Small Town Development

Asher Aldridge became my enemy the day he decided to steal my gym. It doesn’t matter how many years I’ve been working as a fitness influencer and trainer, because Asher is friends with the current owner of the gym I need to buy. And it’s very clear the owner wants to sell the gym to his buddy, he’s just trying to give Asher enough time to save up the money. Asher might be all smiles and good vibes, but the over-muscled lug isn’t fooling me. I’m going to fight for this gym even if it requires a battle to the death. My death apparently, because the owner has challenged me and ...

With over $500 million a year in sales, the Bassett Furniture Company was once the world's biggest wood furniture manufacturer. But beginning in the 1980s, the Bassett company suffered from an influx of cheap Chinese furniture as the first waves of Asian competition hit, and ultimately was forced to send its production offshore to Asia. Only one man fought back. That man is John Bassett III, a descendant of the Bassetts who is now chairman of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co, which employs more than 700 Virginians and has sales of over $90 million.

Set in early 1950s rural South Carolina, One Good Mama Bone chronicles Sarah Creamer's quest to find her "mama bone", after she is left to care for a boy who is not her own but instead is the product of an affair between her husband and her best friend and neighbor, a woman she calls "sister". When her husband drinks himself to death, Sarah, a dirt-poor homemaker with no family to rely on and the note on the farm long past due, must find a way for her and young Emerson Bridge to survive.

Longtime Dollar General CEO Cal Turner, Jr. shares his extraordinary life as heir to the company founded by his father Cal Turner, Sr. and his grandfather, a dirt farmer turned Depression-era entrepreneur. Cal's narrative is at its heart a father-son story, from his childhood in Scottsville, Kentucky, where business and family were one, to the triumph of reaching the Fortune 300 - at the cost of risking that very father/son relationship. Cal shares how the small-town values with which he was raised helped him guide Dollar General from family enterprise to national powerhouse.

Enjoy the drama and excitement of a novel experience in compact short stories—contemporary lives moving through dark trials to light and hope. "There are many excellent stories in this collection." ~McEvoy

Small Town, Big Ambitions is a compelling guide to finding success in any endeavor, providing golden nuggets of advice to help you realize your dreams. Follow Justin's path of personal transformation as he navigates the challenges and triumphs we all encounter.

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming follows Rod Dreher, a Philadelphia journalist, back to his hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie's death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life.

Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child to her mother's abandonment and now an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Yet when her grandmother calls and asks her to watch over the children of a recent widower in a small, isolated town in Colorado, she takes it as a chance to finally organize her life.

Ranked Top 10 "Best Lit Mags of 2023" by Chill Subs Delight in intriguing, thought-provoking conversations about ethics, philosophy, and social issues! After Dinner Conversation is a monthly literary magazine publishing short fiction. Each issue features both established writers and up-and-coming authors who contribute fascinating philosophical insights on controversial topics like marriage equality, assisted suicide, the meaning of death, animal rights, and defining your "purpose." It's time to go deep in search of truth! If you love reading imaginative short stories on hot topics that ...

Penny and Hattie, orphaned sisters in a small town, are best friends, bound together to the point of knots. But Penny, at the mercy of her brutal husband, is desperate for a fresh start. Willing to do anything for her older sister, Hattie agrees to help. A match is struck, and a fire burns Penny's marriage to the ground. With her husband gone, Penny is free, and the sisters, it seems, get away with murder. But freedom comes at a cost. More than a year after the fire, a charming young man comes to town. Their love for him threatens the delicate balance.

Ethan Wilder is too cocky, too popular with the ladies and much, much too handsome to be trusted. And that's just some of the many reasons Poppy shouldn't sleep with him... And now Ethan has become the nemesis who seems to disagree with all her plans to improve his family's hotel, all while trying to break down her defenses and woo her into his well-used bed. While her head says no, her rebellious body keeps saying yes, and she's not sure what to do about that.

In The Poster Boy, Chad Scott tells the story of a Midwestern kid from Missouri who worked up the nerve to move to Chicago and chase his dream of becoming an entrepreneur. He didn’t have a pile of cash or a bunch of connections - just a great idea and the willpower to see it through to the bitter end. This book is half-memoir and half-guide. Chapters alternate between Chad’s story and practical business lessons designed to take you all the way from a bare concept to a lucrative business.

A creature of routine and decorum, Mrs March lives an exquisitely controlled existence on the Upper East Side. Every morning begins the same way, with a visit to her favourite patisserie to buy a loaf of olive bread, but her latest trip proves to be her last when she suffers an indignity from which she may never recover: an assumption by the shopkeeper that the protagonist in George March’s new book - a pathetic sex worker, more a figure of derision than desire - is based on Mrs March.

Small-town drama makes Hollywood look like a walk in the park. For those going through a divorce in a small town and are ready to feel confident, capable, and competent, now is the time to take action with Small Town Divorce. Denise Anderson walked through those same trenches after experiencing her own dramatic small-town divorce. She has coached and mentored dozens of others who have experienced similar drama, taking them from surviving to thriving.

Inspired by a true story. In 1825, in a remote Irish valley lying between the mountains and Flesk River of Killarney, three women are brought together by strange and troubling events. Nora Leahy, a widow, has lost her daughter and her husband in the same year and is now burdened with the care of her grandson, Michael. The boy cannot walk or speak, and Nora has kept him hidden from neighbours, who might see in his deformity evidence of supernatural interference.

It's not just hems that are frayed in Applewell... Gracie rescues old clothes and cast-offs from Applewell's charity shop, making them into cute and fresh outfits, which she then sells in her little shop. Turning a profit is hard at the best of times, let alone when new arrival Lucas appears... After running away from the village in his teens, Lucas has finally returned to an uncomfortable amount of fanfare and gossip. His job requires him to streamline homeless charity, UnderCover, and his plans to do so risk putting Gracie out of business.

Nolan Jackson is a journeyman carpenter by trade and a wanderer by nature. And in 2007, while fellow Americans fight in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Nolan roams, traveling between jobs building tract homes across the West. Following a shocking workplace accident in Las Vegas, he uproots himself from the tentative relationships he has made and heads toward the ocean.

The last time Vee left the shores of Unity Island, she thought she'd left forever. But this summer, she's returning with her charming husband, Mike. Vee's unexpected arrival, this time as one of the wealthy 'summer people', sets the small island community alight with gossip. What's more, her childhood best friend, Sterling, is furious that she's come back—Vee abandoned him when he needed her most. And then Vee meets Rachel, Sterling's wife, and a spark is ignited within her that she can't extinguish.

Valle Rosa, a small drought-weary town in Southern California, is under destruction from deadly wildfires. Into the midst of this crisis rolls a handsome stranger calling himself Jeff Cabrio, who claims he can cure the town's troubles by making it rain. But Cabrio's entrance into the community brings more than just potential rain, and it's not long before the residents' interests turn from the weather to their mysterious neighbour. For tragedy-afflicted sculptress Mia Tanner, Cabrio unearths old wounds and new loves.

Penny and Hattie are sisters in a small town, bound tight to the point of knots. They share a secret they cannot escape, even while it pulls them apart. One night, a match is lit, and Penny's terrible husband is killed - a marriage going up in flames and offering the potential of a new life. The sisters retreat into their family home, a house of secrets and memories, and try to live in the shadow of what they put in motion. But Penny's husband is not the only thing they are hiding - both from the outside world and from each other.