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Reading Challenge A book set in a state to which you've never been |
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Where the wildflowers grow
by Terah Shelton Harris
Alabama: The sole survivor of a bus accident, Leigh finds unexpected sanctuary at an Alabama flower farm, especially with Jackson, the farm's owner, who sees through her defenses and offers her small moments of tenderness, encouraging her to face her own tragedies.
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Black woods, blue sky by Eowyn Ivey
| Alaska: A single mother falls in love with a local recluse and, with her young daughter, moves to his isolated cabin. At first, it's idyllic. But soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have ever imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful. |
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Off the air
by Christina Estes
Arizona: Jolene Garcia is a local TV reporter in Phoenix, Arizona, splitting her time between covering general assignments--anything from a monsoon storm to a newborn giraffe at the zoo--and special projects. Stories that take more time to research and produce. Stories that Jolene wants to tell. When word gets out about a death at a radio station, Jolene and other journalists swarm the scene, intent on reporting the facts first. The body is soon identified as Larry Lemmon, a controversial talk show host, who died under suspicious circumstances. Jolene conducted his final interview, giving her and her station an advantage. But not for long. As the story heats up, so does the competition. Jolene is determined to solve this murder.
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Come and get it
by Kiley Reid
Arkansas: It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks, and illicit intrigue.
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L.A. women
by Ella Berman
California: After a steady descent from literary stardom, Lane Warren is back. She's set to secure a new book deal based off the life of her sometimes friend and mostly rival, notorious free spirit and muse Gala Margolis. Lane's only problem is that Gala has been missing for months--nobody can find her. Ten years earlier, Gala was a charming socialite and Lane was a Hollywood outsider amidst the glittering 1960's LA party scene. Though never best friends, Lane found Gala sharp and compelling. Gala liked that Lane took her seriously. They were both writers. They were drawn to each other. That is until Gala's star began to rise, and Lane grew more envious. Then Lane decided to do something that she wouldn't ever be able to take back, changing the trajectory of both their lives.
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The gifted school
by Bruce Holsinger
Colorado: A previously happy group of friends and parents is nearly destroyed by their own competitiveness when an exclusive school for gifted children opens in the community.
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The emperor of Gladness
by Ocean Vuong
Connecticut: A year in the life of a wayward young man in New England who, by chance, becomes the caretaker for an eighty-two-year-old widow living with dementia, powering a story of friendship, loss, and how much we're willing to risk to claim one of life's most treasured mercies: a second chance.
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The same bright stars
by Ethan Joella
Delaware: Three generations of Schmidts have run their family's beachfront restaurant and Jack has been at the helm since the death of his father. Meanwhile, the DelDine group has been gradually snapping up beloved eateries along this stretch of coast and are pursuing Jack with a very generous offer to take Schmidt's off his hands... When he receives startling news from the past, Jack begins to reshape his life and forge unexpected new friendships. But will he really let go of the very things that have defined him?
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The float test
by Lynn Steger Strong
Florida: The Kenner siblings are at odds. Jenn is a harried mom struggling under the weight of family obligations. Fred is a novelist who can't write, maybe because she's lost faith in storytelling itself. Jude is a recovering corporate lawyer with her own story to tell, and a grudge against her former favorite sister, Fred. George, the baby, is estranged from his wife and harboring both a secret about his former employer and an ill-advised crush on one of his sisters' friends. Gathered after a major loss, each sibling needs the others more than ever--if only they could trust each other.
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An American marriage by Tayari Jones
| Georgia: Newlyweds Celestial and Roy, the living embodiment of the New South, are settling into the routine of their life together when Roy is sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. An insightful look into the lives of people who are bound and separated by forces beyond their control. |
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Under the wave at Waimea
by Paul Theroux
Hawaii: Now in his sixties, big-wave surfer Joe Sharkey has passed his prime and is losing his stoke. The younger surfers around the breaks on the north shore of Oahu still idolize the Shark, but his sponsors are looking elsewhere. One night, while driving home from a bar after one too many, Joe accidentally kills a stranger near Waimea, a tragedy that sends his life out of control. As the repercussions of the accident spiral ever wider, Joe's devoted girlfriend, Olive, throws herself into uncovering the dead man's identity and helping Joe find vitality and refuge in the waves again.
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Emory's gift
by W. Bruce Cameron
Idaho: After 13-year-old Charlie Hall's mother dies and his father retreats into the silence of grief, Charlie finds himself drifting lost and alone through the brutal halls of junior high school. But Charlie Hall is not entirely friendless. In the woods behind his house, Charlie is saved from a mountain lion by a grizzly bear, thought to be extinct in northern Idaho. And this very unusual bear will change Charlie's life forever. Deeply moving, and interwoven with hope and joy, Emory's Gift is not only heartwarming and charming coming of age story, but also a page-turning insightful look at how faith, trust, and unconditional love can heal a broken family and bridge the gaps that divide us.
