Showing titles in Small Town & Rural

When troubled teenager Immy disappears, she leaves her widowed mother Bea completely devastated. Bea pours her love into her six-year-old niece Phoebe, even taking her in when her single father Ewan takes a job abroad. Then Immy returns, in desperate need of her mother’s help and love. But Ewan is clear: he will never let Bea see Phoebe again if she welcomes her daughter back. As Bea grapples with this impossible choice between two girls who sorely need her, a long-buried secret comes out that changes everything.

When Jenny inherits her estranged grandmother’s cottage in Sherwood Forest, she has nothing to lose - no money, no job, no friends, no family to speak of, and zero self-respect. Things can only get better.... Her grumpy but decidedly handsome new neighbour, Mack, has a habit of bestowing unsolicited good deeds on her. And when Jenny is welcomed into a rather unusual book club, life seems to finally be getting more interesting. Instead of reading, the members pledge to complete individual challenges before Christmas.

Life is sweet for chocolate maker Chloe Lyon…Business is booming at her artisan chocolate-makers 'Chocolate Wishes' in the picture-perfect Lancashire village of Sticklepond - not least because all of Chloe's sweet treats contain an inspirational prediction for each customer. If only her own life was as easy to read in the cards, perhaps Chloe could have foreseen being jilted at the altar….

Morgan Rosewood finds herself at a crossroads in her life after returning home to Forget-Me-Not Cottage to care for her ailing mother. She and boyfriend Ronan, had plans, big plans, but all these hopes and dreams are put on hold when Morgan's mum suddenly dies. Morgan’s emotions are in turmoil but she sets about the task of clearing the house and running her late mother’s vintage market stall.

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and inhuman characters alike. In his transcendent fourth novel, Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason delivers a magisterial and highly inventive tale brimming with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we're connected to our environment, to history and to each other.

Running Heritage View Stables is everything Hazel ever dreamed of. She loves working with the horses and managing the business with her brother. But after a terrible incident, she’s not sure whether she'll ever be able to put things back the way they were. Gus is ready to start over. He’s moved him and his ten-year-old daughter, Abigail, to Heritage Cove, where he’s opening his own vet practice. Everything is falling into place, especially as he watches Abigail start to come out of her shell for the first time since the accident.

The year is 1342. The English, led by Edward III, are laying waste to the French countryside. The army may be led by the King, but it is the archers, the common men, who are England's secret weapon. The French know them as Harlequins. Thomas of Hookton is one of these archers. But he is also on a personal mission: To avenge his father's death and retrieve a stolen relic.

In the snowy market town of Wetherly, Merry is about to take on her biggest project yet, the arrival of a new baby. She has always dreamed of being a mother, particularly as she lost her own mother at such a young age. Everyone is so excited, so why is Merry feeling terrified? And why is she struggling to open up to business partner and best friend Nell, whose help she needs at the thriving candle shop more than ever?

Like every mum, Tara wants a perfect Christmas for her family—but no one else is lifting a finger and she’s losing her elf-ing mind. From the kids behaving badly (vaping! Potty training! The Nativity!), to a distracted husband acting very out of character, the last straw is Tara’s glamorous, feckless, boundary-less mother moving herself back in for the holidays. Can Tara pull off the holly jolly Christmas of her dreams? Will she deck the halls and not her family? Or is this a Christmas catastrophe waiting to happen?

After the end of a long-term relationship, local weather girl Bea Armstrong has been avoiding her family, and their inevitable 'I-told-you-sos'. But with Christmas fast approaching, she is finally on her way home to Charis House, the school in Sherwood Forest that her mum and dad run in their old family home. And to top it all off, the insufferable Henry Fairfax—who her parents have always wanted her to marry—has also been invited.

As the dark and menacing waters of the local river submerge Perdido, a small town in the south of Alabama, the Caskeys - a family of rich landowners - must confront the tide of damage caused by the flood. Led by Mary-Love, the powerful matriarch, and by Oscar, her devoted son, the family must pick itself back up. But what they haven't anticipated is the sudden appearance of Elinor Dammert - a mysterious but seductive young woman with a troubling past. Her sole ambition appears to be to infiltrate the very heart of the Caskey clan...

When Remy's grandmother dies, it means leaving her life in San Francisco and returning to a town she swore she'd never revisit, forced to confront a world she'd worked hard to put behind her over the last twelve years. She's not expecting that the first girl to ever steal her heart, the pretty, popular Fallon Lewis, is still around, and in a town this small, their paths continue to cross, much to Remy's dismay. It's hard enough seeing her first love, but it's exponentially more difficult when she can barely stand to look at the woman.

Dover 1940 As firebombs fall on Dover, Edie Castle's life is thrown into turmoil when the garage where she lives and works is damaged and her beloved boss is arrested. With no job and nowhere else to go, Edie returns to Castle's Café and her formidable mother, Nellie. Living with her mother is never easy, but tensions reach boiling point when an old friend of Nellie's arrives looking for a place to stay. Meanwhile, desperate to clear her boss's name, Edie turns to his nephew for help.

When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen's house for some overdue rest. Eileen is newly single and about to turn 80. She'd like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn't offer many eligible gentlemen. Once Leena learns of Eileen's romantic predicament, she proposes a solution: a two-month swap. Eileen can live in London and look for love. Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire....

Gervase Phinn’s colourful characters have now become firm favourites – the mostly mad staff at County Hall and the children themselves, who find ways of embarrassing the school inspectors with innocent ease. We reconvene with Christine Bentley, head teacher of Winnery Nook School and now Gervase’s wife and mother of their son; the well-named Mrs Savage and not forgetting the Queen of the Clean – Connie.

Love is in the air in the little village of Barton-in-the-Dale. Anyone can see that Ashley Underwood and Emmet O'Malley are made for each other. They've just got to admit it to themselves. But as the saying goes, the course of true love never did run smooth. While romance blossoms on one side of the village, an angry young boy struggles to believe in love. But when tragedy strikes, he learns that comfort and care can come from the most unexpected of places.

In the seaside town of Temple Regis, seagulls are wheeling overhead and the holidays are getting close. And then the body of political candidate Odile Clifford is discovered on the balcony of the lighthouse. Fearless Riviera Express reporter Judy Dimont goes in search of the killer - but who is it? And where will they strike next?

Louisa has come to her parents’ house in Maine this summer with her three kids, a barely written book that has a looming deadline, and a trunkful of resentment. Louisa is hoping the crisp breeze will blow away her irritation for her life choices and replace it with enthusiasm for both her family and her writing. But all isn’t well in Maine. Louisa’s father, a retired judge and pillar of the community, is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Louisa’s mother is alternately pretending everything is fine and not pretending at all.

When Eden turns the key in the red door of Four Winds Cottage, the clifftop house where she used to holiday as a child, she is overwhelmed with bittersweet memories. She lost her mother recently, and she’s hoping Seaglass Bay will heal her broken heart. The villagers welcome Eden with open arms, but she can’t help but notice that life is tough for them when the holidaymakers go home. Her mother always gave so much to those around her, and Eden is determined to follow in her footsteps.

Charlie has a new helper on her bus, her free-spirited and loveable cousin Delilah, who’s paid a visit to the charming Cornish village of Porthgolow and is helping out on Charlie’s adorable cream tea bus. When the Director of a new TV series filming further along the coast tells Delilah that the bus would be the perfect addition to their onsite catering, she takes him a bit too literally. Charlie and Delilah find themselves caught up in the filming of a lavish period drama, and it isn’t long before Delilah finds herself drawn to the handsome male lead.