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Arkansas Books: The Best Books Set in the Natural State
By: Angela & Melissa
Updated:
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we may earn a referral fee from qualifying purchases.Whether you’re participating in our Read Around the USA Challenge or simply found your way to our website researching books set in Arkansas, we’ve curated a diverse list of highly-rated titles about the Natural State! If you’re looking for another state, check our comprehensive list of books set in every state.
A Few Things Arkansas is Known For…
Arkansas is called the Natural State for good reason. It’s renowned for its picturesque landscapes, including the Ozark Mountains, Hot Springs National Park, and the Buffalo National River.
The capital city of Little Rock is known for its vibrant downtown and bustling riverfront. In recent years, Northwest Arkansas, including Fayetteville (home to the University of Arkansas) and Bentonville (the home of Walmart), has experienced rapid growth due to the region’s blend of economic prosperity, natural beauty, recreational opportunities, and thriving cultural scene. In rural areas of the state, however, poverty remains a significant issue. The state consistently ranks among the highest in terms of poverty rates in the US.
This state played a significant role in the Civil War as a Confederate state, with many battles fought on its soil. After the war, Arkansas experienced the challenges of Reconstruction as it transitioned back into the Union. A century later, the Civil Rights Movement profoundly impacted the state, with the Little Rock Nine’s integration of Central High School in 1957 gaining national attention.
The Best Books Set in Arkansas
They Call Her Dirty Sally
Book Summary
Years ago, a hospital fire rocked the quiet town of Silver Bell, Arkansas, claiming the lives of nine of its residents, including the town doctor, a young pregnant woman, and seven infants. Now, journalist Finn Hardwick has arrived from out of town to cover the 30th anniversary memorial service. Expecting cooperative interviews, he instead encounters a wall of silence from the townspeople. Seeking assistance, Finn teams up with Billi Ellis, a well-liked motel receptionist, hoping her rapport with the community will encourage people to open up.
Together, their investigation leads them to Sally, an elderly woman ostracized and labeled “Dirty Sally,” who has remained mute since the fire. As Finn delves deeper, he uncovers unsettling connections between the town’s secrets and his own past.
The Book Girls Say…
If you enjoy this novel, consider picking up the sequel, They Say He Flies at Night, which delves into the life of another reclusive individual in the town of Silver Bell. Walter Lorry, an enigmatic antique shop owner, is rumored to possess extraordinary abilities. The plot follows Piper Moore, a newcomer seeking Walter’s renowned calligraphy skills for her wedding invitations, leading to revelations that challenge the town’s perceptions.
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
94% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Each June, the members of the Moses family gather for a family reunion at a hundred-acre farm in Arkansas. Young preacher Samuel Lake always brings his wife, Willadee Moses, and their children back for the celebration.
Just as the 1956 reunion is getting underway, tragedy strikes, setting the stage for a summer of crisis and change. Much of the story is told through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl named Swan.
The Book Girls Say…
This has been a favorite among our readers who describe it as a “can’t put down, page-turning book!” What stands out in the reviews of this book are the comments about how REAL it is – the realism of the characters and the conversations. Keep in mind that this realism can make the scenes of abuse hard to read.
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Abigail lives on the outskirts of a small town in the Ozarks and designs sophisticated security systems. She keeps to herself and supplements her own home’s security with a fierce dog and firearms. Police Chief Brooks is intrigued by Abigail, and he suspects that her past is more complicated than she shares.
Twelve years earlier, Elizabeth was lured to a house on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Her mother was extremely controlling, so when she finally got to let loose at a club, she had too much to drink and left with a stranger.
The Book Girls Say…
The Witness was a Goodreads Choice nominee for romance. It is the 200th novel published by best-selling author Nora Roberts, who has sold over 400 million books in her long and incredibly successful career.
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
Don’t Know Tough
Book Summary
The pressure is on Billy Lowe. He’s a talented but volatile running back for the high school football team in Denton, Arkansas, and the team’s fate rests on his shoulders. He lives in a trailer park with his mother and her abusive boyfriend, and football is his outlet for all the anger he keeps bottled up the rest of the time. But when he goes too far on the field, it gets him suspended.