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All good people here
by Ashley Flowers
Indiana: A journalist uncovers her hometown's dark secrets when she becomes obsessed with the unsolved murder of her childhood neighbor-and the disappearance of another girl twenty years later.
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Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson
Iowa: As the Reverend John Ames approaches the hour of his own death, he writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable family secrets.
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The Topeka school
by Ben Lerner
Kansas: Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of '97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting lost boys to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak. Adam is also one of the seniors who bring the loner Darren Eberheart--who is, unbeknownst to Adam, his father's patient--into the social scene, to disastrous effect.
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The book woman of Troublesome Creek
by Kim Michele Richardson
Kentucky: The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything--everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy's not only a book woman, however, she's also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy's family or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble. If Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she's going to have to confront prejudice as old as the Appalachias and suspicion as deep as the holler.
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Indian burial ground
by Nick Medina
Louisiana: All Noemi Broussard wanted was a fresh start. With a new boyfriend who actually treats her right and a plan to move from the reservation she grew up on--just like her beloved Uncle Louie before her--things are finally looking up for Noemi--until the news of her boyfriend's apparent suicide brings her world crumbling down. But the facts about Roddy's death just don't add up, and Noemi isn't the only one who suspects that something menacing might be lurking within their tribal lands. After over a decade away, Uncle Louie has returned to the reservation, bringing with him a past full of secrets, horror, and what might be the key to determining Roddy's true cause of death. Together, Noemi and Louie set out to find answers, but as they get closer to the truth, Noemi begins to question whether it might be best for some secrets to remain buried.
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Lungfish
by Meghan Gilliss
Maine: Lungfish is the story of Tuck, a woman whose husband's addiction has drained their finances and driven them to move illegally to an abandoned island off the coast of Maine. There, she must care for their young daughter and scrape together enough money to leave before winter arrives-or before they are found out-while her husband struggles to detox. Lungfish explores the wild, unknown spaces of what makes a family, and of our capacity to concede ourselves in order to begin again.
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Hidden nature
by Nora Roberts
Maryland: After surviving a near-fatal shooting, Natural Resources officer Sloan Cooper returns home to Heron’s Rest to recover. Dumped by her boyfriend and determined to rebuild, she dives into a local missing persons case. Her investigation uncovers disturbing patterns—and proves she’s far from finished as a protector and detective.
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Practical magic
by Alice Hoffman
Massachusetts: For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape. One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back--almost as if by magic.
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The waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell
| Michigan: Spending the days searching for truths on an island in the Great Massasauga Swamp, eleven-year-old Dorothy Zook, the granddaughter of an herbalist and eccentric healer, finds her childhood upended by family secrets, passionate love, and violent men where the only bridge across the water is her wayward mother. |
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Beta vulgaris by Margie Sarsfield
| Minnestoa: Elise and Tom head to Minnesota for a sugar beet harvest, but eerie events unfold—threatening calls, a mysterious rash, and a sinister voice from the beet pile. As coworkers vanish, Elise faces her past, an uncertain future, and the haunting lure of the beets in this unsettling, thought-provoking tale. |
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The trees
by Percival Everett
Mississippi: After a series of brutal murders in a rural Mississippi town, investigators arrive and discover a large number of similar cases that all have roots in the past.
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All the colors of the dark
by Chris Whitaker
Missouri: 1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges--Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.
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The boxcar librarian
by Brianna Labuskes
Montana: A Depression-era novel about a woman's quest to uncover a mystery surrounding a local librarian and the Boxcar Library--a converted mining train that brought books to isolated rural towns in Montana.
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The antidote
by Karen Russell
Nebraska: A gripping Dust Bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraska town
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Long time gone
by Charlie Donlea
Nevada: When DNA results reveal a disturbing connection to the mysterious disappearance of a famous baby nearly three decades ago, forensic scientist Dr. Sloan Hastings' increasingly perilous search for answers draws her to an unsettling small Nevada town.
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Ashland
by Dan Simon
New Hampshire: A deeply moving family story unfolding in richly evocative prose during the final decades of the American century, Ashland is a book of metamorphoses--of the dance between permanence and transformation. The story takes place in Ashland, New Hampshire, a former mill town in the lakes region, and is told in six voices, among them Carolyn, a twenty year old writer at a turning point in her life; Gordon, who arrives in Ashland in the twilight of his years; Andy, a local boy; Geoff, Carolyn's writing teacher at Plymouth State; and Edith, Gordon's wife, who is inadvertently Carolyn's spiritual guide and friend. Then there is Jennie, Carolyn's aunt, who seems to offer her a model for how to live. But things aren't always what they seem, and Carolyn must discover her own rules and make her own way.Ashland is a debut novel of great intensity, beautifully told in the voices of many vivid characters and, through them, in the voice of Ashland itself.
