Showing results by publisher "Tantor Media" in Small Town & Rural

Sports agent Ryan Callahan's trip is a complete disaster. Not only did he fail to sign a promising young ballplayer, but now he's stranded in a Kentucky town no bigger than a bourbon ball. His plane's been canceled, there's not a cab to be found, and getting back to New York City is gonna take a miracle. Like a quirky, strawberry-blonde florist with a big van and a craving for late-night, deep-fried hot dogs . . .

Knox Thompson thinks he's working a hustle, but it's a hustle that's working him. Trying to keep his pizza shop and parents afloat, he cleans out a backroom Kentucky poker game only to be roped into dealing marijuana by the proprietor—an arrangement Knox only halfheartedly resists. Knox's shop makes the perfect front for a marijuana operation, but his supplier turns out to be violent and calculating, and Knox ends up under his thumb. It's not long before more than just the pizza shop is at risk.

Victoria Michaud has lived in Fox Crossing her entire life without encountering the fabled fox. And then, on the day of her thirtieth birthday, she spots a beautiful, golden-eyed vixen . . . right before she also recognizes Bowen Gower, the guy who made her high school years hell. So much for good luck. Victoria already has enough to deal with, between running her Junk & Disorderly antique store and refereeing her divorced, still-bickering parents.

Juliet Montgomery absolutely loves her small town of Blossom Glen, Indiana, and everyone loves her. Except for the fact that she's a couples counselor who suffered a very public breakup that no one can forget. And now her boss asks her to take a step back . . . which is exactly when the town's good-lookin' and unusually gruff mayor offers her an unexpected job. Jack Monroe absolutely loves being the mayor of his small town. Except when he actually has to talk to people. Can't he just fix the community problems in peace?

Aspiring artist Misty Delaney is not about to let her parents' beloved cafe go under. Not when she can just merge the company by entering a quick marriage of convenience with the rich son of their family's rival. But her sisters aren't having it. To make sure Misty gives finding love a chance, they post a "Marry me: Misty!" billboard outside town. Watching Misty field marriage proposals from strangers, that she clearly doesn't want, is a big cup of nope for cafe manager Lucas Reyes. He and Misty have been friends for years, but it's time he step up and make his romantic feelings for her known.

Lochiel Ogle was born with a red-wine birthmark—and it put her life in jeopardy from the moment she entered the world. Mountain folks called it "the mark of the devil," and for all the evil that has plagued her nineteen-year existence, Lochiel is ready to believe that is true. And the evil surely took control of the mind of the boy who stole her as an infant, bringing her home for his mother to raise.

A Christmas Wedding in Mayhem: You're cordially invited to the wedding of the century! Please join bride-trying-not-to-be-a-zilla Hennessy O'Halloran and her prince-in-shining-snow-boots as they finally say, "I do." Unless a rogue wedding planner and a blizzard that takes out the entire Midwest can stop them, these two will get married on Christmas. The town of Mayhem will make sure of it.

Claire Collins has always been good—except when it comes to bad boys. Or one bad boy in particular: a tattooed musician as skilled with her body as he is with his guitar. But he wasn't ready to be a father, so she left him to raise their daughter on her own. Only fate had other plans, and suddenly, Ryan is back in her life, disrupting everything. This time, though, she's determined not to lose her heart . . . even if she still craves his touch.

Íosac Mulgannon is a man called to stand. Losing a grip on his mental and physical health, he is burdened with looking after a mute child whom the local villagers view as cursed. The aging farmer stubbornly refuses to succumb in the face of adversity and will do anything, at any cost, to keep hold of his farm and the child. This dark and lyrical debut novel confronts a claustrophobic rural community caught up in the uncertainties of a rapidly changing world.

To save her son, shy but determined waitress Becky McAllister would do just about anything. But she never expected "anything" to include the brother of the man who broke her heart. Steve Parker needs a wife, now, if he has any hopes of winning his local DA election and becoming the advocate for the underserved he's always dreamed of being. The sweet waitress seems like just the person—if he can get her to agree. One year of marriage—no strings, no personal attachments. Becky gets the insurance funds she needs for her son's surgery while Steve's poll ratings soar.