Without Billy, the team can kiss their playoff hopes goodbye. And if they don’t win, the new-to-town football coach’s job is also at risk. But the coach feels a higher calling than football. As a born-again Christian, he feels a divine calling to help Billy escape his circumstances.
When Billy’s abuser is found murdered, the troubled kid is the primary suspect, and the fallout will tear the town apart.
The Book Girls Say…
This novel is not listed as Christian fiction, but readers say that it is a defining characteristic of the coach, who uses heavily religious language at times. Overall, reviewers indicate that while the novel delves into themes of redemption and moral struggle, it also critically examines the complexities and potential shortcomings of relying solely on faith to address deep-seated issues.
Many readers appreciate this nuanced interplay between faith and small-town life. Keep in mind, however, that it may not be for everyone. Some reviewers call the novel too religious, in contrast to others who call it too critical of religion.
The Gods of Green County
Book Summary
In 1920s rural Arkansas, young Coralee dreams of having a family of her own. Sadly, the trajectory of her life changes when her brother Buddy is murdered by a powerful sheriff. As Coralee tries to recover from the loss, she begins seeing her brother around town. Is she losing her mind or clairvoyant?
Twenty years later, Coralee’s husband, Earl, tries to balance the work necessary to put food on the table and the fight for his family. There are other forces at work through the town’s people. Leroy is a young, ambitious lawyer who lands a judgeship through a terrible mistake. An evangelical preacher rules a flock of snake-handling parishioners. Sheriff Wiley Slocum has plenty of dark secrets, but he rules the town.
Eventually, Coralee is sent to a sanity hearing, but in judging Coralee, Leroy is also impacting his own future.
Miss Pearly’s Girls
Book Summary
Miss Pearly Bell raised her four very different daughters in rural Arkansas. As they grew up, each went their separate ways. But when Pearly is diagnosed with a terminal illness, she summons all four girls home in hopes that she can help them get right with each other before she passes.
The oldest sister is now a pastor’s wife, and like always, she takes the responsibility of being the oldest a bit too seriously (and too judgmentally). But she also has a secret that could explode everything. The youngest sister is determined to create a very different life for herself, but a past truth revealed could shatter everything. The middle sisters are twins who never see eye-to-eye.
A Painted House
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
93% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Bestseller John Grisham is known for his page-turning courtroom dramas, but in A Painted House, he’s writing fiction based on his own childhood. The main character is 7-year-old Luke, and the setting is rural Arkansas in 1952. Luke lives in a small, unpainted home with his parents and grandparents in a cotton field.
For six weeks each year, there is an influx of pickers from Mexico and the Ozarks on the farm. Young Luke sees and hears things not usually encountered at his young age, and finds himself the holder of secrets that endanger the cotton and his family.
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
The Lions of Little Rock
Book Summary
Twelve-year-old Marlee Nisbett is a shy and quiet girl who rarely speaks outside her family. Her world changes when she befriends Liz, a new student who is confident and outspoken.
Their friendship faces a severe test when Liz abruptly leaves school amid rumors that she was passing as white in the segregated school system. Despite societal pressures and personal risks, Marlee is determined to maintain their friendship.
As she navigates the challenges of a racially divided community, Marlee becomes more courageous and outspoken, advocating for integration and equality.
The Book Girls Say…
This novel offers a fictional story set a year following the famous Little Rock Nine integration crisis of 1957. While the characters in this book are not based on real people, the story is based on the lesser-known but historically accurate follow-up events. In 1958, the Little Rock school board closed the city’s public high schools for an entire year—a period known as “The Lost Year”—to resist further integration.
Dying for Dominoes
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
93% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Is there foul play when a fun game of dominoes between four close friends turns deadly for Zack, the husband of Amy’s best friend, Zelda? It’s a bit suspicious, considering Zelda’s declaration that he’s making her crazy, and she wants him gone.
