Showing titles in Small Town & Rural

Far North Queensland, 1993: at 74, former cane farmer Grace Maud is feeling her age, and her isolation, and thinks the best of life may be behind her. Elsewhere in town, high school teacher Patricia has given up on her dreams of travel and adventure and has moved back home to look after her ageing parents, while cafe owner Dorothy is struggling to accept that she may never have the baby she and her husband so desperately want. Each woman has an unspoken need: reconnection. And that's how they find themselves at Orange Blossom House, surrounded by perfumed rainforest.

Red Dirt Country features the thrilling return of Detective Dave Burrows, now a member of the stock squad in Western Australia. Recovering from an undercover case in outback Queensland, Dave Burrows finally returns to Perth, to join his pregnant wife, Melinda, and their small daughter, Bec. Things have been off-kilter between Mel and Dave for some time and nothing he says or does seems to make it right.

1895, Renmark, South Australia: Maggie O'Rourke has always had a hard head. No man was going to tie her down to a life of babies and domestic slavery, even if that man was as good (and as annoyingly attractive) as Sam Taylor. Maggie is happily earning her own way as a maid in a house on the Murray River when disaster strikes. Forced to defend herself and a friend from assault by an evil man, she flees downriver on a paddle steamer. With death at her heels, Maggie begins to realize that a man like Sam might be just who she wants in her hour of need.

The Center for women's reproductive health offers a last chance at hope - but nobody ends up there by choice. Its very existence is controversial, and to the demonstrators who barricade the building every day, the service it offers is no different from legalised murder. Now life and death decisions are being made horrifyingly real: a lone protester with a gun has taken the staff, patients and visitors hostage.

Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the fictional Val de Follet in the Loire Valley. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really that’s the way he likes it. One day, however, one of his older guests disappears, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the wallpaper. Another guest, the exotic Valérie, persuades a reluctant Richard to join her in investigating the disappearance. Richard remains a dazed passenger in the case until things become really serious and someone murders Ava Gardner, one of his beloved hen...and you don’t mess with a fellow’s hens!

Veronica McCreedy lives in a mansion by the sea. She loves a nice cup of Darjeeling tea whilst watching a good wildlife documentary. And she’s never seen without her ruby-red lipstick. Although these days, Veronica is rarely seen by anyone, because at 85, her days are spent mostly at home, alone. She can be found either collecting litter from the beach, trying to locate her glasses, or shouting instructions to her assistant, Eileen. But today...today, Veronica is going to make a decision that will change all of this.

Five seconds of honesty: Wells Canyon is the last place Blair Hart wants to be. But her mother's illness leaves her no choice except to return to the hometown-and the traumatic past-she's spent thirteen years hiding from. A run-in with the boy who tore her life to pieces is inevitable in a town like Wells Canyon, but that doesn't mean she's prepared for the way Denver Wells can turn back time with a single smile.

I've always done what was expected of me. Layla Birch, the good girl. Forced to grow up too fast. To take care of everything myself. I had a plan. Only, I didn't count on him. Colton Wilder, the cowboy nearly twice my age. He's my dream man. One who takes care of me, gives me a job, and makes my pulse thud harder every time he comes near. My ex-boyfriend's father. The nights are long and cold on top of this mountain. As the snow grows thicker and the tension builds between us, we're both inching closer to a line we shouldn't cross.

The injustice of the past and dangers of the present envelop policewoman Renee Burns when her unwilling return to the small country town of her childhood plunges her into the investigation of a murdered woman.

Books bring them together - but friendship will transform all of their lives. Five very different women come together in the Northern Territory of the 1970s, by an exceptional new Australian author. In 1978 the Northern Territory has begun to self-govern. Cyclone Tracy is a recent memory and telephones not yet a fixture on the cattle stations dominating the rugged outback. Life is hard, and people are isolated. But they find ways to connect.

