Fiction about Outdoor Activities

Gardening


Carrie Brown, Rose’s Garden.
A man who shut himself off after his wife’s death finds a renewed interest in life by tending her garden and befriending her protégé.

Elizabeth Buchan, Consider the Lily.
An heiress marries a man who loves her cousin and immerses herself in tending her English garden.

Rosemary Enright, The Walled Garden.
After her husband is sent to jail for embezzlement, a woman moves to an English village and starts an organic food business.

Katie Fforde, Wild Designs.
An unemployed single mom hoping to become a professional gardener finds her plans disrupted by her new neighbor.

Janis Harrison, Roots of Murder. Mystery
A widowed florist investigates the death of an Amish farmer who supplied her with flowers. First in a series on gardening.

Lynne Hinton, Garden of Faith.
The women of the Hope Springs Garden Club rely on friendship to get them through life’s hardships.

Helen Humphreys, The Lost Garden.
A horticulturalist flees the Blitz to manage a team of Land Girls growing vegetables on a country estate.

Ann Ripley, The Christmas Garden Affair. Mystery
PBS gardening show host Louise Eldridge attends the First Lady’s conference on native plants and is dismayed to find a rival has also been invited — and turns up dead. Part of a series on gardening.

John Sherwood, Green Trigger Fingers. Mystery
Gardener and nursery owner Celia Grant discovers an odd plot of earth in a flower bed while investigating the murders of a weekend couple from London. First in a series on gardening.

Gail Tsukiyama, The Samurai’s Garden.
A Chinese man is sent to his family’s summer home in Japan to recover from tuberculosis and encounters a gardener who teaches him about life.

Carol Shields, Larry’s Party.
A Canadian floral designer discovers a passion for creating garden mazes.

Horse Riding and Racing


Barbara Dimmick, In the Presence of Horses.
A woman who retreated into the world of horses after losing everyone she cared about learns to feel again when she meets a magnificent horse.

Kit Ehrman, At Risk. Mystery
A manager on a horse farm who interrupts the theft of some thoroughbreds is determined to track down the culprits.

Nicholas Evans, The Horse Whisperer.
When an accident on a snowy road injures a young girl and drives her horse mad with pain, her mother takes them across the country to a man renowned for his ability to tame wild horses.

Dick Francis, Odds Against. Mystery
Jockey Sid Halley, who was forced to retire due to a hand injury, investigates a developer’s interest in a racetrack. One of Francis’ many horse mysteries.

Alyson Hagy, Keeneland.
A woman leaves her no-good husband and returns to the bluegrass of Kentucky to become an exercise rider at a racetrack.

Tami Hoag, Dark Horse.
A troubled former cop is asked by a girl to find her missing sister, who vanished from a stable where a horse died under suspicious circumstances.

Fern Michaels, Kentucky Rich.
A woman who left home as an unwed mother returns to her father’s deathbed after having become a successful horse trainer. 1st in a trilogy.

Robin Paige, Death at Epsom Downs. Mystery
In Victorian England, an accident that caused the death of a jockey during the Derby may be connected to doping and gambling.

Karen Robards, Paradise County.
A woman returns to her family’s horse farm to find out why her father killed himself.

Willie Shoemaker, Stalking Horse. Mystery
A banned rider is enlisted by the man who ruined his career to help stop an underworld takeover of one of the nation's great tracks. First in a series.

Jane Smiley, Horse Heaven.
The world of horse racing is explored in this dryly comic, lavishly detailed novel filled with numerous characters, both human and equine.

Fishing and Hunting


C.J. Box, Open Season. Mystery
The new game warden of Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, finds it hard enough filling his predecessor’s shoes without having to deal with a dead poacher in his woodpile. Part of a series.

Isabel Colegate, The Shooting Party.
In 1913, a shooting party assembles for the weekend on a grand English estate, but their world of privilege is coming to an end.

Philip Craig, A Beautiful Place to Die. Mystery
At the beginning of bluefish season on Martha’s Vineyard, an ex-cop investigates an explosion on a boat. First in a series.

William Hoffman, Blood and Guile.
A fatal shooting during a hunting trip appears to be an accident, but as one member of the hunting party is drawn into the investigation he discovers that his friends are hiding disastrous secrets.

Norman MacLean, A River Runs through It.
Fly fishing is the one thing that unites a Montana minister and his two very different sons.

Ben Rehder, Buck Fever. Mystery
At the start of deer season, a game warden has his hands full with a drug smuggling ring and the accidental shooting of a guy in a deer costume.

Camping


Nevada Barr, Firestorm. Mystery
Park ranger Anna Pigeon is helping battle a forest fire when a firefighter ends up with a knife in his back. Part of a series.

Sallie Bissell, In the Forest of Harm.
A district attorney and two friends take a hiking vacation that turns into a nightmare when a madman picks up their trail.

Audrey Schulman, The Cage.
A photographer joins an expedition to northern Canada to track polar bears, but they soon learn how ill-equipped for the journey they are.

Les Standiford, Black Mountain.
An NYC transit cop is asked to join a presidential candidate on a wilderness trek and finds himself battling nature and an unknown adversary.
 

Birdwatching


Donna Andrews, Murder with Puffins. Mystery
A couple planning a romantic getaway off the coast of Maine find the island overrun by birdwatchers, family members … and a corpse.

J. F. Freedman, Bird’s-Eye View.
A birdwatcher in the Chesapeake Bay area marshes captures a murder on film and finds himself and his loved ones in danger.

Howard Norman, The Bird Artist.
A painter of birds who lives in a remote village on the coast of Newfoundland recounts why he murdered the lighthouse keeper.

Ships and Boats


Carola Dunn, Dead in the Water. Mystery
Murder spoils Daisy Dalrymple’s enjoyment of the annual regatta at Henley-on-Thames.

Bill Eidson, One Bad Thing.
A man sailing his boat home from the Caribbean is drawn into a deadly game when he discovers that the crewman he hired is a conman and a thief.

Jane Heller, Princess Charming.
Three divorcees and one desperate hit man find themselves on a luxury cruise in the Caribbean.

J.A. Jance, Birds of Prey. Mystery
A retired cop reluctantly accompanies his grand-parents on their honeymoon cruise to Alaska and finds himself investigating a murderous plot.

Christine Kling, Surface Tension. Mystery
A salvage boat operator goes to the rescue of a yacht captained by her ex-boyfriend and finds him missing and his new girlfriend dead.

Jonathan Straley, The Angels Will Not Care. Mystery
An Alaskan P.I. is asked to investigate the mysterious deaths of several cruise passengers.

Susan Sussman, Cruising for Murder. Mystery
A Chicago actress takes a last-minute job as an entertainer on a cruise ship and learns her predecessor was murdered.

James Thayer, Force 12.
A software magnate builds the world’s first fully automated yacht and challenges the world’s best mariners to a race, but things don’t go as planned.