Well-written Contemporary Nonfiction or Biographies about the Midwest and Gulf States

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Nonfiction
• Biographies
• Midwest or Gulf States setting

Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
By Erik Larson
364.1523 LAR 2003
An account of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 relates the stories of two men who shaped the history of the event--architect Daniel H. Burnham, who coordinated its construction, and serial killer Herman Mudgett.

A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana
By Haven Kimmel
BIO KIMMEL 2002
The author offers a chronicle of growing up in a small town in America's heartland, offering portraits of her family and her encounters with the complexities of the adult world, romance, and small-town life during the 1960s and 1970s.

Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression
By Mildred Armstrong Kalish
BIO KALISH 2007
A memoir from a schoolteacher of growing up in the heart of the Midwest during the Great Depression describes life on an Iowa farm during a time of endless work, resourcefulness, no tolerance for idleness or waste, family, and kinship.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less
By Terry Ryan
BIO RYAN 2005
The author describes her mother Evelyn's struggles with poverty in the 1950s as she tried to build a happy home for her ten children, with the help of wit, poetry, and prose during the contest era of the 1950s and 1960s.

The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square
By Ned Sublette
976.335 SUB 2008
Tells the story of one of America's most complex cities, with an emphasis on New Orleans's musical heritage and its first century filled with war, religious conflicts, slavery, and its struggles with France, Spain, and England.

Historical Fiction with a Hint of Mystery

Try these books if you like:

• Historical fiction
• Mysteries
• Clean reads

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor
By Stephanie Barron
MYSTERY Barron Jane Aus #1
Fleeing from a broken engagement, Jane Austen has scarcely arrived in Scargrave when the local earl is felled by a mysterious ailment that is far too agonizing and fatal to be credited to his fondness for claret and pudding. The earl's widow asks Jane to investigate.

A Duty to the Dead
By Charles Tood
MYSTERY Todd
Independent-minded Bess Crawford's upbringing is far different from that of the usual upper-middle-class British gentlewoman. At the outbreak of WWI, she volunteers for the nursing corps, serving from the battlefields of France to the doomed hospital ship Britannic. On one voyage, she promises to a deliver a message from a dying officer to his brother. Once she's able to do so, she's disturbed at the brother's indifferent reception of the message, and when an unexpected turn of events provides her with an opportunity to stay with the family for a short time, she takes it.

Mount Vernon Love Story
By Mary Higgins Clark
F Clark
Follows the story of George Washington from the time he steps down from the presidency to return with Martha to his beloved Mount Vernon home, a period during which the couple shares a renewal of feelings from the early years of their marriage.

Clara and Mr. Tiffany
By Susan Vreeland
F Vreeland
Hoping to honor his father and the family business with innovative glass designs, Louis Comfort Tiffany launches the iconic Tiffany lamp as designed by women's division head Clara Driscoll, who struggles with the mass production of her creations.

Last Dickens
By Matthew Pearl
MYSTERY Pearl
When Daniel Sand's body is discovered by the docks where he awaited Charles Dickens's unfinished novel, publishing partner James Osgood and Rebecca Sand, Daniel's sister, attempt to uncover Dickens's final mystery.

Teen Nonfiction for Boys

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Books for teen boys
• Nonfiction
• Books with less than 250 pages
  

The Dark Game: True Spy Stories
By Paul B. Janeczko
YA 327.73 JAN 2010
A collection of true spy stories from throughout the history of the United States, discussing personalities, missions, traitors, technological advances and more.

Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World
By Jennifer Armstrong
YA 919.89 ARM 1989
Describes the events of the 1914 Shackleton Antarctic expedition when, after being trapped in a frozen sea for nine months, their ship was finally crushed, forcing Shackleton and his men to make a very long and perilous journey across ice and stormy seas to reach inhabited land.

The War to End All Wars
By Russell Freedman
YA 940.3 FRE 2010
This book describes the situations that led to WWI, the wars progression and how the peace treaty actually set the world up for the next world war. This book is entertaining and informative and helps bring history to life.

The Great Fire
By Jim Murphy
YA 977.3 MUR 1995
An account of the Great Chicago Fire combines archival photographs and drawings with personal accounts by its survivors and historical documents.

Chasing Lincoln’s Killer
By James L. Swanson
YA BIO BOOTH
Recounts the escape of John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, and follows the intensive twelve-day search for him and his accomplices.

Clean Historical Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Historical fiction
• Clean books

Captive Heart
By Michele Paige Holmes
ROMANCE HOLMES
Thayne Kendrich’s urgent need for a school teacher forces him to abduct Emmalyne Madsen off her westward-bound train and lead her to his Black Hills home – and into the path of his deadly ex-wife who will kill for the gold he’s discovered.

Seeking Persephone
By Sarah M. Eden
ROMANCE EDEN
Lodged deep in a forest infested with wild dogs, the Duke of Kielder’s castle is as forbidding as the Duke himself, a man with terrible scars on his body and his soul. But the Duke’s determination to protect his heart at all costs is challenged by his growing attachment to his gentle bride.

