small towns

Sometimes you just need something wholesome and peaceful in your life.  Welcome to Stardew Valley.

This simple little indie game that could has made its way from a Steam trial to major consoles. Your completely customizable character gives up on corporate life and goes to live on the farm inherited from your grandfather. You have absolute control over how you live your life from there.

The neighboring town is full of interesting characters, twelve of whom are potentially romanceable.  There are hidden intrigues and depictions of realistic problems, but nothing will drag you down.

The

Fourteen year old Charlie Simmons is enjoying the summer before starting at a new school in Thunder Point. His very protective mom, Lin Su, is working in Thunder Point as a home nurse for Winnie who has ALS. This is the best job Lin Su has had in a long time and it gives Charlie the opportunity to change schools and get away from the bullies that had been taunting him at his old school. Winnie and Charlie have become good friends as he has been spending a lot of time there over the summer. And now there is new next door neighbor Blake Smiley. Blake is a professional tri-athlete and

Pamela Morsi used to write wonderful Americana romances in the 90s, and I’m glad to see that her humor and poignant understanding of human behavior is still very much in evidence with her shift to contemporaries. The Bikini Car Wash feels a lot like her older historicals because of the small town setting and the ensemble cast. There have never been a ton of authors that wrote good Americana or Frontier Western romances, but Morsi is one of the best because of the way she portrays small town life with a realistic and sympathetic hand. Her characters are always drawn with lots of affectionate

Philip Gulley's Home to Harmony is the first book in the Harmony series in which Sam Gardner, Quaker Minister, has returned to his hometown of Harmony, Indiana to assume the pulpit. Gulley uses a folksy writing style to share the joys, frustrations, humor, and outrageous predicaments encountered in a small community church. The story of Sam and his parishioners is told through a collection of vignettes, each which can stand on its own; but all are woven together expertly by Gulley to paint a pleasant, funny, and poignant picture of the dilemmas and rewards of pastoring a small congregation

Shotgun Lovesongs​ revolves around Lee, Hank, Kip, and Ronny—four small-town friends in Little Wing, Michigan. They did everything together as kids and remained in each other's lives as adults, although they lead very different lives. Hank stays in Little Wing, marries his high school sweetheart, and takes over his family's farm. Ronny struggles with alcoholism, and an accident changes his life forever. Kip flees to Chicago to live the high life as a broker, but returns to Little Wing with his fiancée and buys the town mill. And Lee makes it as a successful singer, traveling the globe yet

If this book doesn't make you want to put your McMansion up for sale and load up your spoiled Johnson County children and head to Western Kansas for a slice of real life well I don't know what will. Yes, A Perfect Season is about high school football, some of the best in the state. But truly it is the story of a community of men and women, teachers, coaches, lunch ladies, everyone in fact loving, guiding and supporting the children and young adults, whether or not they play football for the legendary Redmen. It also is about kids who are made to work and to be held accountable for their

King already imagined the apocalypse once in The Stand... and this post 9-11 version of The Bell Jar is a worthy follow-up. After a literal dome descends over Chester's Mill, Maine, the townspeople are variously resigned to their fate or utterly freaked out. Others end up stumbling around in a haze of migraine pain and murder a couple of ex-lovers (hey, it IS Stephen King). Most frightening of all isn't the expectation that the townspeople will turn on each other, but the taut tension created between the town's freethinkers (an ex-Army man, the editor of the local newspaper, and a trio of