New England Fiction

Elise Gilpatrick never thought she would be a parent, especially not like this. After agreeing to take 15-year-old DJ as a temporary foster placement straight from the police station, she feels like she's in over her head. But, as she learns on the job with a little help from her coworker, Elise realizes that she and DJ need to lean on each other and on the God who pieced them together. Their rocky journey will only prove that it's never too late to find the love of a family.

In the New England town of Frog's Ledge, the Holiday Light Festival is a Christmas tradition. Killing Santa is not. To bring joy back to the season, organic pet patisserie owner Kristan "Stan" Connor will have to find another Santa before it's too late . . . To the townspeople's delight, the annual lighting of the tree is a spectacular success. Unfortunately, Santa pulled up in his sleigh, DOA. At first Stan is sure it's Seamus, her boyfriend's uncle, inside the red suit. But the victim turns out to be an employee from the town's Christmas tree farm.

Cody, Christopher, Carla, and Steven are about to uncover a truth hidden for almost three decades. While they unravel the shocking mystery that will change their lives forever, they must find a way to forgive the past and each other and find their way to love again. While mysteries unravel and feelings blossom, Cody learns that true love deserves a second chance, after all. Escape into the beauty of the Atlantic coastline and fall in love with Cody Moore, her adorable teens, and her crazy house full of loveable pets.

Female friendship is intense and that intensity can erupt into dangerous passions when teenage girls are cooped up in an exclusive East Coast boarding school. Beautiful, streetwise Cassidy Thomas; debutante jock Abby Madison; academic, sensitive Karen Mullens; and sophisticated troublemaking Zoey Spalding are four seventeen-year-olds who should be cruising happily through their Senior Year. But jealousies are simmering. And when Zoey plays a game with the class list—if you lose your virginity you get a star beside your name—it sets in motion a chain of shocking events.

Echoing Hillsby Steven Detmers is a historical fiction novel set in the picturesque landscapes of 19th century New England. This evocative tale explores themes of ambition, faith, and the enduring strength of family bonds. Carlin, a determined young man, dreams of escaping the confines of his impoverished life through higher education. Supported by his loving grandmother and mentored by the kind-hearted clergyman Mr. Hays, Carlin's journey is fraught with obstacles. His inspiration comes from Karen, the clergyman’s gentle and introspective daughter, who faces her own struggles with ...

Meet seventeen-year-old Noah York, the narrator of Bart Yates's astonishing debut novel. With a mouth like a truck driver and eyes that see through the lies of the world, Noah is heading into a life that's only getting more complicated by the day. His dead father is fading into a snapshot memory. His mother, the famous psycho-poet, has relocated them from Chicago to a rural New England town that looks like a bad advertisement for small-town America. And now, the very house he lives in is coming apart at the seams—literally—torn down bit by bit as he and his mother renovate the old Victorian.

A broken heart is only the beginning for her. When Anna's fiancé's philandering ways shatter their happy future, she decides she’s through playing the victim. Now, rather than read about life, she wants to live it—starting with a sabbatical from her editing job to travel the world. He’s still picking up the pieces after the woman he loved walked away from him. Holden is content with his life as the owner of an English Inn until Anna stumbles into his life. Passion erupts between them in undeniable chemistry, making Holden think maybe he might have found happiness a second time. ...

As a teenager, it was never Sam Pulsifer's intention to torch an American landmark, and he certainly never planned to kill two people in the blaze. To this day, he still wonders why that young couple was upstairs in bed in the Emily Dickinson House after hours. After serving 10 years in prison for his crime, Sam is determined to put the past behind him. His low-profile life is chugging along quite nicely until the past comes crashing through his front door.

Miss Marigold Manners may be steeped in the etiquette of her old-money Boston family, but she is also an accomplished, modern woman and an avid student of archaeology who can handle any situation with poise. When the death of her parents leaves her too destitute to pursue her academic career and she receives a letter from a distant relative on Great Misery Island, Marigold decides she must do what any person of superior sense and greater-than-average curiosity would: she mounts her trusty bicycle and heads up the craggy, fog-shrouded coast of New England for a date with fate.

In an era where the void of science is filled with superstition, some believe the “Night Waster” preys upon the blood of the living to keep the dead alive. Thomas Sullivan, a cabinetmaker’s apprentice in northeastern Connecticut, helps the Shaffer family confront the ravages of the Night Waster while dealing with his own father’s rejection of him. The lung disease, consumption, and the economic Panic of 1837 are making life a trial for his master’s family as well as stirring the town’s paranoia. The mystery deepens when a family Bible reveals two Spanish doubloons. With the ...

