Summer is just around the corner, which usually means vacations and road trips across the country. I personally love reading a book set in the place I’m visiting. It just makes reading that book even more enjoyable to experience what I’m reading in real life. I also can’t take credit for this idea. I saw it on Goodreads recently and thought it was such a clever idea. And while there are a few that are the same, I tried to come up with as many unique options as I could. Have you read any of these? What are you looking to read this summer?
Alabama
Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins- Valdez
Set in 1970’s Montgomery, Alabama. The book follows Civil Townsend who just finished nursing school and is looking to make lots of changes in the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic especially for those in the African American community. That kind of all changes when her first house visit is for an 11 and 13-year-old girls who have been asked to be put on birth control by their families. When the unthinkable happens, it changes Civil’s life and so many other young women.
Genres: Historical Fiction, 1970’s
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Alaska
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
When Ernt Allbright returns from Vietnam, he is not the same man he was before going off to war. A lot has changed about him. He no longer feels welcome in his suburban town and decides to uproot his family to Alaska where they can live off the grid. 13-year-old Leni is just trying to find her own place in this crazy world and hopes that Alaska is what her family needs to go back to what it used to be. Unfortunately, Leni quickly realizes that this is a place where she has never felt more alone. It will be a fight for survival in the last frontier.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, 1970’s
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Arizona
First: Sandra Day O’Connor by Evan Thomas
Following the life of Sandra Day O’Connor growing up on a cattle ranch in Arizona and the many challenges a woman faced growing up in the 1940s. Her life was always set in stone. She would be a homemaker just like all the other women her age. However, she had bigger plans for herself and graduated top of her class from Standford Law. A story that follows an incredible woman who was always breaking down obstacles and would later go on to be voted into the Supreme Court. Breaking down bridges for women all over.
Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Politics
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Arkansas
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
We all know the story of Hillary and Bill Clinton. But what if Hillary followed Bill to Arkansas and decided to ignore all his many proposals. A fictional story of the life that could have been had she never become Hillary Clinton. What her life might’ve turned out to be.
Genres: Fiction, Historical, Politics
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
California
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The day of the annual Riva family summer bash to help ring in summer has arrived. Everyone wants to be invited just to say that they know the famous Riva’s especially their famous father, Mick Riva. The only ones not looking forward to the party are the Riva siblings themselves. As there are secrets in the family that could tear everything apart and burn it all down.
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Historical
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Colorado
All Rhodes Lead Here by Mariana Zapata
Aurora knows that moving back to her hometown in the Colorado Rockies is going to stir up some memories of her beloved mother. The good and the bad. But hiding in the mountains after a horrible breakup might be exactly what she needs. Especially with her cute neighbor across the street and an unbreakable friendship becomes so much more.
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
My Rating: ⭐⭐
Connecticut
Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King
It follows five stories that are interconnected and all have deep ties to the sixties as well as the horrors of the Vietnam War.
Genres: Horror, Fiction, Short Stories
Delaware
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez
After Mirabel suffers an almost deadly accident, her parents decide to bring their family from Mexico to an apartment complex in Delaware. They had hoped that the American Dream would help their family and help Mirabel recover quickly but are faced with obstacles every day. While Mirabel is recovering she befriends a boy in the apartment whose family immigrated from Panama. Their friendship blossoms but there is darkness coming that can destroy all of them.
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Young Adult
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Florida
Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton
A granddaughter decides to travel back to her family’s home country after the death of their beloved grandmother. Marisol travels to Havana from Miami to try and learn more about her grandmother and the life she lived growing up in Cuba in the 1950s. When political unrest was growing, she had to fight for her family for a better life while leaving her heart in a country she would never be able to return to.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Georgia
Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan
It’s not every day that they discover a sunken steamship 180 years after it had a boiler explosion and sunk back in 1838. But, when history professor, Everly Winthrop, gets the chance to take part in this expedition, she knows that there are going to be so many untold stories hiding inside the boat. She soon discovers that a lot of the original myths about this boat are starting to come true and it is her job to share it with the world.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Hawaii
Hula by Jasmin Iolani Hakes
Set on the island of Hilo, the story follows three generations of women and the way culture, tradition, and dance are passed on from generation to generation. How hula dancing became such a big part of storytelling in the Hawaiian culture. This story expands upon the tough history many native Hawaiians had to face and how the islands evolved into what they are today.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction
Idaho
Educated by Tara Westover
Tara Westover was 17 years old the first time she stepped into a classroom. She was raised in rural Idaho by a family that did not believe in education, doctors, or the usage of modern medicine. She believed that the world was constantly going to end based on her parents’ beliefs. She begins to educate herself and gets accepted into BYU where she learns all about the world and the history of our past.
Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Illinois
Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe
It’s the summer of 1999 and the Chicago Housing Authority are in high demand to tear down many of the high-rises located in some of the tougher neighborhoods to the South and West of the city. Fe Fe is just one of the many residents being relocated because of this project. It’s a story of a group of young girls one summer growing up while their city gets torn apart around them.
Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Young Adult
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Indiana
All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
Theodore Finch, can’t stop thinking about death. And is always thinking about ways he might kill himself but something stops him each time. Violet Markey, can’t stop thinking about the future. Getting out of her Indiana town and the painful memories it holds. When they accidentally meet one day on a ledge, they aren’t sure who saved who. As they become close friends, they both realize that maybe the other was who they were waiting for to start truly living.
Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Iowa
The Sunshine Girls by Molly Fader
Set in 1960s Iowa, the book follows BettyKay and Kitty who are working on getting their nursing degree. Though the two women come from very different backgrounds, they quickly grow inseparable and a bond holds them together as they face many obstacles, especially about women getting an education. Their friendship continues throughout the decades; through families, death, the war in Vietnam, and even the dazzling streets of Hollywood. Many years later, two sisters are shocked to see one of Hollywood’s most famous actresses at their mother’s funeral. They soon will learn secrets that have the power to tear their family apart if they allow it.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Kansas
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
Abilene Tucker has been placed on a train to go stay with a friend of her father’s while he works on the railroad. She jumps the train and finds herself in the small town of Manifest, Kansas. At first glance, it looks like a sleepy little town but she soon finds a box of trinkets that are filled with letters from a spy who spent some time in this town. It takes her and her new friends on an adventure of a lifetime that is filled with history, colorful characters, and many long-kept secrets.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Middle Grade, Young Adult
Kentucky
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
In 1936, a young girl with a very unique feature is living in the Appalachian area of Kentucky. She has blue skin and is the last living female of the Blue People (was a legit thing). Cussy Carter joins the Horse Libray Project and becomes a librarian traveling throughout the different towns located in Appalachia, and brings books to those very remote communities. As someone who has grown up very lonely, she knows the power that a book can have and wishes to share that with all in Eastern Kentucky.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Louisiana
Call the Canaries Home by Laura Barrow
Savannah was four years old when her twin sister went missing. Twenty-eight years later, she returns to their small Louisiana town with her estranged sisters and makes them hold to the pact they once created which included digging up their old time capsule. While looking through the capsule, they notice clues that might help them figure out what happened to their lost sister. But as the sisters start digging into what happened, it starts to bring back old enemies putting all their lives in danger once again.
Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
My Rating: ⭐⭐
Maine
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
When the Kennebec River froze over in 1789, it captured a man within. Martha Ballard is the town’s midwife and healer and is instructed to figure out the cause of death. When her findings are pushed to the side she is forced to look into the investigation on her own. With the trial underway, her findings have the ability to shake this entire town and change the course of history for women in the legal system forever.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Maryland
Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau
Growing up in Baltimore in the 1970s, Mary Jane is living a sheltered life but thinks nothing of it until her summer nanny job has her working for a family who couldn’t be more different than what she knows. The father of this family is a doctor who has cleared out his entire calendar to help a famous rock star get through sobriety. Mary Jane spends her summer teaching the family how to cook and clean while also learning life lessons that will change how she wants to truly live and who she wants to become.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Massachusetts
A Girl Called Samson by Amy Harmon
Born in 1760, Deborah Samson was born to one of the original Puritan families in Plympton, Massachusetts. She is quickly sold to a life of indentured servants as her family can no longer support her. Tensions in the colonies start arising as the fight for independence begins. After seeing all the men in her life leave for war, she knows she needs to do something so she disguises herself as a soldier and enrolls in the Continental Army. She must keep her secret from all she cares about for if she is found out, death would be the punishment.
Genres: Historical Fiction, War, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Michigan
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Two writers of very different genres find themselves as neighbors for the summer in a beach town both suffering from writer’s block. They create a challenge between the two in hopes this helps spark creativity. Augustus has to write a book with a happy ending and January has to write the next Great American Novel. While spending all this time together a relationship is bound to happen. Unless they can put a stop to that before it arises.