Mark of Royalty
By Jennifer K. Clark
ROMANCE CLARK
Determined to fulfill her devoted mother’s wishes, Sarah reserves her heart for Chad despite her growing affection for another man. But as plots against the crown unfold, someone accidentally discovers Sarah’s mark of royalty – setting the stage for discoveries that will shake the kingdom to its core.

The Blue Castle
By L.M. Montgomery
YA F MONTGOME
Valancy Stirling, an inhibited twenty-nine-year-old spinster, undergoes a total personality change when a doctor tells her she has no more than one year to live.

Mr. Darcy’s Daughters
By Elizabeth Aston
F ASTON
Elizabeth Aston has written a novel of historical fiction that depicts British social life and customs during the 19th century. She follows the adventures of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s five daughters giving Jane Austen fans an opportunity to visit old friends and learn what happened to the Bennet, Darcy, and Bingley clans.

Enthralling Nonfiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Nonfiction
• Entertaining books

The Glass Castle
By Jeannette Walls
BIO Walls
The child of an alcoholic father and an eccentric artist mother discusses her family's nomadic upbringing, during which she and her siblings fended for themselves while their parents outmaneuvered bill collectors and the authorities.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
By Jung Chang
951.05 CHA
A Chinese woman chronicles the struggles of her grandmother, mother, and herself to survive in a China torn apart by wars, invasions, revolution, and continuing upheaval, from 1907 to the present.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life
Bill Bryson
643.1 BRY
Bryson takes readers on a tour of his house, a rural English parsonage, showing how each room has figured in the evolution of private life. It is a very entertaining and fascinating read.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Michael Pollan
394.12 POL
An ecological and anthropological study of eating offers insight into food consumption in the twenty-first century, explaining how an abundance of unlimited food varieties reveals the responsibilities of consumers to protect their health and the environment.

Mysteries for Teens

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Mysteries
• Teen books

Down the Rabbit Hole
By Peter Abrahams
YA F ABRAHAMS Echo Fal #1
Like her idol Sherlock Holmes, eighth grader Ingrid Levin-Hill uses her intellect to solve a murder case in her home town of Echo Falls. First book in the Echo Falls series.

Dark Life
By Kat Falls
YA F FALLS
When fifteen-year-old Ty, who has always lived on the ocean floor, joins Topside girl Gemma in the frontier's underworld to seek and stop outlaws who threaten his home, they learn that the government may pose an even greater threat. Though it has science fiction adventure element to it, the mystery is what drives the story along. First book in the Dark Life series.

Death Cloud
By Andy Lane
YA F LANE Young Sh #1
In 1868, with his army officer father suddenly posted to India, and his mother mysteriously "unwell," fourteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes is sent to stay with his eccentric uncle and aunt in their vast house in Hampshire, where he uncovers his first murder and a diabolical villain. First book in the Young Sherlock Holmes series.

A Spy in the House
By Y.S. Lee
YA F LEE Agency #1
Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan and thief Mary Quinn is offered a place at Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls where she is trained to be part of an all-female investigative unit called The Agency and, at age seventeen, she infiltrates a rich merchant's home in hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships. First book in The Agency series.

The Killer’s Cousin
By Nancy Werlin
YA F WERLIN
After being acquitted of murder, seventeen-year-old David goes to stay with relatives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he finds himself forced to face his past as he learns more about his strange young cousin Lily.

Historical Fiction with Emphasis on Characters and Relationships

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Great stories
• Historical fiction
• Romantic suspense
• Books about characters and relationships

The Forgotten Garden
By Kate Morton
F MORTON
Abandoned on a 1913 voyage to Australia, Nell is raised by a dock master and his wife who do not tell her until she is an adult that she is not their child, leading Nell to return to England and eventually hand down her quest for answers to her granddaughter.

Rules of Civility
By Amor Towles
F TOWLES
A chance encounter with a handsome banker in a jazz bar on New Year’s Eve 1938 catapults Wall Street secretary Katey Kontent into the upper echelons of New York society, where she befriends a shy multi-millionaire, an Upper East Side ne’er-do-well, and a single-minded widow.

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
By Lauren Willig
F WILLIG Pink Car #1
Leaving Harvard to complete her dissertation on the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian in England, Eloise Kelly discovers information about the most elusive spy of all time, a figure who single-handedly saved England from Napoleon's invasion.

The Peach Keeper
By Sarah Addison Allen
F ALLEN
Returning to the hometown of her youth after a failed marriage, Willa struggles to find her place in a community where she no longer feels like she belongs, uncovers a 60-year family feud and falls for a strangely secretive man.

Russian Winter
By Daphne Kalotay
F KALOTAY
Former Bolshoi ballerina Nina Revskaya auctions off her jewelry collection and becomes overwhelmed by memories of her homeland, the friends she left behind amidst Stalinist aggression, and the dark secret that brought her to a new life in Boston.