Monreith, Massachusetts, was once a small community of whalers and farmers. These days it’s a well-to-do town filled with commuters drawn to its rugged coastline and country roads. A peaceful, predictable place—until popular restaurateur Laurel Thibodeau is found brutally murdered in her own home. Suspicion naturally falls on Laurel’s husband, Simon, who had gambling debts that only her life insurance policy could fix. But there are other rumors too. Among the group of six friends gathered for Alice Stone’s fortieth birthday, theories abound concerning Laurel’s death.

Eleanor Morse's Margreete’s Harbor begins with a fire: A fiercely-independent, thrice-widowed woman living on her own in a rambling house near the Maine coast forgets a hot pan on the stovetop, and nearly burns her place down. When Margreete Bright calls her daughter Liddie to confess, Liddie realizes that her mother can no longer live alone. She, her husband Harry, and their children Eva and Bernie move from a settled life in Michigan across the country to Margreete’s isolated home, and begin a new life.

Kate's perfect life is a lie. Her finances are a mess, her marriage is struggling, and her teenage daughter, Claire, makes life even more difficult with her moodiness. Day after day, she hides the truth. But when her estranged father schedules a visit, she seizes her last chance to try to make him proud of what she's made of her life since dropping out of law school. If Kate can't get life together before her father comes to town, she'll only prove she really is a failure. Just like he's always believed.

Retired English professor Charles Bentley is pressured into becoming assistant director of the Opal College fall theater production. This means he must work with the director, the rather intimidating Lorelei Brunson. Everything is going quite well until the person playing the lead in the play entitled The Rake's Last Gasp is murdered outside the theater. This leaves Charles with two problems. He must help his wife, who is Opalsville's chief of police, solve the case, and he must act because Lorelei insists that he take on the role of the rake in the play. Not having acted since his college ...

“This is a brilliant book written by a brilliant man who has no fear expressing his ideas.” Birmingham News This is the driving, compassionate story of a young man's coming of age, a well-born rebel who defies his family’s two hundred years of aristocratic tradition…and flees the horrors that churn beneath its tranquil surface. Avery Hollister grew up admiring his father, loving his gentle mother too much, and believing in the aristocratic Hollister tradition. And then he sees his family as it really is. His father, a faithless bully, is anxious to preserve appearances at any cost, ...

He wants her back. She wants him gone. Can a fake engagement solve everything? Rock star Cole Hanson has always taken care of the people in his life—first his younger brothers and now his bandmates. It wasn’t a role he chose, but he’s good at it and it brings security to the people who matter to him. But when a near-death experience forces Cole to decide what he wants, there’s only one name on his lips… Mia Durant’s heart (and her singing career) was crushed by Cole years ago. Between her work as an ER nurse and raising her best friend’s son, she doesn’t have time for ...

An old mansion in Salem, moss-covered and gabled, broods over the destiny of a distinguished but troubled New England Family, the Pynchons. A haunting, centuries-old curse, a forceful probing of national and personal guilt, a romance between the young heroine and an attractive stranger all intertwine in this classic work by one of America's greatest novelists.

Del has never had a good relationship with her family. After her parents’ divorce, and with the town rumor mill in full swing, Del’s uncle and the rest of the family shunned her and her mother. For years, there was nothing she could do about this. Now, with both of her parents gone, a chance has arrived. Her uncle wants the one thing Del inherited: the family home. Instead of handing the place over and giving her uncle what he wants, and with no other resources at her disposal, Del decides she will tear the place apart herself, by hand - piece by piece.

Stan and Jake's wedding will soon take place on the town green in Frog Ledge, Connecticut, followed by a reception at their beloved Irish pub filled with friends, family, and their four favorite canine companions. Stan just has to endure the traditional girls' night out first. Male strippers jumping out of gigantic cakes aren't her preferred entertainment. But the hired hottie never gets around to taking it all off . . . because someone takes him out first with one of Stan's kitchen knives.

It is the late spring of 1978 in a world in which the American Revolution failed in 1776 after George Washington was killed and the Continental Army was destroyed at the Battle of Long Island. The rumbling aftershocks of the Empire Day atrocities which reverberated through Two Hundred Lost Years are threatening to come to the boil. While in Philadelphia the politics become ever more fractious in Spain the Royal Alcazar is a citadel besieged in a country which might as well still be stuck in the 19th century.