Books Set in New Hampshire
Our journey through the 50 states continues with a stop in New Hampshire!
Book Club Pick – New Hampshire
Falling Inn Love by Erin Branscom
What is Falling Inn Love about?
Beth is a struggling romance author who’s been trying to find her place in the world after the unbearable tragedy of losing her family. Unable to find peace other than in her writing, she ends up stranded by the side of the road in Freedom Valley, New Hampshire, where a strikingly hot, green-eyed, bearded flannel wearing innkeeper rescues her.
Evan, a former marine who took over his family’s inn after the sudden loss of his father, is struggling to keep afloat.
Running out of money, Beth agrees to help Evan run the inn in exchange for room and board, but she has no intention of staying too long and letting her guard down or anyone into her heart.
But there’s something about Beth that makes Evan believe he can be the man to give her the love that she deserves.
The more emotional walls Beth tries to put up, the harder Evan works to tear them down, using everything he can, including a pair of puppies he finds abandoned by the side of the road, to make her want to stay.
Will Evan be able to convince Beth to take a second chance at love?
Erin Branscom on Literary Escapes Podcast
Want to know more about Erin and her books? Listen to this conversation on the Literary Escapes Podcast!
More Sweet Reads Set in New Hampshire
Enjoy this additional selection of books set in New Hampshire, featuring cozy mystery, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, and sweet romance. Perfect for easy reading, these delightful tales promise happy, hopeful endings.
Which one will you choose for a literary escape to New Hampshire?
Catch of the Day by Virginia Bennett
Genre: Cozy Mystery
When the town librarian is an avid mystery and true-crime reader, the local law enforcement must need a book-smart assistant like her, right?
Rebecca Ramsey returned to the Newfound Lake area of New Hampshire because it feels like home. The library is Rebecca’s safe place, but the local seafood restaurant at the foot of the lake is where all the action happens. While dining on the patio of the seasonal hotspot on her day off, a body is pulled from the lake. Kenny Towne, Chief of Police, is on the scene to investigate and catalog the evidence.
Rebecca and Kenny grew up around Newfound, along with the collection of suspects in the ongoing investigation. Since the deceased is also a Newfound native, old rivalries come into play, including feuds dating back to high school.
Will Chief Towne and Rebecca solve this mystery together or end up getting in each other’s way?
In Her Boots by KJ Dell’Antonia
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Sometimes you have to go big to go home.
Rhett Gallagher’s adventurous life is imploding. Just as she turns the big 4-0, her long-term relationship collapses and her gran’s death draws her back to the family farm. The only silver lining is that Rhett’s inspirational book, The Modern Pioneer Girl’s Guide to Life—written under a pseudonym—has become a wild success, so much so that when her big publicity moment comes, self-doubting Rhett panics and persuades her best friend, Jasmine, to step into the limelight in her stead.
But their prank turns into something more when the controlling mother Rhett hasn’t seen in two decades announces her intent to sell the farm Rhett loves and expected to make her own. To save her inheritance—and her identity—Rhett must concoct a scheme that will protect her home and finally prove to her mother, and to herself, that she can stand on her own two feet.
Lake News by Barbara Delinsky
Genre: Romance
At its center is Lily Blake, a talented singer who shuns the limelight and cherishes her privacy. Tricked by a devious reporter into unwittingly giving an interview about her friendship with a distinguished churchman — a newly appointed Cardinal — she finds herself accused of having had an affair with him.
Shocked and dismayed, Lily becomes a pariah and suffers the brutal, ultimate violation of her privacy as headlines all across the country proclaim her guilt. Hounded by the press, fired from her job, deprived of all public freedom, Lily has no choice but to flee. She returns in secret to her hometown of Lake Henry, in a remote, beautiful part of New Hampshire.
But, idyllic as it may look, Lake Henry, too, has its secrets. Some were the cause of her leaving home in the first place, so returning to her birthplace and her family is not without its own stress and pain.
Driven by the need to exact justice — and, for herself, some kind of closure — from the media that changed her life forever, Lily forms an uneasy alliance with John Kipling, a journalist who was born and raised in Lake Henry’s poorest neighborhood. His successful career as a big-city reporter has ended disastrously, and John has come back home to edit the local newspaper, Lake News. At first he sees Lily as a victim, as well as a subject for the book he hopes to write. But soon she becomes someone whose appeal — and cause — he cannot deny, even at the risk of taking on his former colleagues in her defense.
Pumpkin Everything by Beth Labonte
Genre: Sweet Romance
After calling off her fall wedding, horror novelist Amy Fox is left with a broken heart, a mega case of writer’s block, and a serious aversion to all things pumpkin spice. When she receives news that her grandfather has broken his wrist driving through a Dunkin Donuts—literally straight through the front windows—five hundred miles away, in her hometown of Autumnboro, New Hampshire, Amy has no choice but to return to check on him. If she doesn’t make sure that he’s back on his feet, Grandpa may be moved into assisted living, and Amy’s beloved childhood home will be put on the market.
Knowing she must return, Amy worries about the only thing worse than pumpkin spice—a reunion with Kit Parker—her childhood best friend, first love, and entire reason for skipping town in the first place. As the two reconnect, a second chance seems possible…if only Kit weren’t holding on to a secret that just might unravel everything.
Drizzled with Death by Jessie Crockett
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Meet Dani Greene—a fourth-generation maple syrup maker dealing with a first-class troublemaker…
The annual pre-Thanksgiving pancake-eating contest is a big event in Sugar Grove, New Hampshire. It’s sponsored by the Sap Bucket Brigade, aka the firefighters auxiliary, and the Greene family farm provides the syrup. But when obnoxious outsider Alanza Speedwell flops face first into a stack of flapjacks during the contest, Greener Pastures’ syrup falls under suspicion.
Dani knows the police—including her ex-boyfriend—are barking up the wrong tree, and she’s determined to pull her loved ones out of a very sticky situation. The odds may be stacked against her, but she’s got to tap the real killer before some poor sap in her own family ends up trading the sugar house for the Big House…
Murder is Binding by Lorna Barrett
Genre: Cozy Mystery
The streets of Stoneham, New Hampsire are lined with bookstores…and paved with murder.
When she moved to Stoneham, city slicker Tricia Miles met nothing but friendly faces. And when she opened her mystery bookstore, she met friendly competition. But when she finds Doris Gleason dead in her own cookbook store, killed by a carving knife, the atmosphere seems more cutthroat than cordial. Someone wanted to get their hands on the rare cookbook that Doris had recently purchased-and the locals think that someone is Tricia.
To clear her name, Tricia will have to take a page out of one of her own mysteries-and hunt down someone who isn’t killing by the book.
The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.
With no trace of how these mysterious books came into the world, Ashlyn is caught up in a decades-old literary mystery, beckoned by two hearts in ruins, whoever they were, wherever they are. Determined to learn the truth behind the doomed lovers’ tale, she reads on, following a trail of broken promises and seemingly unforgivable betrayals. The more Ashlyn learns about Hemi and Belle, the nearer she comes to bringing closure to their love story—and to the unfinished chapters of her own life.
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