Book picks similar to
Muddy Bottom by Ashley Farley


fiction
ebook
southern
women-s-fiction

Sisters


Kellie Coates Gilbert - 2014
    . . and the choices they make when they realize their lives aren’t exactly what they expected. Karyn Macadam is starting over after losing her husband to a skiing accident. A chance encounter with a backcountry pilot might be this young widow’s one shot at a new beginning, but only if she can let go of the past. Leigh Ann Blackburn is the perfect wife, until her husband grows more distant and she believes the worst. An outrageous plan to save her marriage turns the situation on its head and she soon learns not everything is as it seems. Joie Abbott, who always finds a way to mess up her life, has done it yet again. This time a bitter betrayal threatens to expose a heartache she desperately wants to keep secret, especially from her family. Through romance and heartbreak, laughter and tears . . . life is always better with your sisters at your side.

The Sisters Café


Carolyn Brown - 2013
    She's taken step one and gotten engaged to a reliable man, but she's beginning to question their relationship. Does he really love her, or is she just arm candy for his political career? Why is her future mother-in-law getting increasingly hostile? Worse, why does he stand up for his mother when she says those awful things, instead of protecting her? Cathy is full of self-doubt. Both of her options—going through with the wedding or breaking off her engagement—are beginning to look like a nightmare either way. She knows her friends will back her up, but she's the one who has to make a decision that's going to tear her apart.

Sweet Water


Christina Baker Kline - 1993
    When a grandfather she never knew bequeaths her a house and 60 acres of land in Sweetwater, Tenn., a restless young artist leaves New York to recover her past and rethink her future. Cassie Simon's mother Ellen died when Cassie was only three; raised in Boston by her grieving father, she never knew her maternal relatives. Unprepared for the thick veil of mystery that surrounds them, Cassie is especially bewildered by her brusque grandmother, whom rumor credits with hiding a terrible secret about Ellen's death. In alternating sections told from their respective points of view, Cassie and her grandmother fight their separate battles to cope with the truth about the tragedy. Kline perfectly renders each woman's voice: Cassie's, probing and often uncertain, propels the narrative and creates an appropriate level of psychological suspense; the grandmother's quavers with the weight of memory as Cassie's search forces her beyond family myth to a painful and perhaps dangerous truth. The result is a powerful, immensely readable tale of loyalty and betrayal, family and memory, made fresh by Kline's often beautiful and always lucid prose.

Swim


Jennifer Weiner - 2006
    When she’s not working, she’s swimming—lap after lap at the local indoor pool, in a desperate attempt to wash away the sting of professional failure and heartbreak that she can’t seem to shake. It takes an unexpected client to show her that appearances can be deceiving, and that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is simply dive back in.

Memory House


Bette Lee Crosby - 2015
    She knows because she’s been granted the unique gift of finding and caring for those forgotten memories. But now she’s nearing ninety, and Browne women seldom live beyond ninety. Before time runs out Ophelia must find a successor. Someone who can take hold of the gifts and keep the memories from fading. When broken-hearted Annie Cross shows up on the doorstep of The Memory House Bed and Breakfast, Ophelia knows she is the one. The two women forge a bond of friendship as they sip magical dandelion tea and share stories. When Annie starts to sense the memories Ophelia is delighted, but then a thread of violence begins to unravel and Ophelia fears things have gone too far.

Rain Song


Alice J. Wisler - 2008
    Something happened in Japan...something that sent Nicole and her father back to America alone...something of which Nicole knows only bits and pieces. But she is content with life in little Mount Olive, North Carolina, with her quirky relatives, tank of lively fish, and plenty of homemade pineapple chutney. Through her online column for the Pretty Fishy Web site, she meets Harrison Michaels, who, much to her dismay, lives in Japan. She attempts to avoid him, but his e-mails tug at her heart. Then Harrison reveals that he knew her as a child in Japan. In fact, he knows more about her childhood than she does...

The Goodbye Storm


Danielle Stewart - 2015
    When an icy road and a dark night leave her a young widow, she’s forced to trade in her perfectly planned future for the unknown. Like a child hiding from a monster, she pulls her covers up over and head with the intention of sheltering herself forever. But once an unexpected stranger shows up on her doorstep, Autumn has to choose between being alone or connecting with someone who is hurting as badly as she is. Noah Key, an emergency room doctor. He has solemnly informed countless families that their loved one could not be saved. However, when his own wife dies suddenly there are no words to bring him comfort. His in-laws want him to fall to pieces to confirm his love for his late wife. His colleagues want him to take time off to grieve. The only thing Noah wants is to work enough hours in the day to forget his wife is gone. He’s written himself a prescription for a cocktail of distraction and exhaustion in order to trick his brain into thinking his life isn’t in shambles. When the world keeps moving on without them, Noah and Autumn will need to decide if they’ll survive the storm or allow themselves to swept away by it. Rough Waters Series: Book 1: The Goodbye Storm Book 2: The Runaway Storm

Worth the Weight


Mara Jacobs - 2012
    A new life. An old flame?Lizzie Hampton is literally a shadow of her former self. Having lost half her body weight, she's headed to her small hometown to test out her new body on an old flame. Just a harmless fling to get her self-confidence back before she returns to the city and the new man in her life.But Lizzie's plan has a few bumps in the road.Finn Robbins can't believe Liz is back in town. Desperate to be the holder of her innocence eighteen years ago, he never got the chance. Now she's back and he can finally check her off his to do list. But her friends, his son, and the mysterious Annie may have something to say about that.