When he’s killed in a hit-and-run in a parking garage right before date night, the four friends who discussed his possible demise all suspect each other…and the police also suspect them. Amy has to go into amateur sleuth mode throughout the hills of Arkansas in her quest for the truth.
The Book Girls Say…
Dying for Dominos is the first book of the Cardboard Cottage cozy mystery series. Book three, Poison Parcheesi and Wine, is also set in Arkansas and features Arkansas’s version of wine country.
During a little Book Girls road trip, we discovered this series at Pearl’s Books in Fayetteville, Arkansas! The author lives in the Ozark Mountains region of Arkansas, lending some extra authenticity to the setting of this entertaining read.
Come and Get It
Book Summary
Millie Cousins is a pragmatic senior resident assistant in a dorm at the University of Arkansas who is determined to graduate, secure a job, and purchase a home. Her ambitions lead her to collaborate with Agatha Paul, a visiting professor researching students’ financial behaviors.
Millie agrees to assist Agatha by facilitating interviews and even eavesdropping on dorm conversations, receiving payment for her efforts. As their partnership deepens, Millie becomes entangled in complex dynamics involving her residents.
The Book Girls Say…
While author Kiley Reid did not attend the University of Arkansas as student, she spent a year in living in Fayettville while her partner was working at the university. She has described it as “possibly my favorite American city.” Apects of the novel – like the dynamics of money and class among students – were informed by her experience teaching undergraduates at the University of Michigan and conducting student interviews on the topic.
The rating of this book on sites like Goodreads and Storygraph are much lower than we typically look for when researching books for any of our lists. Nonetheless, we decided to include this one based on reviews from several of our readers that really enjoyed it, and based on an article from the Arkansas Times that celebrates this novel for providing a “positive representation of our state [that] is rare in popular culture.” Specifically, the novel “pays due homage to Northwest Arkansas institutions such as Onyx Coffee Lab and Bikes, Blues, and BBQ.”
However, before selecting this book, keep in mind that many readers say that this story doesn’t come together until the end, and other readers find it overall lacking in purpose. Race, sexuality, class, and previous trauma are all subtexts in this novel.
When the Bones Sing
Book Summary
Over the past three years, more than two dozen people have gone missing on the local hiking trails near Lucifer’s Creek, Arkansas. One moment, they are there, and the next, they disappear without a trace, only to later turn up buried.
Despite coming from a long line of women who can hear the bones of the dead sing, 17-year-old Dovie doesn’t believe in magic. But now the ones are calling out to her to dig them up.
Is it the monstrous Ozarks howler snatching people from the trails, as some of the old-timers in town believe? Dovie doesn’t believe that theory, and she doesn’t believe her best friend Lo when he tells her that dark shadows of the murdered hikers are haunting him.
Can Dovie and Lo unearth the truth before anyone else loses their life?
The Book Girls Say…
Author Ginny Myers Sain grew up in rural Oklahoma before moving to Arkansas for college and staying there for another two decades.
Don’t Cry for Me
Book Summary
Through a series of deathbed letters, a Black father attempts to make amends with his estranged gay son. Through these heartfelt letters, Jacob recounts his upbringing in rural Arkansas, shaped by rigid notions of masculinity and the lingering shadows of slavery’s aftermath.
As Jacob reflects on his life, candidly examining his own failures, he confronts the generational traumas and societal expectations that influenced his actions. He seeks redemption while also hoping to impart wisdom and love to his son before it’s too late.
The Book Girls Say…
In this epistolary novel, the entire story unfolds through a series of letters written by the father, Jacob, to his estranged son, Isaac.
Canter With a Killer
Book Summary
In the first book of the Horse Rescue Cozy Mystery series, a horse owner races to find a killer and clear her name.
