"Maeve Binchy, "the grand story teller,"* returns with a cast of characters you will never forget when they all spend a winter week together on holiday at Stone House, a restful inn by the sea... Stoneyville is a small town on the coast of Ireland where all the families know each other. When Chicky decides to take an old decaying mansion, Stone House, and turn it into a restful place for a holiday by the sea, the town thinks she is crazy. She is...

"Middlemarch" is writer George Eliot's crowning literary achievement and the novel is considered by many critics to be one of the finest pieces of fiction ever written. Written in the style of "realism" popular at the time, it is a study of the class and social structure of the fictional town of Middlemarch in central England and the story touches on all segments of life within the village, from the landed gentry to the working class and everyone...

Looking for trouble, Ellery Queen descends on a small town At the tail end of the long summer of 1940, there is nowhere in the country more charming than Wrightsville. The Depression has abated, and for the first time in years the city is booming. There is hope in Wrightsville, but Ellery Queen has come looking for death.   The mystery author is hoping for fodder for a novel, and he senses the corruption that lurks beneath the apple pie façade....

Buffalo Valley, North Dakota, has found new life. People have started moving here--people like teacher Lindsay Snyder, who married local farmer Gage Sinclair. And now Lindsay's closest friend, Maddy Washburn, has decided to pull up stakes and join Buffalo Valley, North Dakota, has found new life. People have started moving here--people like teacher Lindsay Snyder, who married local farmer Gage Sinclair. And now Lindsay's closest friend, Maddy Washburn,...

At the edge of the continent, in the small town of Crosby, Maine, lives Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher who deplores the changes in her town and in the world at large but doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her.

The inhabitants of a small town have long found that their lives intersect at one focal point: the local shopping mall. But business is down, stores are closing, and as the institution breathes its last gasp, the people inside it dream of something different, something more. In its pages, You Are Here brings this diverse group of characters vividly to life—flawed, real, lovable strangers who are wonderful company and prove unforgettable even after...

On Bernadine Brown's fifty-second birthday she received an unexpected gift-she caught her husband, Leo, cheating with his secretary. She was hurt-angry, too-but she didn't cry woe is me. Nope, she hired herself a top-notch lawyer and ended up with a cool $275 million. Having been raised in the church, she knew that when much is given much is expected, so she asked God to send her a purpose. The purpose turned out to be a town: Henry Adams, Kansas,...

After retrieving fresh lobster nets from a local Laundromat, Cass Halloran rushes to attend a last-minute gathering with her knitting circle. But Cass can't stop worrying about the lonely boy seen hanging around the dryers, and the school uniform he left behind in a hurry. When the ladies return the lost clothing the next day, they find the child and his younger sister alone, seemingly abandoned by their mother. The knitters intend to facilitate a...

Librarian Amy Webber leaves her university job to live with her aunt in a historic Virginia mountain town. She lands a new gig managing the charming public library, which has too little money and too many eccentric patrons. The last thing busy Amy needs is a charming new neighbor. Choreographer Richard Muir inherited the farmhouse next door--and its scandalous story--from his great-uncle. Town folklore claims the original owner was poisoned by his...