Showing results for "The Rural" in LGBTQ+

Lucy Parsons wants absolutely nothing to do with the Westmoore family or the maple syrup they produce. When Sierra Westmoore blows back into town after her father's death and tries to rent a room at Lucy's family's bed-and-breakfast, The Maple Inn, Lucy kicks her out on the spot. It doesn't matter that Sierra hasn't set foot in Maple Run in fifteen years—the Westmoores are not allowed. But small towns don't leave a lot of room to hide, and Sierra and her brother, Drake, have set their sights on improving the town's opinion of them now that their father is gone.

Jacqueline Keys was ostracized from her small hometown of Pine Springs, Texas, when she was 17, sent away because she was gay. Fifteen years later - long after she'd hitch-hiked to Los Angeles, put herself through college, and had written her first best seller - Jacqueline is persuaded to go back to the tiny town of Pine Springs after her father's death. The quick trip she'd envisioned for the funeral turns into weeks as she learns her father's business is suddenly hers to manage. And she is also again face-to-face with the woman who, as a teen, had been Jackie's first crush.

Today most LGBTQ rights supporters take for granted the virtue of being "out, loud, and proud." Most also assume that it would be terrible to be LGBTQ in a rural place. By considering moments in which queerness and rurality come into contact, Visibility Interrupted argues that both positions are wrong. In the first monograph on LGBTQ women in the rural Midwest, Carly Thomsen deconstructs the image of the rural as a flat, homogenous, and anachronistic place where LGBTQ people necessarily suffer. And she suggests that visibility is not liberation and will not lead to liberation.

My favorite principle in landscaping and in life is balance. In any situation, that's my goal—to find that perfect balance. And I'm good at it too. That is until I met Cane. Now, nothing makes sense, and everything is off balance. I'm not sure what to make of this and how to make it work. I've never felt like this before, and I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. All I know is I want to find a way.

Jessamine Byron's life has fallen apart and she has no idea how to fix it. Her messy divorce has been splashed all over the tabloids, her mother is furious with her, and she's run away to go into hiding in the Scottish Highlands. Okay, so she's a countess and she's hiding in the family castle, but with even her personal assistant tormenting her and only her cat on her side, she still feels like she's hit rock bottom. So when she meets gardener Mac Douglas, who hasn't got a clue about her title or her past, she's relieved to introduce herself as just plain Jess.

Wen Apollo dreams of seeing the world beyond the small riverside town where she grew up. But operating the local mailboat keeps her tethered to Coopersville. Islands dot the river, and their residents rely on her to deliver everything from food and medicine to pet food and plumbing supplies. On a raw spring day, Wen goes to Owl Island—the summer home of the illustrious Gage family—to deliver a package. It's addressed to the family's oldest daughter, Estelle, a woman Wen has long admired from afar.

After her father's death, property developer Chloe Roberts has only one goal: to renovate and sell the old family house as quickly as possible so she never has to return home ever again. The last thing she expects is to run into Amy Edwards, the first woman she ever loved. Dairy farmer Amy is deeply shaken by Chloe's sudden reappearance. Burnt bridges from bad teenage decisions still fill her with regret. What if she reaches out, though? Just a little? Can some bridges ever be saved? Should those old, aching wounds be left in the past, along with all the mistakes they might repeat?

Working with kids is totally my jam, and I'm damn good at what I do. Just call me Maxy Frickin' Poppins! When a new job prospect comes my way, I'm intrigued. A chance to move to Mystic Hollow (aka Monsters Hollow) to be a well-paid manny for two adorable orclings? Talk about a dream position. Sold! But when I lock eyes with the seriously sexy orc who's their guardian—and my new de facto boss—for the first time, I'm a goner. Big, muscular, and green all over–he's giving me full-on Hulk meets stern professor vibes—and I like it.

Melanie Hoffert longs for her rural North Dakota home with its grain trucks and empty main streets. But like many, she followed the out-migration pattern to a more urban life. When she returns home during harvest to confront the silences that have kept her at arm’s length from her childhood community, she finds it’s not easy. When asked if she's found a “fella,” rather than explain that she dates women, she stops breathing and changes the subject.

Fran hates Ash Mountain, and she thought she’d escaped. But her father is ill and needs care. Her relationship is over and she hates her dead-end job in the city, anyway. She returns to her hometown to nurse her dying father, her distant teenage daughter in tow for the weekends. There, in the sleepy town of Ash Mountain, childhood memories prick at her fragile self-esteem, she falls in love for the first time and her demanding dad tests her patience, all in the unbearable heat of an Australian summer.

It's been five years since Bridget Theroux's death shocked the small town of Dalton, Maine, leaving behind husband Nate and daughter Sophie, now a vibrant young child. Nate doesn't always know how to answer her questions, but he is intent on raising her with joy—and shielding her from her grandmother, Annette, who remains dangerously locked away in her grief.

As a millworkers’ strike in the northern lumber town of Roberval drags on, tensions start to escalate between the workers—but when a lockout renews their solidarity, they rally around the mysterious and magnetic influence of Querelle, a dashing newcomer from Montreal. Strapping and unabashed, likeable but callow, by day he walks the picket lines and at night moves like a mythic Adonis through the ranks of young men who flock to his apartment for sex.

The emo kid, the loner, the cynical wallflower with an attitude. It's no secret that I've never quite fit in. But it's glaringly obvious now that I've moved to this Podunk small town that seems to run entirely on sugar, friendliness, and cheer. (And cows, an ungodly number of cows.) I hate it—this place where everyone knows everyone, and I'm still the outsider. Who wants to fit in anyway? I've never really tried, never even thought I wanted to…until I met him. Jimbob is living his best life out here, farming the fields of Kansas, well and truly happy. And I just don't get it.

Covenant continues the beloved saga of the residents of Jericho, a sleepy town in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, where life and love have as many twists and turns as a winding mountain road. Six weeks have passed since the fateful unfolding of events at the town fourth of July celebration. Questions swirl about the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the town nemesis, Gerald Watson. Was it an accident, or was Watson murdered?

Blanche McCrary Boyd’s first novel in 20 years continues the story of her protagonist Ellen Burns. When Tomb of the Unknown Racist opens in 1999, Ellen - now sober, haunted by her activist past, her failed relationships - is taking care of her demented mother in South Carolina....

At midnight on New Year’s Eve, Trowbridge Vermont EMT Brighid Doran delivers the region’s ambulance to a three-alarm house fire. Afterward, she sits in a warm truck with her girlfriend Sam, a US Army officer fresh from the battlefields of Iraq, as they watch a local volunteer firefighter battle the blast in subzero weather.

Boston-born first-responder Alex Flynn gets called into the principal’s office in this short story set in rural Vermont, where poor roads and under-funded public services form a comfortable and familiar background. Explore the hidden links and community found in an ordinary New England town when local first responders might or might not have to engage with an active school shooter. Trowbridge Dispatch is part of the Trowbridge, Vermont series of novels and stories, wherein I.M. Aiken draws on her roots in public safety to narrate tales of the everyday heroes that every community depends on.