Women’s Fiction Goes Country

The Four Queens of the Buttonbush Museum by Beth Brookart

Sibylline Press, April 2025

In 1950, the Buttonbush Museum is circling the financial drain, and Irene Pickett—a sassy farmer’s wife from rural California—is determined to stop the flush. Tired of being typecast as the housewife queen of pickling and laundry, Irene has something to prove. Enter The Four Queens: Irene and three other firebrand women ready to take on the museum’s bottomless budget issues.

The biggest obstacle is fellow Queen, Odilia Delgado, who’s more concerned with slapping her name on museum buildings than balancing the books. When the county threatens to bulldoze the museum, Irene hatches a plan. Then The Queens discover they’re being sabotaged by outside forces. Can Irene pull off a miracle, save the museum, and finally get the credit she deserves? Or will Odilia steamroll her way into another spotlight? Buckle up — this ride’s got more twists than a pig’s tail at the county fair!

Trust Falls by Kathleen M. Basi

Sycamore Hollow Press, November 2026

A failed stage actress. A beleaguered pop star. Two cousins with nowhere else to go. And an unscrupulous developer, poised to bulldoze their rural sanctuary.

Charley Dupree’s family Christmas tree farm is everything to her: a place of beauty and a refuge from a world that has offered nothing but betrayal. It’s also a home to her mother Penny, her oldest friend Julian, and his cousin Mark, a former baseball star who might just be Charley’s soul mate, if she can learn to trust again. But with foreclosure looming, Charley is short on time and options—until a stroke of luck and an act of kindness bring acclaimed singer-songwriter Maya Santoro to her doorstep, seeking a secluded place to finish her overdue album.

But the more Charley tries to balance Maya’s demand for privacy with her fight to keep the farm afloat, the more her relationships suffer. And when a scheme that should be the farm’s ultimate saving grace goes catastrophically wrong, Charley must decide what matters most: her home, or those she shares it with.

Emotionally resonant and brimming with hope, Trust Falls is a story of friendship, found family, and claiming one’s place in the world.

Now That I Know You by Heart by Amy Hagstrom

Lake Union Publishing, January 2026

Newly widowed Shelby Wright has left the Portland suburbs for a new life on Washington’s San Juan Island to fulfill her late husband’s dying wish. Running the shuttered Captain Merrick Inn, where they’d honeymooned twenty years before, is also a chance for Shelby to prove she can go it solo. Miles from home and her young adult son, Shelby is ready to finally acknowledge to herself that she is gay. But becoming the person she’s hidden away for so long isn’t going to be easy.

As Shelby renovates and rebrands the inn, she meets charismatic winemaker Holly Caster. Their fast connection challenges Shelby to confront her emerging identity and lingering attachment not only to her husband, whom she loved, but to the best friend she left behind. When Shelby is welcomed by a supportive group of local queer women dubbed “the San Juan Sisters,” she’s on her way to making a professional venture―and a long-awaited personal quest ― come true.

Both she and the inn may be in need of a little TLC, but Shelby is about to find love and purpose in the most unexpected places.

Bewept by Colleen Coyne

The Wild Rose Press, July 2023

Anna is finally happy. She is newly married to a wonderful, supportive man and living in her dream home. Just as her husband begins to announce a big surprise, his heart ceases, her future dissolves, and she plunges into grief.

Grief has her stuck between what was and what is. From past experience, Anna knows how easy it is to sink into a grief that causes odd behaviors, lost chunks of time, and forgetfulness. This time, is it a sign she is in the throes of early dementia?

When past horrors resurface and collide with Anna’s uncertain present, she wonders if something sinister is at play. Discovering the truth sends her on a harrowing odyssey where each step forward unlocks another terrible memory. Successfully confronting the ghosts from her past will be key to her survival.

The Diner Girl: A Greenberry Corners Story by Christina Burnard

Self published, September 2026

Cole Tiller came to Happy Hal’s looking for pancakes. He left behind his cowboy hat, his private songbook, and maybe the first spark of inspiration he’s felt in months.

Lacey has bigger problems than the handsome stranger who disappeared before she could serve him breakfast. Her stepmother plans to sell the diner Lacey’s late father built, taking with it the only home and family Lacey has left.

