
Hillsboro Publishing, LLC
The Publishing Home of John M Donovan
COMING SOON
The Snappy Cola Clock
and Other Colby County Stories
Seventeen stories set in Colby County, Illinois and part of the same universe that includes Trombone Answers, The Rocheville Devil, and Love and Corn and Whatnot. Who's playing the mournful flute in Pinefield Cemetery at every new moon? How are the same kids winning so many bingo games at the Colby City Fish Fry? Why is Bruce Medlock so obsessed with the old Snappy Cola clock at the Sweetpea Cafe? These stories reflect smalltown life at its warmest, strangest, funniest, and most unexpected.
The Smalltown Way
Chuck Kelso grew up in the little town of Colby City, Illinois and figures he’ll probably never leave. He attends church, runs the lumber yard, loves his wife, and presides over the 2:30 Club at the Sweetpea Café every afternoon. He loves his hometown but doesn’t understand why it seems to be growing more insular, provincial, and frightened. From the invasion of Iraq to the disaster of 2016, this novel takes a wry and insightful peek behind the smalltown curtain and finds phony preachers, subtle racism, fearmongers and fanatics, sleazeballs and seekers of truth, murder, and one more slice of banana cream pie.

This would be a good spot to look for the cover of The Smalltown Way. All I can tell you is that it's in progress!