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Minnesota
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
Set in 1932 at the Lincoln Indian Training School along the Gilead River, Odie O’Banion is an orphan known for keeping the wrath of the superintendent centered on him. After a horrible crime has occurred, Odie and his brother Albert flee for their lives along with Mose, a mute man of Sioux background, and a little girl named Emmy. They head down the river hoping to connect to the mighty Mississippi and a new place to call home meeting people of all backgrounds along the way.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Adventure
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Mississippi
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned from graduating college. When tensions rise at home she looks for her family’s maid, Constantine, but nobody seems to know what happened to her. Aibileen is another maid trying to mend her broken heart while also caring for the little girl in the family she cares for. Along with Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, these three women could not be more different from each other but come together and learn that they may have more in common than they originally thought. Changing the way women view each other and the history of this small Mississippi town forever.
Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction
Missouri
James by Percival Everett
A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn following the enslaved Jim’s point of view. With Jim learns he is set to be sold to a man in New Orleans away from his family, he hides out on a nearby island trying to build himself some time. While many aspects of the original story are in place, we gain a new perspective from Jim as he and Huck travel down the Mississippi.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Montana
Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson
After inheriting her uncle’s ranch in Montana, Hattie Brooks travels from Iowa to Montana to figure out who she is and what she is capable of. As her life begins to transform, she is faced with problems connected to the war being fought over in Europe.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction
Nebraska
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
Emmett Watson has just been released from the work farm he was working at for the last year for involuntary manslaughter. He comes home to his parents both gone and his home sold to the bank. He sets out to head west with his little brother until two friends from the work farm have also escaped. Creating an entirely different future then what he had hoped for.
Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Nevada
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
What else can be said then what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Genres: Fiction, Humor, Classics
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
New Hampshire
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
A small town is left in a stage of grief and understanding after the unthinkable happens at the high school. While everyone is left to the aftermath, fingers start getting pointed at the reasons behind it and the people behind this tragedy. What they know as right and wrong has changed and will never be the same again. Lines begin to be crossed and no relationship is saved from the turmoil.
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Drama
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
New Jersey
One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
Stephanie Plum is not your average bounty hunter. After being fired from her department store job, she reaches out to her cousin to help earn some extra money in his bounty hunter business. Knowing nothing about how to be a bounty hunter, she starts on easy cases until she gets her hands on the file of Joe Morelli. The one that got away. Can Stephanie find Morelli before her own life is put into serious danger?
Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Humor
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
New Mexico
The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman
When a murder is discovered on the Najavo Reservation, the chief of police can’t help but think that something doesn’t feel very natural about how this crime was laid out. It will lead him on a trail of clues that nobody has ever dared gone before.
Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime
New York
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad
A powerful memoir that follows the life of Suleika Jaouad and her journey through leukemia and the people she met along the way. Learning from fellow patients, medical professionals, lovers, friends, families, and even strangers. Documenting her story through New York Times posts and how her truth was able to impact people all around the world.
Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
North Carolina
The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young
June Farrow is willing to risk it all to end her family’s generation-long curse and try to understand what happened to her mother when she disappeared all those years ago. When she starts to fall into the same illness that took both her grandmother and mother, she knows she needs to get answers even if that might be sacrificing her greatest desires in life.
Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Magical Realism
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
North Dakota
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the local jewel plant in rural North Dakota. He is also trying to fight a recent bill from Congress that is putting a lot of Native Americans at risk. Pixie is a young girl on the reservation who dreams about leaving and living in the big city. When the chance to explore Minneapolis arises, she is thrown into a world of violence she never knew was possible.
Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
Ohio
The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka
Sarah Cook was fifteen years old on the night she disappeared and her parents were found brutally murdered. Her boyfriend is charged with the murders and currently sits on death row though he continues to speak about his innocence. When someone spots who they believe is Sarah, it starts a manhunt to hopefully get some answers before the boyfriend is killed.
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction
Oklahoma
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
In the 1920s, members of the Osage Nation were some of the richest in the entire country after oil was discovered beneath their land. Slowly though, the members of the Osage begin to be killed off one by one. Anyone who investigated the murders was finding themselves dead as well. The newly created FBI decided to take these killings as one of their first cases to understand what was going on. Uncovering decade-long secrets that will rock the country.
Genres: Nonfiction, History, True Crime
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Oregon
A Girl from Yamhill by Beverly Clearly
Beverly Clearly can be found on most of our shelves growing up. Creating characters that really resonated with each of us as we made our way through our middle school years. In her own memoir, Cleary goes on to tell what it was like for her growing up in Oregon during the Great Depression. How many of her personal stories helped craft the stories she would later write and share with us all.
Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography
Pennsylvania
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
The crew in Pottstown, Pennsylvania were not expecting to find a skeleton when building the foundations for a new house development. Who the skeleton was, was a secret long kept by the residents of Chicken Hill. A neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side. As the stories are told, it begins to become highlighted what one must do to survive.