When Lacey finds Cole’s number inside his forgotten songbook, she sends one simple text. One message becomes another. Soon they’re talking late into the night about books, family, music, and all the things that are sometimes easier to tell a near-stranger through a screen.

Cole is supposed to be finding his next hit. Instead, he keeps finding words about a diner girl with emerald eyes. And Lacey is supposed to be saving Happy Hal’s, not falling for the man whose messages have become the best part of her day. But sometimes the place you least expect is exactly where you’re meant to be.

Her 5 Husbands: A Wicked Good Maine Novel by Cheryl Klein, M.Div

Flying Solo Books, 2026

Rachel Gould, a college sociology professor, finds she has impressed an anonymous benefactor, who has gifted her land in Maine, with enough money to make it something special. Located somewhere between Augusta and Rockland, it proves to be an old, ramshackle campground. Never one to back down from a challenge, she moves forward with renovations.

Of course, she can’t do it alone. Rachel knows little or nothing about camping or renovations, so she begins her search for partners in this adventure at the local hardware store. Dan, a handyman, becomes the first to step forward and become part of the project. Then, she connects with two more: Colby, a summer minister, and Luke, a massage therapist and artist. Both are willing to help with the renovations in exchange for staying at “The Six,” a hexagonal building on the property that Rachel believes will become a showpiece. CJ, a local bistro owner and chef, is the next man to join, followed by Sully, a local folksinger.

As a sociologist, Rachel has long been fascinated by human behavior, particularly in unique settings. As a woman living closely at The Six with five men, it proves to be an interesting experience. And as a fan of reality TV shows about polygamy, Rachel had often wondered about individuals who had multiple partners. It would be a long, hot summer, and Rachel would learn a lot about building, furnishing, and planning — as well as relationships and secrets from the past.

The Seer by Raquel Y. Levitt

Acorn Publishing, LLC., February 2025

In 1890s Missouri, secrets are a matter of survival.

Clairvoyant Sarah Richardson screams as her older sister Katherine is forced into a straitjacket and thrust into a carriage bound for the St. Louis City Lunatic Asylum. She is devastated to learn Katherine has been blamed for her inadvertent role in an abused woman’s murder. Now, too frightened to speak up, Sarah hides the truth: It should have been her in that carriage.

Sarah’s mounting guilt becomes too much, and she heads to St. Louis, determined to regain her sister’s confidence and prove herself worthy of forgiveness. While working to heal their relationship, Sarah meets a timid housewife who tries to hide her bruises. When troubling psychic visions of the woman begin to affect her, she sees an opportunity to atone for her past mistakes. Desperate to do whatever it takes to make things right, Sarah embarks on a perilous journey that may cost her everything — including her own life.

Trigger Warning: This book contains topics of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and death.

Bodies Under the Bluebonnets (The China Grove Mysteries Book 1) by Kathy Sechrist

Whidbey Island Publishing, August 2026

Sara Matthews moved to China Grove for the quiet. She found a wall instead.

Three weeks after settling into a farmhouse on Kirkner Road, twelve miles from San Antonio, Sara found a shed at the back of her property. Inside, on the back wall, someone had carved eight names. The ninth name had been sanded off. The names are girls who went missing from China Grove over four decades. Nobody in town will say who is on the wall. Or who is missing.

Bill at Mr. Jim’s Trading Post won’t answer. Neither will Chief Dean Williams. And somebody has been leaving marks on Sara’s windshield.

As a writer, Sara has spent her life understanding what silence protects. She has a notebook, a farmhouse next to a field with something buried under it, and a growing list of names. The people who sanded the ninth name off that wall know she is asking. And they are counting on her to stop.

Bodies Under the Bluebonnets is Book One of the China Grove Mysteries. Book Two, The Watcher, arrives Winter 2026.

Hideaway by Monica Goertzen Hertlein

Self-published, July 2026

Mary’s worst decision yet, stealing from corrupt law enforcement, could land her in jail long enough to grow old. She flees the spaceport streets for a remote rural outpost hoping for refuge with Finn, the only person she trusts in the world. Despite the strangeness of agricultural life and her prejudice against the family that abandoned her surrogate brother, she finds a chance for love as well as safe haven while hiding the truth behind her visit to the farm.

Now she must decide whether to be honest with her found family and risk losing her last chance for a real home, or be exposed as a thief when the law catches up to her.