She'll find her true love in a snowfall...or so Charlie Dobbs's late mother always predicted. But surely that prophecy didn't apply to towing a famous pajama designer out of a ditch. Besides, Charlie has no time for love—the season always has its share of wrecks, her schedule is packed with Elfcapade festivities, and she's ditching her mechanic overalls and moving to New York City right after Christmas. Spencer Carmichael would rather be in the Bahamas. The only thing he's finding in his hometown is a fascination with the woman who saved him from a snowbank.

Florist Laney George has a successful business, amazing friends, and big, big dreams—oh, and a broken heart. But she's working through that last one. Then the man she hoped to never see again shows up—and Laney's carefully ordered plans are experiencing technical difficulties. Celebrated Author Adam Fitzpatrick planned to be in St. Clair for no more than a day. Sign the books, and get out. Same story, different day. What he didn't count on was Laney George, who happens to be the star of his somewhat fictional tale. Now that he's seen her again, he wants answers.

Hopeless romantic Elena Mason doesn't often hate people, but she hates her ex-fiancé's insufferable best man, Lucas Albright III. She just knows Lucas is the one who talked her ex out of getting married—so Lucas is clearly the cause of all her problems. And now she's expected to work with him? Lucas Albright wants nothing more than to make partner at his advertising firm, and he knows he works best alone. But then Elena ends up as his partner on an account that could win him a promotion. He's willing to try working as a team. Unfortunately, his new "partner" wants him dead.

Most people think The Fox is just a folk tale, designed to lure tourists to their quiet little town on the Appalachian Trail. But kindergarten teacher Lillian Smith is hoping the stories of the white-eared, white-pawed vixen-who brings luck and love to those who see her-are all true. After a chance sighting of the fabled fox, Lillian hopes her hiker boyfriend Owen will finally propose. Instead, he publicly dumps her, claiming she's not adventurous enough. Lillian's determined to prove him wrong. But she sure could use some of that foxy magic to win him back.

Rebekah isn't like her sister, but the watchful gaze of her family and small, close-knit Amish community makes her feel as if she's been judged and found lacking. The men avoid her, and the women whisper behind her back. She simply longs for the same chance to be a wife and mother that her friends have. Tobias Byler only wants to escape feelings for a woman he knows he should never have allowed to get close to him. Moving with his family to isolated Bee County, Texas, seemed the best way to leave his mistakes behind.

Rose and her giant, simple son, Poe, live quietly on the fringes of their town - tending their goats and working at odd jobs. Prosper Thorne, banished from his big-city law practice and worrying about his fading memory, obsessively watches over his beloved daughter Miranda. When Poe erupts from the forest one day carrying Miranda's bruised and bloody body, he is arrested, despite his protestations of get help-get help-get help.

Evie Austin, native of Hatteras Island, North Carolina, and baddest girl on the planet, has not lived her life in a straight line. There have been several detours - career snafus, bad romantic choices, a loved but unplanned child - not to mention, her ill-advised lifelong obsession with boxer Mike Tyson. Evie is not plucky, but when life's changes smash over her like the rough surf of the local shoreline, she muddles through - until that moment of loss and longing when muddling will no longer suffice.

When Haze Evans first appeared in the small-town newspaper, she earned fans by writing a story about her bachelor uncle who brought a Queen of the Rodeo to Thanksgiving dinner. Now, 50 years later, when the beloved columnist suffers a massive stroke and falls into a coma, publisher Susan McGrath fills the void (temporarily, she hopes) with Haze's past columns, along with the occasional reprinted responses from readers. Most letters were favorable, although Haze did have her trolls; one Joseph Snell in particular dubbed her "liberal" ideas the "chronicles of a radical hag."

One summer evening, Lib Hanson is confronted by her painful past when Matt Marlow, the forty-year-old son she abandoned as an infant, shows up on her porch. Fiercely independent, Lib has never revealed her son's existence—or her previous marriage—to her husband, Jack. Married nearly three decades but living in separate houses (to the confusion but acceptance of their neighbors), they enjoy an ease and comfort together in small-town Anthem, Wisconsin. But Jack is a stickler for honesty, and Lib's long-dormant secret threatens to unravel their lives.

Sixty years after the publication of his first novel, Cat Man, Edward Hogland is publishing his 25th book at the age of 83. This capstone novel, set in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, introduces Press, a stockbroker going blind. Press has lost his job and his wife and is trying to figure out his next move, holed up in his Vermont cabin surrounded by a hippy commune, drug runners, farmers-gone-bust, blood-thirsty auctioneers, and general ne'er-do-wells.