Books Set in Delaware
Our journey through the 50 states continues with a stop in Delaware!
Book Club Pick – Delaware
The Hope of Christmas by Jess Hansen
What is The Hope of Christmas about?
As Sadie navigates this holiday with her adorable dachshund, Arthur by her side, can she balance it all and find the love she’s waited so long for?
Faced with her first Christmas after losing her beloved Grandma Rose, Sadie Lynn knows she can’t let anyone down. Not this year of all years. Forty-years-old and single, it’s up to her to carry on all the Fairchild family traditions on historic Clayton Avenue.
When her hunky high school crush and brother’s best friend unexpectedly walks back into her bookshop after twenty years, her quiet little routine gets turned upside down. Not that she’s complaining. But there are more questions than answers about why he’s back and what he is doing on Clayton Avenue and what it all means for Sadie.
This Christmas, Sadie finds more than she ever imagined: a holiday filled with friendship, love and above all, hope.
Jess Hansen on Literary Escapes Podcast
Want to know more about Jess and her books? Listen to this conversation on the Literary Escapes Podcast!
coming 12/12
More Sweet Reads Set in Delaware
Enjoy this additional selection of books set in Delaware, featuring cozy mystery, contemporary fiction, and YA/middle grade. Perfect for easy reading, these delightful tales promise happy, hopeful endings.
Which one will you choose for a literary escape to Delaware?
The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls by Julie Schumacher
Genre: YA
I’m Adrienne Haus, survivor of a mother-daughter book club.
Most of us didn’t want to join. My mother signed me up because I was stuck at home all summer, with my knee in a brace. CeeCee’s parents forced her to join after cancelling her Paris trip because she bashed up their car. The members of “The Unbearable Book Club,” CeeCee, Jill, Wallis, and I, were all going into eleventh grade A.P. English. But we weren’t friends. We were literary prisoners, sweating, reading classics, and hanging out at the pool.
If you want to find out how membership in a book club can end up with a person being dead, you can probably look us up under mother-daughter literary catastrophe. Or open this book and read my essay, which I’ll turn in when I go back to school.
Cure for the Common Breakup by Beth Kendrick
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Welcome to Black Dog Bay, a tiny seaside town in Delaware known as “the best place in America to bounce back from your breakup.” Home to the Better Off Bed-and-Breakfast, the Eat Your Heart Out bakery, and the Whinery bar, Black Dog Bay offers a haven for the suddenly single.
Flight attendant Summer Benson lives by two rules: Don’t stay with the same man for too long and never stay in one place. She’s about to break rule number one by considering accepting her boyfriend’s proposal—then disaster strikes and her world is shattered in an instant.
Summer heads to Black Dog Bay, where the locals welcome her. Even Hattie Huntington, the town’s oldest, richest, and meanest resident, likes her enough to give her a job. Then there’s Dutch Jansen, the rugged, stoic mayor, who’s the opposite of her type. She probably shouldn’t be kissing him. She definitely shouldn’t be falling in love.
After a lifetime of globe-trotting, Summer has finally found a home. But Hattie has old scores to settle and a hidden agenda for her newest employee. Summer finds herself faced with an impossible choice: Leave Black Dog Bay behind forever, or stay with the ones she loves and cost them everything….
#FollowMe for Murder by Sarah E. Burr
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Murder is about to go viral for social media influencer Coco Cline.
After selling a tech startup to Facebook in a multi-million-dollar deal, blogger Coco Cline has returned to her hometown of Central Shores, Delaware to launch her own social media consulting firm. Her new clients, Sean and Olivia Chen, are ten days away from the grand opening of their specialty consignment shop when Coco stumbles across their assistant Stacy dead behind the register.
Worried that a cloud of suspicion will ruin their chances of a successful business launch, the Chens ask Coco to work alongside the inexperienced Central Shores police to speed up the investigation. Using her celebrity status and social media savviness, Coco realizes Stacy’s seemingly ordinary life was all an act. Following a trail of cryptic online posts, confusing timelines, and muddied gossip, Coco and her friends discover Stacy’s questionable relationships just might be the reason for her untimely demise.
Stay Calm and Collie On by Lane Stone
Genre: Cozy Mystery
As owner of an upscale doggy daycare and spa, animal-lover Sue Patrick pampers pooches for the most elite clients in Lewes, Delaware. Surely she can survive a weeklong visit from Lady Anthea Fitzwalter, her well-to-do business partner from England. But before Sue can serve her guest a spot of tea, she discovers more-than-a-spot of blood inside the company van—and all over the driver’s dead body . . .
Someone abandoned the van full of dogs at the Lewes ferry terminal and got away with murder, leaving Sue and Lady Anthea pawing for clues. With a fundraising gala approaching and Buckingham Pet Palace facing scandal, can two very different women work together to fetch the culprit from a list of dodgy suspects—or are they heading toward a proper disaster?
I’ll Be Your Blue Sky by Marise de los Santos
Genre: Historical Fiction
On the weekend of her wedding, Clare Hobbes meets an elderly woman named Edith Herron. During the course of a single conversation, Edith gives Clare the courage to do what she should have done months earlier: break off her engagement to her charming—yet overly possessive—fiancé.
Three weeks later, Clare learns that Edith has died—and has given her another gift. Nestled in crepe myrtle and hydrangea and perched at the marshy edge of a bay in a small seaside town in Delaware, Blue Sky House now belongs to Clare. Though the former guest house has been empty for years, Clare feels a deep connection to Edith inside its walls, which are decorated with old photographs taken by Edith and her beloved husband, Joseph.
Exploring the house, Clare finds two mysterious ledgers hidden beneath the kitchen sink. Edith, it seems, was no ordinary woman—and Blue Sky House no ordinary place. With the help of her mother, Viviana, her surrogate mother, Cornelia Brown, and her former boyfriend and best friend, Dev Tremain, Clare begins to piece together the story of Blue Sky House—a decades-old mystery more complex and tangled than she could have imagined. As she peels back the layers of Edith’s life, Clare discovers a story of dark secrets, passionate love, heartbreaking sacrifice, and incredible courage. She also makes startling discoveries about herself: where she’s come from, where she’s going, and what—and who—she loves.
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