Showing results by publisher "HarperCollins Publishers Limited" in Small Town & Rural

There are three things you should know about Elsie. The first is that she's my best friend. The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better. And the third...might take a little bit more explaining. Eighty-four-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat. As she waits to be rescued, Florence wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light; and, if the charming new resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly like a man who died 60 years ago?

Maggie O'Hara knows better than most that life can change in a heartbeat. Eighteen years ago she was given the most precious gift- a second-hand heart, and a second chance at life. Always thankful, Maggie has never forgotten Lucy Harte - the little girl who saved her life. But as Maggie's own life begins to fall apart, and her heart is broken in love, she loses sight of everything she has to live for.... Until an unexpected letter changes Maggie’s life.

The narrator and protagonist of Maya's Notebook is a 19-year-old girl who grows up in Berkeley, California, and falls into a life of drug addiction and crime. To rescue Maya and save her from the criminal types pursuing her, Maya's Chilean grandmother sends her to a remote island off the southern coast of Chile. Here she lives among a traditional rural people, the Chilote, who speak an older form of Spanish and have remained largely isolated from the materialism, crime, and fast-paced contemporary life which is our own.

Abby Field loves every inch of Meadowsweet Nature Reserve on the idyllic Suffolk coast, where she lives and works. Especially Swallowtail House, the rambling but empty country house that seems to look out at her each time she passes its shut-up windows. When a TV wildlife programme choses a rival location for their new series, Meadowsweet is under threat - unless Abby can whip up a plan to keep the visitors flocking. But she finds herself distracted by the arrival of a brooding - and annoyingly handsome - new neighbour...bad-boy novelist Jack Westcoat.

When Tansy Poole inherits a run-down shoe shop tucked away in the village of Sticklepond, ‘Cinderella’s Slippers’ is born - providing the footwear to make any fairy-tale wedding come true…Carrying everything a bride would want to walk down the aisle in, Tansy’s shop soon expands to carry shoe-themed wedding favours, bridesmaid gifts and even delicious chocolate shoes. It’s the dream destination for any shoe-lover!

Fern’s warmth, insight and humour combine to deliver a hugely enjoyable novel that will speak to women everywhere. Read by Fern Britton Helen Merrifield has said goodbye to her philandering husband and her swish West London house to live in an idyllic country cottage in the heart of a postcard-perfect village in Cornwall. Putting the past behind her, Helen throws herself into country life and soon makes a new set of eccentric friends.

For decades, Pity Wood Farm has been a source of employment for poor workers passing through Rakedale, migrants with lives as abject as the labour they sought. But now it seems a far worse fate may have befallen some of those who came upon this isolated community. Routine building work at the farm has unearthed a grisly discovery: a human hand preserved in clay.

Shipwrecks are part of life in the remote village of Porthmorvoren, Cornwall. And as the sea washes the bodies of the drowned onto the beach, it also brings treasures: barrels of liquor, exotic fruit, the chance to lift a fine pair of boots from a corpse, maybe even a jewel or two. When, after a fierce storm, Mary Blight rescues a man half dead from the sea, she ignores the whispers of her neighbours and carries him home to nurse better. Gideon Stone is a Methodist minister from Newlyn, a married man.

Five women. One question: what is a woman for? In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in vitro fertilisation is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers. This is a story of resilience, transformation and hope in tumultuous - even frightening - times.

From the number-one best-selling author of The American Boy comes a brilliant new historical thriller set during the French Revolution.Paris, 1792. Terror reigns as the city writhes in the grip of revolution. The streets run with blood as thousands lose their heads to the guillotine. Edward Savill, working in London as agent for a wealthy American, receives word that his estranged wife Augusta has been killed in France. She leaves behind 10-year-old Charles, who is brought to England to Charnwood Court.

From Annie Proulx, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain, comes her masterpiece, 10 years in the writing - an epic, dazzling, violent, magnificently dramatic novel about taming the wilderness and destroying the forest, set over three centuries. In the late 17th century, two illiterate woodsmen, Rene Sel and Charles Duquet, make their way from Northern France to New France to seek a living.

Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university professor. Olanna, a young woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic new lover, the professor. And Richard, a shy English writer, is in thrall to Olanna's enigmatic twin sister. As the horrific Biafran War engulfs them, they are thrown together and pulled apart in ways they had never imagined.

The thrilling story of Catherine de Valois - the French princess who became an English queen. Perfect for fans of Philippa Gregory. Even the greatest of queens have rules - to break them would cost her dearly… King Henry V's new French Queen, Catherine, dazzles the crowds in England but life at court is full of intrigue and her loyal companion, Mette, suspects that the beautiful Eleanor Cobham, protégée of the Duke of Gloucester, is spying for him.

It’s springtime in the Cornish village of Pendruggan, and as the community comes together to say a fond farewell to parish vicar Simon and his wife, Penny, a newcomer causes quite a stir.... Reverand Angela Whitehorn came to Cornwall to make a difference. With her husband, Robert, by her side, she sets about making changes - but it seems not everyone is happy for her to shake things up in the small parish, and soon Angela starts to receive anonymous poison pen letters.

The new witty and warm novel from best-selling author and TV presenter Fern Britton. Perfect for fans of Katie Fforde, Jill Mansell and Trisha Ashley. Penny Leighton, TV producer and wife of the local vicar Simon Canter, is struggling to cope with motherhood. The couple have had their only child Jenna, while Penny is in her forties and it's been a big shock to her system. When Simon engages the services of a nanny, Ella, as a way of helping Penny, it serves only to push her further away from him and from Jenna.

It’s the summer of 1919, and Ellen O’Brien has her whole life ahead of her. Young, in love and leaving home for her first job, the future seems full of shining possibility. But war is brewing, and before long, Ellen and everyone around her are swept up by it. As Ireland is torn apart by the turmoil, Ellen finds herself facing the ultimate test of love and loyalty. A hundred years later and Clare Farrell has inherited a dilapidated old farmhouse in County Meath.

Everyone deserves a new beginning. But sometimes fate isn't on your side.... Over one short weekend, when Canadian musician Scott Emerson and British children's author Frankie Shaw meet by chance, a profound connection is made. Their homes are thousands of miles apart: Frankie and her children live by the coast of North Norfolk while Scott's roots lie deep in the mountains of British Columbia. Against all advice, they decide to see where this might go.

Growing up in a quiet Yorkshire village, Roxanne couldn't wait to escape and find her place in the world in London. As a high-powered fashion editor, she lives a glamorous life of perennial singlehood - or so it seems to her sister, Della. But when Roxanne gets her heart broken by a fashion photographer, she runs away, back to Della's welcoming home above her bookshop in Burley Bridge. But Burley Bridge, Roxanne discovers, is even quieter than she remembered.

In the beautiful town of Dunmore, four women understand what friendship really means. Abby's TV career is taking off, but her marriage to Tom is rocky. Meanwhile, her teenage daughter Jess despairs of ever finding a boyfriend. Lizzie has time for everyone: her grown-up children, her friends, even her ex-husband Myles, but never for herself. And then there's Erin, married and back in Ireland after eight years in Chicago. But can she face up to her past?

The new wonderfully warm and witty novel from Fern Britton, the much-loved TV personality. Perfect for fans of Katie Fforde and Trisha Ashley. When the residents of the Cornish seaside town of Trevay discover that their much-loved theatre is about to be taken over by coffee chain, Café au Lait, they are up in arms. It is up to Penny Leighton, hotshot producer and now happily married Cornish resident, to come up with a rescue plan.