Contemporary Paranormal Romances

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Romance
• Paranormal creatures
• Contemporary books

Edge of Twilight
By Maggie Shayne
ROMANCE SHAYNE
In order to quench his thirst for revenge, Edge, the last of the Immortals, joins forces with Amber Lily, the only half human, half vampire ever born, to destroy the enemy--an alliance that plunges them into a dark realm of evil where passion is the key to their survival.

Blue Moon
By Lori Handeland
ROMANCE HANDELAN
When the wolf population of Miniwa, Wisconsin begins to stalk human prey, officer Jessie McQuade enlists professor Will Cadotte, a Native American activist, to help her investigate. As Jessie follows the trail to the shocking truth, she'll have to decide who she can trust when the moon is full.

How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire
By Kerry Sparks
ROMANCE SPARKS
On the run from the Russian mob after witnessing a brutal murder, dentist Shanna Whelan is rescued from certain death by Roman Draganesti, a charming and wealthy vampire in search of a dentist who can repair his broken fang.

Dates from Hell
ROMANCE STORIES DATES
Four popular romance authors explore the seductive and dangerous world of the supernatural in four sensuous tales of romance with demon lovers, werewolves, and the undead.

Undone
By Rachel Caine
SCI-FI Outcast #1
Once she was Cassiel, a Djinn of limitless power. Now, she has been reshaped in human flesh as a punishment for defying her master. Cursed to live among mortals, Cassiel finds refuge among the Weather Wardens until she encounters an evil force that threatens the family she has become closest to, forcing her to realize that her perceived human weaknesses may be her greatest strengths.

City of Bones
By Cassandra Claire
YA F CLARE #1
Able to see demons and the Darkhunters who are dedicated to returning them to their own dimension, fifteen-year-old Clary Fray is drawn into this bizarre world when her mother disappears and Clary herself is almost killed by a monster.

Janet Evanovich Read-alikes

Try these books if you're looking for

• Contemporary books
  
• Mystery series
• Female lead character
• Read-alikes for Janet Evanovich

The Dangerous Edge of Things
By Tina Whittle
MYSTERY WHITTLE Tai Rand #1
Trying to run her newly inherited Confederate-themed gun shop, Tia Randolph's life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body in her brother's driveway. /div>

Bubbles Unbound
By Sarah Strohmeyer
MYSTERY STROHMEY
Against all odds, Bubbles Yablonsky has returned to school, but while on her way to journalism school, she happens upon a crime scene and finds herself drawn into a murder investigation.

Dating Dead Men
By Harley Jane Kozak
MYSTERY KOZAK
As part of her research for talk show host Dr. Cookie Lahven's upcoming book "How to Avoid Getting Dumped All the Time," Wollie Shelley is dating forty men in sixty days, but her assignment is complicated by an unexpected corpse.

Swift Justice
By Laura A. H. DiSilverio
MYSTERY DISILVER
Charlotte "Charlie" Swift, a former Air Force investigator turned private eye, likes her solitary existence. When her silent partner flees the the country, leaving his socialite wife Gigi with a half interest in the business, Charlie must find a way to cope with her while also investigating the case of an abandoned baby.

The War Against Miss Winter
By Kathryn Miller Haines
MYSTERY HAINES
Struggling with missing her enlisted boyfriend, a lack of employment, and the growing impact of World War II on her New York City home, aspiring actress Rosie Winter reluctantly accepts work with a lowbrow detective agency and is caught up in a high-society mystery when her new boss is murdered. (Though it is a historical mystery series, it has a strong, smart mouth female character, similar to Evanovich's Stephanie Plum.)

Ordinary People Doing Amazing Things

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Adventure

Across the Nightingale Floor
By Lian Hearn
F HEARN Tales of #1
In a novel set in a land much like ancient Japan, a young boy named Takeo becomes a pawn in the ceaseless wars between rival warlord clans in a culture ruled by codes of honor and formal rituals.

Mistborn
By Brandon Sanderson
SCI-FI SANDERSO Mistborn #1
Experiencing an epiphany within the most daunting prison of the monstrous Lord Ruler, half-Skaa Kelsier finds himself taking on the powers of a Mistborn, and teams up with ragged orphan Vin in a desperate plot to save their world.

Wizard’s First Rule
By Terry Goodkind
SCI-FI GOODKIND Sword of #1
An unearthly adversary descends on an idyllic fantasy world, corrupting magic against good and slaughtering innocents, and only a single man can stop him.

Odd Thomas
By Dean Koontz
F KOONTZ Odd Thom #1
Over the course of two days, Odd Thomas, his soul-mate Stormy Llewellyn, and an assortment of allies make their way through a dark, terrifying world in which past and present, and life and death collide as they try to avert a cataclysm..

Assassin’s Apprentice
By Robin Hobb
SCI-FI HOBB
As Fitz, an outcast and the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, grows to manhood, a legacy of magical skill and other mysterious talents propels him into the role of protector of the kingdom, if his initial perilous mission does not destroy him first.