Books Set in North Dakota
Our journey through the 50 states continues with a stop in North Dakota!
Book Club Pick – North Dakota
Murder at the Library by Ellen Jacobson
What is Murder at the Library about?
Libraries are full of books . . . and deadly secrets.
When Thea Olson agreed to volunteer at her local library, she anticipated shelving books, not stumbling across a dead body.
Concerned her brother, the acting chief of police, is in over his head, Thea is determined to find out whodunit. She investigates the murder with the assistance of her grandmother and the handsome new library director.
Just when the trio of amateur sleuths hit a dead-end, a snarky chameleon appears in the library with cryptic clues for Thea. At first, she thinks she’s hallucinating. But once Thea accepts the fact that the obnoxious reptile is real, she realizes he might just help her crack the case.
Can Thea discover who the murderer is before someone else is taken out of circulation?
Ellen Jacobson on Literary Escapes Podcast
Want to know more about Ellen and her books? Listen to this conversation on the Literary Escapes Podcast!
coming 7/25
More Sweet Reads Set in North Dakota
Enjoy this additional selection of books set in North Dakota, featuring sweet romance. Perfect for easy reading, these delightful tales promise happy, hopeful endings.
Which one will you choose for a literary escape to North Dakota?
Just a Cowboy’s Convenient Marriage by Jessie Gussman
Genre: Sweet Romance
A man who lost everything.
A woman squatting on a property that’s not hers.
An aunt who suggests a marriage of convenience.
When Smith Long strides into his new hometown, he doesn’t expect to get bowled over by a woman chasing her cow whom she claims has fallen in love with a pig. Doesn’t every small town have that one crazy person?
He’s not laughing later, though, when his aunt informs him that in order for him to receive the old, rundown property she’d promised him, he has to marry the crazy woman he’d hoped to never see again.
Abrielle Adams is squatting on a ranch outside of Sweet Water, North Dakota and hoping that she’ll get back on her feet before the heir shows up. Wishful thinking since she finds out that the man who’d kept her from catching her cow is the very person she was trying to avoid.
But now Abrielle has been offered the one thing she could really use – half ownership of the ranch she’s been “borrowing” – and all she has to do is marry a (grumpy, sour, and okay, handsome) stranger.
To both Abrielle and Smith, marriage is more than convenience and a vow is a lifetime commitment. Will they see how much they have in common and decide they need each other?
Cowboy Walking Away by Jessie Gussman
Genre: Sweet Romance
Rose Baldwin had done everything right in her marriage. She’d been faithful, honest, loving, and patient when her husband, Harry, kept putting off having children. Three years later, there Harry sits at the annual Sweet Water Sweethearts’ Banquet with his new wife, happy, smug, and with three stepchildren and a baby to dote over.
Rose, on the other hand, their server for the evening, is still devastatingly alone.
Is it any wonder she lies about being engaged?
Derek Fields walked away from his rural life to follow his wife, Stephanie, to the city and a career in corporate America. But they were both unhappy, and Stephanie left him six months ago. Now, Derek is back in his hometown of Sweet Water, North Dakota, taking over the family farm from his grandparents.
When Derek and Rose reunite, after many years and a world of pain, they easily fall into the lie that they are an item. Only neither one of them are good liars, and their hearts are deeply wounded.
Surely, the straw house they’ve built could never survive the wild North Dakota wind.
Or could it?
Dakota Blues by Lynne M. Spreen
Genre: Sweet Romance
A wrecked marriage, a failed career, and a heartbreaking return to her hometown. Is it too late to start over?
Karen Grace is on the ropes. Far from home and newly unemployed, she is stunned to learn that her husband’s girlfriend is pregnant. Devastated and drifting, with no reason to hurry back, she agrees to take an elderly neighbor on one last road trip in her vintage RV.
Camping, relaxing, and making friends, Karen glimpses a new way of life, one where she finally puts herself first. But when her husband tells her the truth and begs her to come home, she is torn.
Will she choose the dutiful familiarity of her old life, or find the courage to start over on her own terms?
NOTE: Lynne Spreen was our author of the week for Arizona – hear more about her and her books on the podcast! 116: Exploring Arizona with Lynne Spreen
Join us in the book club!
