The secret lives of small towns

Enjoy your visit to Fairview

It’s the sort of place you’ve driven through countless times. Just another small town. The local dive bar does a good business. The old downtown is struggling, but a few brave entrepreneurs have opened cute little coffee shops or boutiques a few shuttered storefronts down from the local businesses your parents tell you have been there as long as they can remember.

There’s a library and a small hospital, which still hangs on even though a lot of people will drive to a bigger hospital in the next city if something is really wrong. 

Houses are known as “the old Williams house” or “where Joe Fisher used to live” even though two other families might have lived there since the last Williams or Fisher passed away or moved on. If you go to the local cemetery, you’ll see the same last names over and over again. It’s a place where families stay for generations, although that’s starting to change now.

Maybe you grew up in such a place. If you did, you know there’s a lot more going on that people who are just driving by or maybe stopping for a bathroom break would ever guess. Or maybe you grew up in a city and formed your idea of small towns from reruns of The Griffith Show. 

Fairview is where our stories take place, and it’s where you’ll find some of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet. Does it really matter if they only exist in the Small-Town Secrets series? Unlike the small towns you drive through, you get to watch every move the people here make. You will even know their thoughts. 

Molly is the director at the Fairview Public Library, and the very first person you’ll meet here. You’ve known women like her before. She had big plans for her life, but here she is still living in her hometown, raising her three children without much help from her ex, Hank. Hank isn't a bad guy, but he always had a little trouble keeping his pants on, so Molly is on her own. She’s given up on all her dreams and focuses on giving her kids a good life and doing her best to make the library a welcoming place for everyone, especially children. The youngest Fairview residents remember Miss Molly reading to them every week at Story Time. Aren’t you just dying for a good man to appreciate her? Everybody who reads Worth the Wait absolutely loves Molly!

Molly’s best friend is Lori. She’s a gorgeous woman and damned good nurse who works in the Emergency Room at Fairview Medical Center. Molly lives vicariously through Lori’s amorous adventures. Lori always has a new boyfriend that she hopes will be The One. Problem is, nobody looks past Lori’s carefully done hair and makeup and party-girl persona and appreciates what a caring person she is. Yes, she likes to have a good time, but if you look past that, she’s someone you can count on. Why has she always been overlooked? Some people who read Kiss and Tell dismiss Lori at first, but as they get into her head, they see what a dedicated and caring person she is under her glitzy surface, and they can’t wait to see what man will be the first to realize what a gem of a woman she is.

Catarina of Twice Shy spends her days mostly alone, working in the upholstery store her father started before returning to the old country. She has a complicated family history and an unsuccessful love life, and very few people get to know her well. Her childhood friend, Tanya, is one of the few people she ever socializes with. Tanya has also chosen solitude. She was married to the love of her life until she lost him and their unborn child in a traffic accident years ago. When one of Catarina’s European relatives, Veda, shows up out of the blue one night, it changes everything for both Catarina and Tanya. Sometimes you just need a crazy cousin and a touch of fortune-telling to shake things up. Catarina never quite decides whether she believes in fortune-telling or not, but as you’ll learn in the coming books, everything Tanya and Veda see in the tea leaves eventually comes true.

Julie likes to help bring babies into the world. She started out attending her older sister’s births, and liked it so much she became a certified doula. Now she’s studying to become a midwife, and she’s busy helping her sister cope with her large family alone. Julie’s former fiance left her hanging after getting another girl pregnant, so is it any wonder that Julie has concluded she’d rather help deliver babies than have any herself? And doesn’t it just figure that when she finally meets a guy she likes, he’s the type who can’t wait to become a dad? Somehow, even though they want different things in their lives, Julie and her new love are a Perfect Fit.

Ashley is the bartender at The Clipper, the dive bar where everyone in Fairview hangs out. She’s just a local girl who remembers everyone’s favorite drink. Everybody knows who she is, but even though everyone tells her their secrets, she keeps her own to herself. She’s been planning something for a very long time, though, and even meeting a wealthy man who would willingly whisk her away to a life of ease won’t stop her. The whole town is in for a surprise in Crazy Little Thing.

Kelly left town right after graduation. She felt she had to, after being blamed for a scandal she had nothing to do with. A decade later, she returns to Fairview, feeling she’s wasted her youth. It will take everything she has to get her life back on track. She will learn, however, that even people who on the surface appear to have it all together might not really be happy with their lives, either. The Laws of Attraction shows two people who took very different paths converging toward the same future. 

Each new book takes up with the former one left off, and you can read them as one very long epic tale, although each book also can stand alone. You’ll meet each character again. She’ll show up sooner or later in a subsequent book, attending another character’s wedding, having a drink at The Clipper or maybe delivering a baby. 

Follow me on Facebook and Instagram, and sign up for my newsletter!