When Elara flees corporate life to open a coffee shop in the small southern town of Fairhaven Falls, the last thing she is looking for is a relationship. But when she meets Grondar, the gruff orc owner of the bakery next door, sparks fly. Literally. Grondar has been burned by human females before. He has no intention of letting the feisty little female next door get under his skin—no matter how attractive he finds her. And it certainly doesn't mean he's going to let her get away with sabotaging his business.

Deep in the woods of Maine, there is a dark state facility where kids, abducted from across the United States, are incarcerated. In the Institute they are subjected to a series of tests and procedures meant to combine their exceptional gifts - telepathy, telekinesis - for concentrated effect. Luke Ellis is the latest recruit. He's just a regular 12-year-old, except he's not just smart, he's super-smart. And he has another gift which the Institute wants to use....

High up on a mountain, young Clay-Boy Spencer joins his father and eight uncles to hunt the mythical white deer. What he finds on the mountainside changes his life - and marks him for a special destiny. Years later, Clay-Boy is the first in his family to get the chance to go to college; but success as an adult is much more complicated and bittersweet than the legendary success of Clay-Boy’s childhood quest.

Forty years ago, Steven Smith found a copy of a famous children's book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. Wanting to know more, he took it to his English teacher Miss Iles, not realising the chain of events that he was setting in motion. Miss Iles became convinced that the book was the key to solving a puzzle and that a message in secret code ran through all Twyford's novels. Then Miss Iles disappeared on a class field trip, and Steven has no memory of what happened to her.

Detective Dave Burrows has longed for the top job in the Stock Squad but never thought he'd be acting in that role while his partner and best mate, Detective Bob Holden, is treated for melanoma. Bob is keen to get back on the road and Dave can't wait to go bush either, expecting the trip will be much the same as usual. But the trip doesn't play out that way. Multiple bomb blasts in the small country town of Kallygarn send shock waves through the state of WA, and Dave and Bob are once again drawn into the underworld of crime.

Dakota Jones had a difficult upbringing, but he escaped to the military as soon as he could. Now, after several tours of duty he has finally been discharged. Refusing to return home, he arrives in Sullivan's Crossing, where his brother, Cal, and sister, Sierra, have found a home. Nestled at the crossroads of the Colorado and Continental Divide Trails, the area attracts those looking for answers or direction or a new lease on life. Dakota will come to terms with his less-than-perfect family and will plant the roots he's never had.

In the spring of 1990, we return to Champton, where the characters we've come to love are all aflutter as a glamorous Hollywood movie takes over Champton House as its set location. As the actors and extras hired from the village don their farthingales, gowns and crowns for a masque set in the 1600s, a murder interrupts filming on set - and it's an ingenious one. Can Daniel solve the mystery with help from his sidekick Detective Sergeant Neil Vanloo - even when things are so sticky between them?

When Rachel qualifies as nurse, she does so because she wants to help others and make a difference. But she is also running from a past life that must stay hidden forever. Completing her training, Rachel moves to London but misses home desperately, so when she hears about an opportunity to train as a district nurse in a village near Rochdale, she seizes the opportunity, even though it will take her closer to the trouble she left behind. She knows nothing about Eastby End and she is shocked to find it a little more than a slum.

Margot and her sister Roslyn have lived side by side in a little town in the Adelaide Hills most of their lives, supporting each other through thick and thin. Then their neighbour Gunter dies. Surprisingly, his will asks that his house and vineyard be sold and that Roslyn donate the money to a charity of her choice. When a developer wants to buy the land and create a hotel just over Margot's fence, Margot is outraged and decides to stand for Mayor and fight the development. But Roslyn feels differently.

A collection of stories from the most famous Western author of all time! Desert Death-Song is a compilation of some of Louis L’Amour’s greatest stories, many of which might otherwise be difficult to find. Whether he was writing under his early pen name, Jim Mayo, or his own, L’Amour’s stories are unforgettable, touching on rough and rugged American ideals, and set in the untamable frontier of the Western United States.