After her marriage ended, Mallory left her unfulfilling job and moved back to her hometown of Hillspring, Arkansas, to start a horse rescue. Paddocks of happy horses and one quirky donkey are just what she needs for a fresh start. But when her cantankerous neighbor (and longtime critic), Albert, is murdered in his fancy show barn, Mallory is the prime suspect. The sheriff is so focused on her that he’s ignoring all the other leads, so Mallory takes the investigation into her own hands.
Along the way, she meets Albert’s son, Braydon, and sparks fly. Will dating the victim’s son interfere with finding the truth?
The Book Girls Say…
Author Amber Camp has lived in Northwest Arkansas for two decades, working as a rural hospital nurse. Her love of animals is not limited to the pages of her books – she has her own menagerie of dogs, cats, horses, and “the Mule from Hell.”
Non-Fiction Books About Arkansas
Vapors, The
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
86% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Did you know that the town of Hot Springs, Arkansas, was a mob refuge specializing in all kinds of vice from the 1930s through the 1960s? Brothels, illegal casinos, and horse racing reigned, offset by the beauty of America’s first National Park, healing springs, and glam Art Deco architecture.
The Vapors is a true crime non-fiction history of the town, told through the lives of three unbelievable real people. Owney Madden was a legendary mobster who fled to Hot Springs after a crime spree in New York. Hazel was a young girl when Owney came to town, but eventually, she worked in his club and used his alcohol to drown her sorrows. Owney’s apprentice was Dane Harris, the son of a Cherokee bootlegger.
Dane’s dream was to build The Vapors, a sophisticated and glamorous palace of pleasure that would rival the best of Vegas. The book explores the hidden underbelly of the South, including how a town synonymous with white gangsters supported a burgeoning black middle class.
Warriors Don’t Cry
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Three years after the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, nine black teenagers were chosen to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The author of this memoir, Melba Beals, and her eight classmates were known as the Little Rock Nine. As they walked up the steps to the school flanked by the heavily armed Arkansas National Guard, surrounded by a rampaging mob, they became reluctant warriors on the battlefield of the civil rights movement.
The Book Girls Say…
If you enjoy this book, you may also want to pick up March Forward, Girl – another Beals memoir of her earlier years, which is written in language that’s appropriate for younger readers, but with an important story that is just as captivating to adults.
Queen of the Hillbillies
Book Summary
Patti McCord spent half a century sharing history, songs, and stories of her native Arkansas Ozarks through newspaper columns, radio programs, and music festivals. She became one of the 20th century’s preeminent folklorists. Over the years, many encouraged her to publish a collection of her work, but it wasn’t until after her death that her work was finally collected into this book.
The Book Girls Say…
A couple of years ago, the Book Girls took a road trip from Melissa’s home in Tulsa to Northwestern Arkansas. We visited Bentonville and Fayetteville, where we stopped at a really cute bookstore. We chatted with the owners about books set in Arkansas, and they told us about Patti McCord (aka, the Queen of the Hillbilllies).
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
90% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Born in St. Louis in 1928, Maya Angelou grew up to become one of the most influential voices of the 20th century – a poet, educator, civil rights activist, historian, actress, filmmaker, and much more. In this memoir, first published in 1969, Maya recounts her childhood from the ages of three through sixteen.
As a young child, Maya and her brother are “shipped” to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their paternal grandmother, where they endure both the pain of abandonment and prejudice. At eight years old, the two return to live with their mother in St. Louis, where her mother’s boyfriend rapes Maya.
After returning to Arkansas, Maya is so traumatized by the abuse she endured that she stops speaking for several years.
The Book Girls Say…
We highly recommend the audiobook version, which is read in Maya’s distinctive, deep, and lyrical voice. But no matter which format you choose, this memoir will transport you back to the Jim Crow South, where you’ll feel like you’re walking alongside Maya.
Note that this is the first book in a series of autobiographies, so don’t be surprised when it ends somewhat abruptly.
Also Featured on These Book Lists:
Read Around the USA – Books Set in Other States
We hope you enjoyed this list of books about Arkansas and found some great titles to add to your TBR. If you’re participating in our Read Around the USA Challenge, be sure to check out our alphabetical index of books set in each state.
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