Akron Public Library

This updated authoritative edition of the classic Hardy novel, which was published anonymously and first attributed to George Eliot, is set from Hardy's revised, unedited final draft of 1912 and features a new Introduction and Afterword. There is in England no more real or typical district than Thomas Hardy's imaginary Wessex, the scattered fields and farms of which were first discovered in Far from the Madding Crowd. It is here that Gabriel Oak observes...

John Bergson, a Swedish farmer, struggles desperately with the soil but dies unsatisfied. His daughter Alexandra resolves to vindicate his faith, and her strong character carries her weak older brothers and her mother along to a new zest for life. Years of privation are rewarded on the farm. But when Alexandra falls in love with Carl Linstrum, and her family objects because he is poor, he leaves to seek a different career. After Alexandra's younger...

"First in a new series! Shiloh Bellamy cashed in her big city job and 401K to return home to Michigan to save the family farm, but turning Bellamy Farms into a sustainable, organic operation is no small feat. Especially when her new investor is found dead at the farmers market not long after the contract is signed, a contract that the whole town knows her father was wholeheartedly against. Now, Shiloh must clear her family's name and track down the...

Dori Sanders' first novel, CLOVER was a smash hit. Now, with HER OWN PLACE, Dori Sanders tells a story about ordinary people taking part in a transformation of heart and mind--in the South, in the nation. "Resonates as powerfully as an old hymn."--Kirkus Reviews; "Like a ripe summer peach, HER OWN PLACE just keeps getting better and better until the last page leaves the reader longing for more.

"Set on an alfalfa ranch east of the Black Hills of South Dakota, this novel about three uncommon women explores the nuances of place, character, grief, and renewal. Mattie Remmel has lost her husband in a farm accident, and in her grief discovers a secret about him he had not meant to reveal. Deciding to keep the ranch running, she enlists the help of her daughter, Shelley, an insecure college student, and hires a drifter ranch hand, Dawn, who is...

Hush McGillen, a young widow and single mother running a successful family orchard, finds her life turned upside down when her college student son Davis elopes with and marries the rebellious daughter of the President of the United States.

Megan Sawyer should be shouting from the barn roof. Washington Acres survived its first year, the café has become a hotspot for locals, and Winsome's sexy Scottish veterinarian is making house calls--only not for the animals. But as summer slips into fall and Winsome prepares for its grand Oktoberfest celebration, beer isn't the only thing brewing. When the town's pub owner is killed in a freak accident, Megan suspects something sinister is afoot...

It's Halloween in Buttercup, Texas, and reporter-turned-farmer Lucy Resnick is up to her ears in more than goats and wayward cows when exotic game ranch owner Bug Wharton turns up dead by a fatal dose of bee venom. When local witch and mead winery owner Seraphine Alexandre becomes the prime suspect, Lucy gets involved ... and soon discovers that all kinds of things are brewing in Buttercup, and some of them are deadly.

When one of the chefs who planned on opening a new restaurant in Granford that would use locally-grown foods is murdered, orchard-owner Meg Corey steps in to investigate and digs up some secrets that place her own life in danger.

"It all began when someone spray-painted WITCH on the side of Widow Coggin's barn on Trevelyan Road. Then someone stole some sketches of nudes from Pickax's new Art Center across the way. A few scattered drops of blood on the floor near the cage of a resident parrot - a parrot who happens to have a penchant for talking dirty - indicate that the thief did not escape without a mark."--BOOK JACKET. "When a fire erupts on the Coggin farm, taking the life...