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How to sleep at night
by Elizabeth Harris
New Jersey: Ethan and Gabe's marriage is tested when Ethan announces his congressional run as a Republican, while Nicole rekindles a romance with Ethan's sister Kate, a political reporter whose life spirals as family and career collide.
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Shutter
by Ramona Emerson
New Mexico: Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer working for the Albuquerque police force. Her excellent photography skills have cracked many cases-she is almost supernaturally good at capturing details. In fact, Rita has been hiding a secret: she sees the ghosts of crime victims who point her toward the clues that other investigators overlook.
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A tree grows in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith
New York: From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harsh life of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family's erratic and eccentric behavior--such as her father Johnny's taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy's habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce--no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans' life lacked drama. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the Nolans' daily experiences in this classic novel are tenderly threaded with family connectedness and raw with honesty.
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The Secret, Book & Scone Society
by Ellery Adams
North Carolina: Miracle Springs, North Carolina, is a place of healing. Strangers flock here hoping the natural hot springs, five-star cuisine, and renowned spa can cure their ills. If none of that works, they often find their way to Miracle Books, where, over a fresh-baked zcomforty scone from the Gingerbread House bakery, they exchange their stories with owner Nora Pennington in return for a carefully chosen book. Thats Noras special talent prescribing the perfect novel to ease a persons deepest pain and lighten their heaviest burden.
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The mighty red
by Louise Erdrich
North Dakota: In Argus, North Dakota, a tense wedding pulls together a cast of vivid characters: Gary Geist, a nervous heir to two farms, hopes marriage to the unpredictable Kismet Poe will anchor his life, while Hugo, a kind but lovestruck giant, plans to win Kismet for himself. Meanwhile, Kismet's mother, Crystal, haunted by late-night radio and visions of angels, struggles with fears for her daughter's and her own uncertain futures.
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Ohio
by Stephen Markley
Ohio: On one feverish, fateful summer night in 2013, four former classmates converge on the rustbelt town they grew up in--a region ravaged by the Great Recession, an opioid crisis, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--each of them with a mission, all of them haunted by regrets, secrets, losses and love.
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Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate
| Oklahoma: In 1990 Oklahoma, Valerie, a Law Enforcement Ranger reporting for duty at Horsethief Trail National Park, is immediately faced with the long-hidden burial site of three children, and working with the neighboring Choctaw Tribal Police, unearths old secrets and the tragic and deadly history of the land itself. |
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One flew over the cuckoo's nest
by Ken Kesey
Oregon: Turning conventional notions of sanity and insanity on their heads, the novel tells the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the story through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them all imprisoned.
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Mercury
by Amy Jo Burns
Pennsylvania: It's 1990 and seventeen-year-old Marley West is blazing into the river valley town of Mercury, Pennsylvania. A perpetual loner, she seeks a place at someone's table and a family of her own. The first thing she sees when she arrives in town is three men standing on a rooftop. Their silhouettes blot out the sun. The Joseph brothers become Marley's whole world before she can blink. Soon, she is young wife to one, The One Who Got Away to another, and adopted mother to them all. As their own mother fades away and their roofing business crumbles under the weight of their unwieldy father's inflated ego, Marley steps in to shepherd these unruly men. Years later, an eerie discovery in the church attic causes old wounds to resurface and suddenly the family's survival hangs in the balance.
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These summer storms
by Sarah MacLean
Rhode Island: After years of exile, Alice Storm returns to her family’s Rhode Island island for her father’s funeral—only to face his final manipulation: an inheritance game. To claim her share, Alice must endure a week of tasks alongside the wealthy, cutthroat family she thought she’d left behind forever.
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Where the rivers merge
by Mary Alice Monroe
South Carolina: 1908: The Lowcountry of South Carolina is at the cusp of change. Mayfield, the grand estate held for generations by the Rivers family, is the treasured home of young Eliza. A free spirit, she refuses to be confined by societal norms and spends her days exploring the vast property, observing wildlife, and riding horses. But the Great War, coastal storms, and family turmoil bring unexpected challenges to Eliza, putting her on a collision course with the patriarchal traditions of a bygone era. 1988: At 88, Eliza is the scion of the Rivers/DeLancey family. She's fought a lifetime to save her beloved Mayfield and is too independent and committed to quietly retire and leave the fate of the estate to her greedy son. She must make decisions that will assure the future of the land and her family--or watch them both be split apart.
