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I just listened via cassette recording to 
Prodigal Summer
by Barbara Kingsolver, published 2000 available from www.recordedbooks.com

entirely set in rural U.S.A., its unusual fiction dealing entirely with rural issues such as the difficulty of achieving adequate farm income, the return of larger predators to the environment such as coyotes, tobacco vs. food crops, farm inheritance, one major character is actually breeding blight-resistant chestnuts by hybridizing american chestnuts!   A major strife is between the chesnut hybridizer, who uses pesticides against his neighbor, who is organic in her growing techniques, a familiar strife between neighbors many of us have personally experienced!   But their mutual interest in growing things help overcome their conflicts.   In fact, all of the relationships in the novel have serious environmental conflicts, and the conflicts are usually overcome by the interest of all involved in agriculture, land, and nature.   

It's nice to be entertained by subjects that are real instead of just typical who-killed-who-this-week books.
Charlie Paradise, Massachusetts