Genres: Fiction, Historical, Literary Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Rhode Island
In a Jam by Kate Canterbary
Shay Zucconi is shocked to learn that she has inherited her step-grandmother’s tulip farm after she has passed. Especially when she learns about the conditions that are connected to it. She has to move to the farm in Friendship, Rhode Island for a year and she has to marry within the year. She is determined to figure out a better solution as marriage is the last thing on her mind. Until Noah Barden comes back into her life.
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
South Carolina
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston
Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most popular romance authors in today’s market. But when you don’t believe in love, it tends to cause an issue as a romance writer. When she gets an unexpected phone call, book writing is the last thing she can think of as she has to return to the town she hasn’t seen in 10+ years to bury her father. Nothing has changed in this town except for the ghost who keeps following her around who has no idea why he’s there but will change everything she has ever known.
Genres: Romance, Fiction, Contemporary
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
South Dakota
Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts
Maud Gage Baum didn’t realize that when her late husband, Frank Baum, wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the life it would lead her to have. Meeting Judy Garland on the set of The Wizard of Oz brings back memories of living in South Dakota struggling to make a living before the book became a nationwide sensation. Follows her story pre-Frank as well it was like living with the struggling author. How characters from her younger years would go on to influence characters in the beloved story especially young Dorothy.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Tennessee
In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner
Growing up in the small Appalachian town of Sawyer, Tennessee, life has not always been easy for Cash Pruitt. Losing his mother from opioid addiction a few years ago, and his grandfather who raised him is dying from emphysema, he’s finding that his life is all about survival in this small town. When his best friend, and town genius, is granted a full scholarship from this prestigious academy in Connecticut, she makes the executive decision to only attend if he follows her. Changing his life completely from what he knows back in Sawyer. A story of grief, first loves, discovery, and growth.
Genres: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Texas
Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera
When Lucy is discovered walking the streets of her Texas town covered in blood, everyone thinks she has murdered her best friend. Even Lucy who has a very limited recollection of what happened that night. Years later Lucy has moved as far away from this town as she can, vowing to never return. That is until a true crime podcast decides to start investigating this crime and see if they can solve who really did kill Savvy all those years ago. Lucy returns, determined to figure out what happened to her best friend even if she doesn’t like the answers.
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Utah
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
This book is all about the extremes. From extreme physical adventure to extreme religious beliefs. He goes on to research and develop a multilayer narrative on Mormon Fundamentalists and the extremes that they go to in their beliefs.
Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History
My Rating: ⭐⭐
Vermont
Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
Twenty-five years ago, Maggie Holt and her parents moved into a Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks before fleeing in the middle of the night. Years later, Maggie works on bringing old home fixer-uppers. When she inherits the old Vermont house from her father, she decides to renovate it for sale. But Maggie forgot all about the shadows that lurk and the strange occurrences that come alive.
Genres: Horror, Thriller, Mystery
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Virginia
Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson
The story begins on a plantation farm in Charles City, Virginia. Pheby Brown is a teenage girl living there with her mom and other fellow slaves. The master of the house has always had a favoritism towards Pheby over the others. But the master’s wife despises Pheby and one night when the master and her mom are away on a trip, she sells Pheby to an auctioneer in Richmond. When a situation arises that has her putting her own safety on hold, she becomes the mistress of the jail owner. After many years she realizes she must do something to protect those around her even if it might cost her, her own freedom.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Washington
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
After Tova Sullivan’s husband passed away, she began working at the Sowell Bay Aquarium to occupy her time and keep from thinking about her son, Erik, who vanished more than thirty years ago. While working at the aquarium, she becomes friendly toward the giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus. Marcellus is the smartest creature in the aquarium or so he would tell you himself. So when he learns about Tova’s missing son, he makes it his mission to figure out what happened to him.
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Magical Realism
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
West Virginia
Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones
Sam Quinones, dives down deep into how the opiate epidemic really came to be. Starting from the root history and interviewing doctors, former cartels, former users, parents who have lost a child to the epidemic and so many more stories. How did heroin become so ubiquitous in the American heartland?
Genres: Nonfiction, History, True Crime
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wisconsin
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Just before he is set to be released from prison, Shadow’s wife, Laura, dies in an unusual car crash. Shadow makes his way home where he encounters Mr, Wednesday who claims to be the king of America. They begin a journey across the heartland while a storm continues to grow of epic proportions. Dives deep into the soul of America.
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Mythology
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Wyoming
The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson
Walt Longmire knows he has trouble when Cody Pritchard is found dead in Absaroka County. Cody, two years earlier was given a suspended sentence for raping a Cheyenne girl. Is someone out there seeking revenge?
Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Westerns
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Until Next Time, The Library Abroad
The Library Abroad 
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