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Woodworking
by Emily St James
South Dakota: Erica Skyberg is thirty-five years old, recently divorced, and trans. Not that she's told anyone yet. Mitchell, South Dakota, isn't exactly bursting with other trans women. Instead, she keeps to herself, teaching by day and directing community theater by night. That is, until Abigail Hawkes enters her orbit. Abigail is seventeen, Mitchell High's resident political dissident and Only Trans Girl. It's a role she plays faultlessly, albeit a little reluctantly. She's also annoyed by the idea of spending her senior year secretly guiding her English teacher through her transition. But Abigail remembers the uncertainty--and loneliness--that comes with it. Besides, Erica isn't the only one struggling to shed the weight of others' expectations. As their unlikely friendship evolves under the increasing scrutiny of their community, both women, and those closest to them, will come to realize that sometimes there is nothing more radical than letting the world see who you really are.
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Ruby Falls
by Gin Phillips
Tennessee: 1928. Chattanooga. Discovery of a breathtaking underground waterfall. A famous mind reader agrees to descend into the caverns to perform a daring psychic stunt. Cave enthusiast Ada, follows at a distance, acting as a safety net in case something goes wrong, and it does.
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The librarians
by Sherry Thomas
Texas: In the leafy suburbs of Austin, Texas, a small branch library welcomes the public every day of the week. But the patrons who love the helpful, unobtrusive staff and leave rave reviews on Yelp don't always realize that their librarians are human, too. Hazel flees halfway across the world for what she hopes will be a new beginning. Jonathan, a six-foot-four former college football player, has never fit in anywhere else. Astrid tries to forget her heartbreak by immersing herself in work, but the man who ghosted her six months ago is back, promising trouble. And Sophie, who has the most to lose, maintains a careful and respectful distance from her coworkers, but soon that won't be enough anymore. When two patrons turn up dead after the library's inaugural murder mystery-themed game night, the librarians' quiet routines come crashing down. Something sinister has stirred, something that threatens every single one of them. And the only way the librarians can save the library--and themselves--is to let go of their secrets, trust one another, and band together... All in a day's work.
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Tom's crossing : a western
by Mark Z. Danielewski
Utah: A magisterial, page-turning epic about a young boy and girl and their journey through the icy mountains of Utah to lead two horses to freedom.
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The orchard
by Peter Heller
Vermont: Hayley and her seven-year-old daughter, Frith, live in a rustic cabin with no electricity in the foothills of Vermont's Green Mountains. A renowned translator of Tang dynasty poetry, Hayley walked away from her career and her addict husband to raise Frith alone in a land populated not by ambition-fueled academics but by hawks, beavers, and other wild things--including their exuberant Bernese Mountain dog, Bear. They get by on what little they earn from their overgrown apple orchard and the syrup they make from their maple trees. Frith-- precocious, homeschooled, and a voracious reader--considers herself queen of this backwoods paradise. She is too young to understand the pain and regret that have followed her mother here. Season after season, it is the three of them--mother, daughter, and dog--until the spring day when Rose Lattimore appears at their door and upends Hayley and Frith's solitary existence. When tragedy unexpectedly strikes, Frith must come to terms with heartbreak for the very first time.
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Razorblade tears
by S. a. Cosby
Virginia: A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance. Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah's white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek's father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy. Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.
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Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet
by Jamie Ford
Washington: When artifacts from Japanese families sent to internment camps during World War II are uncovered during renovations at a Seattle hotel, Henry Lee embarks on a quest that leads to memories of growing up Chinese in a city rife with anti-Japanese sentiment.
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The unquiet grave
by Sharyn McCrumb
West Virginia: Lakin, West Virginia, 1930: In his forty-year career, attorney James P.D. Gardner's most memorable case was the one in which he helped to defend a white man on trial for the murder of his young bride - a case that the prosecution based on the testimony of a ghost. Greenbrier, West Virginia, 1897: Zona Heaster marries Erasmus Trout Shue, a handsome blacksmith. After weeks of silence, riders come to the Heasters' place to tell them Zona has died. A month after the funeral, determined to get justice for her daughter, Zona's mother informs the county prosecutor that Zona's ghost appeared to her, saying that she had been murdered.
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Stella Maris
by Cormac McCarthy
Wisconsin: Stella Maris is an intimate portrait of grief and longing, as a young woman in a psychiatric facility seeks to understand her own existence.
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Where coyotes howl
by Sandra Dallas
Wyoming: 1916. The two-street town of Wallace is not exactly what Ellen Webster had in mind when she accepted a teaching position in Wyoming, but within a year's time she's fallen in love--both with the High Plains and with a handsome cowboy named Charlie Bacon. Life is not easy in the flat, brown corner of the state where winter blizzards are unforgiving and the summer heat relentless. ... Ellen finds purpose in her work as a rancher's wife and in her bonds with other women settled on the prairie. ... They look out for each other, share their secrets, and help one another in times of need. And the needs are great and constant. ... In the end, it is not the trials Ellen and Charlie face together that make them remarkable, but their love for one another that endures through it all.
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