Delaware

Julianna Baggott, The Miss America Family. Fiction
A former beauty queen and her teenage son try to come to terms with their less-than-perfect family.

Tom Coyne, A Gentleman’s Game. Fiction
A caddy at an exclusive country club discovers the seamy side of the game of golf.

Alexs Pate, West of Rehoboth. Fiction
A Philadelphia boy visits his aunt’s Delaware beach home and decides to solve a family mystery.

Maryland

Tim Cockey, The Hearse You Came in On. Mystery
A Baltimore undertaker investigates when someone inquires about the cost of burying a person who had not yet died.

Frank Deford, An American Summer. Fiction
A boy moves to Baltimore in the ‘50s and meets a woman with polio who coaches him at swimming.

J. F. Freedman, Bird’s-Eye View. Fiction
A bird watcher in the Chesapeake Bay marshes is endangered when he captures a murder on film.

Laura Lippman, In a Strange City. Mystery
Baltimore P.I. Tess Monaghan investigates the murder of a mystery man who leaves a yearly tribute on Edgar Allan Poe’s grave.

Barbara Lockhart, Requiem for a Summer Cottage. Fiction
A woman watches her family fall apart after they move to a farm on the Maryland shore.

William Martin, Annapolis. Fiction
A multi-generational saga of two families in love and war in Annapolis, home of the Naval Academy.

Christopher Tilghman, Mason’s Retreat. Fiction
Family drama unfolds when a bankrupt man takes his family to live on a Chesapeake Bay farm.

New Jersey

Janet Evanovich, One for the Money. Mystery
Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum must track down a cop who happens to be the guy she lost her virginity to in high school.

Robin Hathaway, Scarecrow. Mystery
A doctor at a motel in rural New Jersey investigates a body dressed as a scarecrow in a farmer’s field.

Caroline Leavitt, Coming Back to Me. Fiction
When his wife becomes ill, a man asks his sister-in-law to return to New Jersey to care for their baby.

Frederick Reiken, The Lost Legends of New Jersey. Fiction
A boy growing up in New Jersey tries to make sense of life and love as his father’s adultery and his mother’s mood swings tear their family apart.

David Rosenfelt, Open and Shut. Fiction
A lawyer uncovers family secrets when he takes on the death row appeal of an inmate prosecuted by his late father.

Philip Roth, American Pastoral. Fiction
A man’s happy life is destroyed when his daughter bombs a post office to protest the Vietnam War.

Walter Stroby, The Barbed-Wire Kiss. Fiction
An ex-NJ State Trooper agrees to help an old friend who owes $50,000 to a gangster and learns that the gangster’s wife is his high school sweetheart.

New York

Louis Auchincloss, Manhattan Monologues. Fiction
Ten stories of New York society in the 20th century.

Lauren Belfer, City of Light. Fiction
In 1901 Buffalo, a woman worries about her goddaughter whose father is trying to harness the hydroelectric power of Niagara Falls.

Caleb Carr, The Alienist. Mystery
In 1896, a reporter and a psychologist join forces to track a serial killer.

E.L. Doctorow, Billy Bathgate. Fiction
A 15-year-old street kid befriends a legendary mobster in the Bronx of the 1930s.

Elizabeth Graver, The Honey Thief. Fiction
A woman takes her troubled daughter from the city to the Finger Lakes where she meets a beekeeper.

Edith Konecky, Allegra Maud Goldman. Fiction
An upper-middle-class Jewish girl grows up in pre- World War II Brooklyn.

Laura Jacobs, Women about Town. Fiction
Two career women in New York try to achieve their dreams while remaining true to themselves.

Ed McBain, Cop Hater. Mystery
A detective searches for a killer targeting cops.

Roxana Robinson, Sweetwater. Fiction
A woman’s vacation to the Adirondacks is marred by family troubles, painful memories, and fire.

S. J. Rozan, A Bitter Feast. Mystery
A Chinatown P.I. seeking four missing waiters uncovers illegal immigration and drug running.

Julia Spencer-Fleming, In the Bleak Midwinter. Mystery
A priest in upstate New York finds a baby on her doorstep and is drawn into a murder investigation.

Persia Walker, Harlem Redux. Fiction
During the Harlem Renaissance, a man tries to discover the cause of his sister’s suspicious suicide.

Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence. Fiction
In the 1870s, an engaged man falls in love with a countess who is ostracized from New York society.

Pennsylvania

Kathleen Cambor, In Sunlight, In a Beautiful Garden. Fiction
The story of the Johnstown flood, one of the worst disasters in American history.

Jennifer Chiaverini, Cross-Country Quilters. Fiction
Five women from across the U.S. meet at a quilting camp in a small Pennsylvania town.

K. C. Constantine, Grievance. Mystery
A cop in a blue-collar town investigates a steel magnate’s death & cares for his mentally ill mother.

Jan Gleiter, House by the Side of the Road. Mystery
A Chicagoan inherits a house in rural Pennsylvania not realizing the previous tenant was murdered.

Tawni O’Dell, Back Roads. Fiction
A young man in western Pennsylvania must care for his sisters when their mother kills their father.

Lisa Scottoline, The Vendetta Defense. Fiction
A lawyer defends a man accused of killing his lifelong enemy because of a 50-year-old vendetta.

John Updike, Rabbit, Run. Fiction
A man whose glory days were in high school is disillusioned with his life and flees responsibility.

Virginia

Robert Bausch, The Gypsy Man. Fiction
In a mountain town in the ‘50s, a woman fears the legendary Gypsy Man who is said to steal children, but she is soon confronted with a greater terror.

Patricia Cornwell, Postmortem. Mystery
Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta tries to discover who is strangling young women in Richmond.

William Hoffman, Tidewater Blood. Fiction
A man who was falsely accused of killing his family returns to his roots to clear his name.

Lee Smith, Fair and Tender Ladies. Fiction
A life story told through letters of a woman born and raised in Appalachia.

William Styron, A Tidewater Morning. Fiction
A man recalls his childhood in coastal Virginia during the Depression and World War II.

Adriana Trigiani, Big Stone Gap. Fiction
Life holds surprises for a woman in a sleepy Appalachian town.

Washington, D.C.

Vince Flynn, Transfer of Power. Fiction
A CIA agent tries to rescue the President when the White House is seized by terrorists.

George Pelecanos, Right as Rain. Fiction
A P.I. investigates the shooting of a black cop by a white cop and uncovers a web of corruption.

Emilie Richards, Prospect Street. Fiction
A woman leaves her adulterous husband & returns to Georgetown where family secrets are buried.

West Virginia

Brad Barkley, Alison’s Automotive Repair Manual. Fiction
A widow decides she’ll get on with her life once she finishes repairing a ‘76 Corvette.

John Billheimer, Contrary Blues. Mystery
A small coal town mistakenly receives a grant and someone will do anything to keep it—even murder.

Brad Kessler, Lick Creek. Fiction
A girl struggles to survive when a coal mine explosion destroys her family.

Kenneth Maillard, The Clarinet Polka. Fiction
A man returns from military service to a small steel town and tries to pull his life together.