Alabama

Mark Childress, Crazy in Alabama. Fiction
In the summer of ‘65, a boy observes family dramas and rising racial tensions.

Anne George, Murder Carries a Torch. Mystery
Two Alabama sisters’ search for their cousin’s way-ward wife takes them to Chandler Mountain.

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird. Fiction
A young girl’s father defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.

Robert McCammon, Boy’s Life. Fiction
A boy’s idyllic childhood ends when he and his father witness a murder.

Mike Stewart, Sins of the Brother. Mystery
A lawyer investigating his brother’s murder must outwit a crime boss.

Arkansas

John Grisham, A Painted House. Fiction
In the 1950s, a family’s cotton crop is threatened by floods and feuds between the pickers.

Joan Hess, Madness in Maggody. Mystery
Police chief Arly Hanks investigates a food poisoning outbreak at a supermarket opening.

Norris Church Mailer, Windchill Summer. Fic
A college student’s sheltered life is shattered when a high school friend is murdered.

Florida

Edna Buchanan, You Only Die Twice. Mystery
A Miami reporter investigates when a death row inmate’s supposed victim turns up newly dead.

Paula Cohen, Jane Austen in Boca. Fiction
Pride and prejudice threaten the course of romance among seniors at a Boca retirement community.

Pete Dexter, The Paperboy. Fiction
In Moat County, a paperboy and his reporter brother investigate a sheriff’s death.

Connie May Fowler, Remembering Blue. Fiction
A Tallahassee convenience store clerk is wooed by a fisherman who takes her to a Gulf Coast island.

Carl Hiaasen, Tourist Season. Fiction
A P.I. thinks someone’s trying to ruin the tourist trade when a series of murders occur.

Alice Hoffman, Turtle Moon. Fiction
In the rising heat of May, a juvenile delinquent hides a baby whose mother was murdered.

Randy Wayne White, Twelve Mile Limit. Mys
Marine biologist Doc Ford investigates a deadly boating accident off Marco Island.

Georgia

Tina McElroy Ansa, Baby of the Family. Fiction
A girl in rural Georgia in the ‘50s is deemed to have second sight because she was born with a caul.

Olive Ann Burns, Cold Sassy Tree. Fiction
Townspeople gossip when a man marries a Yankee only three weeks after his first wife’s death.

Eugenia Price, Savannah. Fiction
An orphan returns to his mother’s birthplace where his affections are torn between two women.

Louise Shaffer, The Three Miss Margarets. Fiction
Three elderly woman named Margaret share a deep friendship and a dark secret.

Anne Rivers Siddons, Homeplace. Fiction
A journalist who left her Georgia childhood behind her is called home when her father is dying.

Karin Slaughter, Blindsighted. Mystery
A doctor who discovers two women who were brutally assaulted suspects that she’s the target.

Augusta Trobaugh, Sophie & the Rising Sun. Fiction
In the days leading up to Pearl Harbor, a spinster falls in love with her Japanese-American gardener.

Louisiana

C.L. Bevill, Bayou Moon. Mystery
A painter returns home to find out what happened to her mother, who disappeared with her lover.

John Biguenet, Oyster. Fiction
Two rival oyster fishing families struggle to survive in the Louisiana bayou.

James Lee Burke, Jolie Blon’s Bounce. Mystery
A Cajun blues singer is suspected in the seemingly unconnected murders of a prostitute & a teenager.

Walker Percy, The Moviegoer. Fiction
A man’s search for meaning and happiness takes him through the French Quarter at Mardi Gras.

Lalita Tademy, Cane River. Fiction
A family saga of four generations of women born into slavery along the Cane River.

Rebecca Wells, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Fiction
An estranged daughter is brought back home to learn the truth about her mother’s life.

Mississippi

Caroline Haines, Crossed Bones. Mystery
A P.I. investigates the murder of a blues pianist.

Martin Hegwood, Green-Eyed Hurricane. Mystery
A Gulf Coast P.I. suspects arson when the home of man who wouldn’t sell to developers explodes.

Greg Iles, The Quiet Game. Fiction
A man returns to his hometown of Natchez after his wife’s death & investigates an old unsolved murder.

Suzanne Kingsbury, The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me. Fiction
Buried secrets and racial tensions interrupt the course of young love one Southern summer.

Eudora Welty, Delta Wedding. Fiction
A girl whose mother died is sent to her aunt’s plantation in the Mississippi Delta in the 1920s.

North Carolina

Pamela Duncan, Plant Life. Fiction
A woman whose marriage is crumbling returns to the textile mill-town where she grew up.

Clyde Edgerton, Walking Across Egypt. Fiction
A woman who longs for grandchildren befriends a wayward teen on the run from the law.

Kaye Gibbons, Charms for the Easy Life. Fiction
A family in the North Carolina backwoods and Raleigh is headed by a matriarch who is a healer.

Jan Karon, At Home in Mitford. Fiction
A lonely small-town rector finds happiness with a stray dog, a stray boy, and a neighbor lady.

Michael Malone, First Lady. Mystery
Police look into a series of killings involving an Irish rock singer and the First Lady of North Carolina.

Margaret Maron, Slow Dollar. Mystery
A North Carolina judge discovers that a man murdered at a carnival was a member of her family.

T.R. Pearson, Short History of a Small Place. Fiction
A boy tells the story of the eccentric characters who populate his small North Carolina town.

Ann Ross, Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind. Fiction
A small-town widow agrees to take in her late husband’s illegitimate child.

South Carolina

Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides. Fiction
A man helps a psychiatrist unravel his sister’s troubled childhood on an island off South Carolina.

Carolyn Hart, Engaged to Die. Mystery
A bookstore owner tries to vindicate a friend accused of killing her much younger fiancé.

Josephine Humphreys, The Fireman’s Fair. Fic
In the aftermath of a devastating hurricane, a lawyer reassesses his life & decides to quit his job.

Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees. Fiction
A motherless girl & her nanny flee racists and take refuge with 3 sisters who knew the girl’s mother.

Bret Lott, The Hunt Club. Fiction
A teenager and his blind uncle find a mutilated body and become targets of an unknown killer.

Jill McCorkle, Ferris Beach. Fiction
A young girl is drawn to her daring, reckless cousin until a fateful 4th of July changes their lives forever.

Tennessee

Beverly Connor, Airtight Case. Mystery
An archeologist with amnesia joins a dig in the Smokys and tries to find out what happened to her.

William Gay, Provinces of Night. Fiction
A teenage boy is left alone when his father goes to hunt down his wife’s lover.

Catherine Marshall, Christy. Fiction
A privileged young woman becomes a teacher in an impoverished area in the Smoky Mountains.

Sharyn McCrumb, She Walks These Hills. Fiction
A deputy tracks an escaped convict and a history student tracks a 200-year-old ghost in Appalachia.

Peter Taylor, A Summons to Memphis. Fiction
A man returns to Memphis to confront his father and his past.