The Promise of Paradise


Allie Boniface - 2007
    To escape, she rents an apartment in the sleepy town of Paradise, New Hampshire, where no one knows who she is.Ashton hopes for solitude, but all bets are off when Eddie West, the town’s most eligible bachelor, moves in downstairs. Eddie likes his women and his cars shiny, sleek, and fast, and when he meets his new housemate, he wastes no time getting friendly. While he's looking for a no-strings romance, though, he gets more than he bargained for in Ash, who sees through his bravado to the pain of a loss too fresh to mention.Can two people from different worlds find common ground, a place to fall in love and build a future? Is it possible to find your soul mate in the place you least expect?

The Guestbook


Andrea Hurst - 2012
    The lush and majestic setting of the Pacific Northwest calls to her and offers a place of refuge and perhaps renewal. Her grandmother has passed away, leaving the Madrona Island Bed & Breakfast Inn to Lily. Left with only an old guestbook as her guide–a curious book full of letters, recipes, and glimpses into her family history–Lily is determined to embrace her newfound independence and recreate herself, one page at a time. With the help of the quirky island residents she has befriended, she slowly finds the strength to seek out happiness on her own terms. But as soon as she has sworn off men and is standing on her own two feet, Lily meets Ian, the alluring artist who lives next door, and her new life is suddenly thrown off course. The last thing she wants to do right now is to open her heart to another man. Ultimately, Lily must decide if it’s worth giving up her soul for security or risking everything to follow her heart.

Country Heaven


Ava Miles - 2014
    He’s a bad boy who indulges himself in all things, women included. But while she couldn’t care less about country music or arrogant men, Rye makes her an offer she can’t refuse when he asks her to be his private chef on his multi-city concert tour. The job is the answer to all her prayers: it will clear out her debt and finance the fresh start she desperately needs.Rye is certain his sassy new cook is the last woman who’d ever tempt him, but spending time with the wholesome girl next door will do wonders for his damaged public image, whether she likes being forced into the spotlight or not. Her food also happens to be the best he’s ever eaten, both comforting and seductive. But spending time with Tory on the road shows him a new side to her—one that’s as impossible to resist as her food. And when an emergency in his family whisks him home, he does the one thing he’s never risked: he lets a woman into his heart…Soon the emotions Rye faked for the tabloids become all too real, but will the country heaven he’s found in Tory’s arms survive in the real world?

Breakfast at the Beach House Hotel


Judith S. Keim - 2015
    Ann, quiet and reserved, is no match for brash, bossy Rhonda, who left the family’s New Jersey butcher business after she won the lottery. Amid their struggles to succeed, The Sins of the Children, a soap opera, films a number of episodes at the hotel and things get complicated in unexpected ways when Ann falls for Vaughn Sanders, the star of the show.

Someone Else's Love Story


Joshilyn Jackson - 2013
    She’s got enough complications without getting caught in the middle of a stick-up in a gas station mini-mart and falling in love with a great wall of a man named William Ashe, who willingly steps between the armed robber and her son.Shandi doesn’t know that her blond god Thor has his own complications. When he looked down the barrel of that gun he believed it was destiny: It’s been one year to the day since a tragic act of physics shattered his universe. But William doesn’t define destiny the way other people do. A brilliant geneticist who believes in science and numbers, destiny to him is about choice.Now, he and Shandi are about to meet their so-called destinies head on, in a funny, charming, and poignant novel about science and miracles, secrets and truths, faith and forgiveness,; about a virgin birth, a sacrifice, and a resurrection; about falling in love, and learning that things aren’t always what they seem—or what we hope they will be. It’s a novel about discovering what we want and ultimately finding what we need

Barefoot Season


Susan Mallery - 2012
    A young army vet, Michelle returns to the quaint Blackberry Island Inn to claim her inheritance and recover from the perils of war. Instead, she finds the owner’s suite occupied by the last person she wants to see.Carly Williams and Michelle were once inseparable, until a shocking betrayal destroyed their friendship. And now Carly is implicated in the financial disaster lurking behind the inn’s cheerful veneer.Single mother Carly has weathered rumors, lies and secrets for a lifetime, and is finally starting to move forward with love and life. But if the Blackberry Island Inn goes under, Carly and her daughter will go with it.To save their livelihoods, Carly and Michelle will undertake a turbulent truce. It’ll take more than a successful season to move beyond their devastating past, but with a little luck and a beautiful summer, they may just rediscover the friendship of a lifetime.

Taken by Love


Melissa Foster - 2014
    Now a physician on the brink of a promising career, she reluctantly returns home when her father is injured in a farming accident. Daisy expects the small-town girls who hurt her in the past to take cheap shots again--but she's completely unprepared for a run-in with tall, dark, and wickedly sexy Luke Braden, the only man who has ever stood up for her--and the man she's never forgotten.Luke Braden is handsome, wealthy, and the best damn gypsy horse breeder in the Midwest. After a restless youth, he's finally ready to settle down--only connecting with women is nothing like connecting with horses, and he's never met a woman worth the energy. After an arrest in a neighboring town, Luke's past comes back to haunt him, and he realizes that his inability to find love runs deeper than he ever imagined.A chance encounter sweeps Luke and Daisy into a world of passion. For the first time ever, Luke feels a connection, but Daisy's life in Trusty is anything but permanent, and Luke can't manage a future until he puts his past to rest.**CONTENT WARNING: Due to mature content, recommended for readers aged 18+.**