Small towns always seem to be full of big personalities, all of whom want to play their own part, leading to hijinks and hilarious disasters. Find your next read (or audiobook!) among this list of small towns around the world populated with quirky characters in funny, sentimental stories.
TheRoad To Rose Bend by Naima Simone
Sydney Collins left the small Berkshires town of Rose Bend eight years ago,
grieving her sister’s death—and heartbroken over her parents’ rejection. But
now the rebel is back—newly divorced and pregnant—ready to face her fears and
make a home for her child in the caring community she once knew. The last thing
she needs is trouble. But trouble just set her body on fire with one hot, hot
smile.
ThePatron Saint of Second Chances by Christine Simon
The self-appointed mayor of a tiny Italian village is determined to save his
hometown no matter the cost in this charming, hilarious, and heartwarming debut
novel.
Britt-MarieWas Here by Fredrik Backman
When Britt-Marie walks out on her cheating husband and has to fend for herself
in the miserable backwater town of Borg—of which the kindest thing one can say
is that it has a road going through it—the fastidious Britt-Marie soon finds
herself being drawn into the daily doings of her fellow citizens, an odd
assortment of miscreants, drunkards, layabouts. Most alarming of all, she’s
given the impossible task of leading the supremely untalented children’s soccer
team to victory. In this small town of misfits, can Britt-Marie find a place
where she truly belongs?
SecondChance on Cypress Lane by Reese Ryan
Set in Holly Grove Island, North Carolina, a reporter heads back home to
recover from a scandal, only to find herself working with the man who once
broke her heart.
DelilahGreen Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake
Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls—nothing is there
for her but memories of a lonely childhood and a cold and distant stepfamily.
When her estranged stepsister pressures her into photographing her wedding,
Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town she used to call home. Having
raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her
unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life
without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise…at first. When
they’re forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations—including a
plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé—Claire isn’t sure she has the
strength to resist Delilah’s charms. Even worse, she’s starting to think she
doesn’t want to...
TheLast Chance Library by Freya Sampson
June Jones emerges from her shell to fight for her beloved local library, and
through the efforts and support of an eclectic group of library patrons, she
discovers life-changing friendships along the way.
TheReaders of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
Katarina Bivald's The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is a sweet,
smart, and uplifting story about how books find us, change us, and connect us.
Rise
& Shine, Benedict Stone by Phaedra Patrick
Filled with colorful characters and irresistible charm, Rise and Shine,
Benedict Stone is a luminous reminder of the unbreakable bonds of family,
and shows that having someone to embrace life with is always better than simply
getting by on your own.
MyItalian Bulldozer by Alexander McCall Smith
Paul Stuart, a renowned food writer, finds himself at loose ends after his
longtime girlfriend leaves him for her personal trainer. To cheer him up,
Paul’s editor, Gloria, encourages him to finish his latest cookbook on-site in
Tuscany, hoping that a change of scenery (plus the occasional truffled pasta
and glass of red wine) will offer a cure for both heartache and writer’s block.
But upon Paul’s arrival, things don’t quite go as planned. A mishap with his
rental-car reservation leaves him stranded, until a newfound friend leads
him to an intriguing alternative: a bulldozer.
SouthPole Station by Ashley Shelby
A warmhearted comedy of errors set in the world’s harshest place, Ashley
Shelby's South Pole Station is a wry and witty debut novel about the
courage it takes to band together when everything around you falls apart.
BlackberryWine by Joanne Harris
Jay Mackintosh is trapped by memory in the old familiar landscape of his
childhood, to which he longs to return. A bottle of home-brewed wine left to
him by a long-vanished friend seems to provide the key to an old mystery. As
the unusual properties of the strange brew take effect, Jay escapes to a
derelict farmhouse in the French village of Lansquenet. There, a ghost from the
past waits to confront him.
TheStoried Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his
bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized
possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. But when a
mysterious package appears at the bookstore, its unexpected arrival gives Fikry
the chance to make his life over--and see everything anew.
ColdSassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
Olive Ann Burns has given us a timeless, funny, resplendent novel - about a
romance that rocks an entire town, about a boy's passage through the momentous
but elusive year when childhood melts into adolescence, and about just how
people lived and died in a small Southern town at the turn of the century.
Inhabited by characters who are wise and loony, unimpeachably pious and
deliciously irreverent, Cold Sassy, Georgia, is the perfect setting for the
debut of a storyteller of rare brio, exuberance, and style.
TheSecret of Rainy Days by Leslie Hooton
Growing up in Erob, Alabama, Nina "Little Bit" Barnes Enloe lived in
the shadow of her imposing and harsh grandmother, Nina "Biggie"
Barnes Enloe. Bit believes she can escape her grandmother’s controlling grip
once and for all by moving somewhere where she is the only Nina Enloe listed:
New York. Yet her world is turned upside down when an unexpected loss forces
her to leave her new life in the city and return to Erob, where she must face
everything―and everyone―she left behind. In the process, Bit discovers her true
identity, learns the hard lessons of acceptance and forgiveness, finds herself
falling in love in unexpected places, and finds comfort in the secrets of rainy
days.
BigStone Gap by Adriana Trigiani
Self-proclaimed spinster, Ave Maria Mulligan reaches her thirty-fifth year and
resigns herself to the single life, filling her days with hard work, fun
friends, and good books. Then, one fateful day, Ave Maria’s past opens wide
with the revelation of a long-buried secret that will alter the course of her
life. Before she knows it, Ave Maria is fielding marriage proposals, trying to
claim her rightful inheritance, and planning the trip of a lifetime to
Italy—one that will change her view of the world and her own place in it
forever.
GardenSpells by Sarah Addison Allen
In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house
in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very
special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells
the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it....
ColdComfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
When a well-educated young socialite in 1930s England is left orphaned and
unable to support herself at age twenty-two, she moves in with her eccentric
relatives on their farm.
Midnightat the Blackbird Café by Heather Weber
Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It
is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of
the Blackbird Café. It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and
settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid
forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate
finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran
away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t
stop talking about.
SweetTea and Sympathy by Molly Harper
Nestled on the shore of Lake Sackett, Georgia is the McCready Family Funeral Home
and Bait Shop. (What, you have a problem with one-stop shopping?) Two McCready
brothers started two separate businesses in the same building back in 1928, and
now it’s become one big family affair. And true to form in small Southern
towns, family business becomes everybody’s business.
ItHappened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
Tessa Bailey is back with a Schitt’s Creek-inspired rom-com about a
Hollywood “It Girl” who’s cut off from her wealthy family and exiled to a small
Pacific Northwest beach town... where she butts heads with a surly, sexy local
who thinks she doesn’t belong.
MajorPettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
When retired Major Pettigrew strikes up an unlikely friendship with Mrs. Ali,
the Pakistani village shopkeeper, he is drawn out of his regimented world and
forced to confront the realities of life in the twenty-first century. Brought
together by a shared love of literature and the loss of their respective
spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship on the cusp of
blossoming into something more.
Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash
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