stolen car.