Books Set in North America (By Country & Region)

Book Summary

Saul Indian Horse wants peace. After hitting rock bottom with alcohol and entering an inpatient treatment facility, he discovers that healing must come through telling his life story as a member of the Ojibway tribe. Throughout the book, you’ll walk through Saul’s history, which includes being taken from his family and sent to a residential school, which was a common tragedy for many Indigenous children. His heritage was again attacked as he got older and experienced harsh racism.

While the book will open your eyes to the challenges faced by Indigenous people in Canada, it also shares Saul’s joys along the way and describes the landscape of northern Ontario in detail.

Book Summary

This is the latest in the popular Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series of crime mysteries set in Quebec. Each book in this series takes place in the fictional village of Three Pines, where the Chief Inspector investigates murders and uncovers long-buried secrets beneath the seemingly idyllic surface of the town.

The first book in this character-driven mystery series, Still Life, was published in 2006, and many of the subsequent novels have topped the New York Times Best-Seller list and have won major crime-writing awards in three countries.

The Grey Wolf title begins with a missing coat, an intruder alarm, a note reading “this might interest you,” a mysterious list, and then a murder. But Gamache and his team quickly see that something much more sinister than just one murder is quickly approaching.

Book Summary

This Canadian novel opens in 1950s Quebec, where tensions run high between the French and English. When 15-year-old Maggie’s parents find out that she’s pregnant and the father is a poor French boy, they force her to give her baby girl, Elodie, up for adoption.

As the years go by, we follow the lives of both the mother and daughter. Elodie is a bright and determined young girl growing up in Quebec’s impoverished orphanage system. But when a law is enacted that provides more funding to psychiatric hospitals than to orphanages, Elodie and thousands of other orphans are declared mentally ill. Elodie withstands terrible treatment until she is finally able to gain her freedom at age seventeen.

Maggie marries and is eager to start a family, but she never forgets the daughter that she was forced to give up. Through the years, the lives of the mother and daughter continue to circle around one another, never quite intersecting. Until finally, Maggie decides to go in search of her long-lost daughter.

Book Summary

While this book takes place on September 11, 2001, and the following days, it’s not the constantly devastating story you would expect. Instead, this heartwarming book recounts the experiences of countless passengers from some of the 38 planes that were unexpectedly diverted to Newfoundland, an island in Canada’s easternmost province, when US airspace was closed on 9/11.

On that day, the small town of Gander, with a population of just 10,000, received more than 6,600 passengers from 92 countries. Ganderites, along with residents of surrounding towns, opened the doors of local churches, schools, and even their own homes.

Throughout this book, you’ll not only learn the personal stories of the passengers, but you’ll also learn a lot about life on this tiny, remote island and about the unexpected hosts who welcomed strangers from around the world with open arms and generous hearts.

Book Summary

Greenwood is a multi-generational saga following one family from 1934 to 2038. However, the book works backward, first introducing you to Jake, an eco-tour guide in one of the world’s last remaining forests in 2038.

Then you’ll meet Liam, a carpenter in 2008, followed by Willow in 1974 as she attempts to make up for the sins of her father and his timber empire. Finally, you’ll be all the way back to 1934, when Everett Greenwood spent his days alone with the trees and their maple syrup. One day, he hears the cries of an abandoned baby in the forest. His life, and those of the following generations, are forever changed.

Timber and the environment tie the family together through changing generations.

Book Summary

Written in 1908, Anne of Green Gables has been a charming classic for over a century. The book launches a series of 8 novels, following Anne from childhood to motherhood. In the first book, you’ll meet Anne as an 11-year-old orphan being adopted by the Cuthberts, an older man and his stern sister who live on a farm on Prince Edward Island called Green Gables.

The only problem is that the Cuthberts intended to adopt a boy to help run the farm, not a feisty red-headed girl. However, her wild imagination and beautiful yet precocious spirit quickly win them over.

Book Summary

Spanning 1933 to 1939 and from the streets of Toronto to the shores of Hong Kong, this Canadian historical fiction novel tells the story of a little-known chapter of WWII.

With the Depression crippling Toronto, 18-year-old Molly puts aside her journalism dreams to work any job she can to help her family get by. But, as the summer of 1933 stretches on, the terrible wave of hate and anti-Semitism sweeping the globe reaches Toronto in the form of “Swastika Clubs” and “No Jews Allowed” signs. On a fateful night in August, tensions reached a boiling point between the local Irish and Jewish communities. The resulting riot (Christie Pits Riot) has devastating consequences for Molly’s family and her best friend, Hannah’s family.

Six years later, Molly is now working as a reporter for the local paper. With the war on the horizon and many people she loves in danger, Molly is forced to confront what happened on that terrible night back in 1933.

Book Summary

In the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, women are often on their own as the men leave looking for other work. However, the setting is also surrounded by the drug war, which is even more dangerous than the terrain and the abundant poisonous creatures. As a result, resourceful mothers learn to hide the beauty of their daughters as a form of protection – disguising them as boys or making them unattractive in other ways. 

Ladydi is one of these daughters, and you’ll quickly fall in love with her fierce intelligence and willingness to make the best of the circumstances in which she was born. When she’s offered the chance to leave Guerrero to become a nanny for a wealthy American family in Acapulco, she jumps at the opportunity to build a better, safer life for herself. However, the cartel still looms and impacts her life in unexpected ways. 

Book Summary

Clara is a modern teenager growing up in Baltimore. She has never met her father’s parents and doesn’t know much about his past other than the fact that he snuck over the US border as a teenager. One day, she receives a letter from her grandparents inviting her to spend the summer with them in their small village of Yucuyoo in southern Mexico.

After her initial culture shock, Clara begins to see the beauty in a simpler life, and as she learns about her father’s past, she also embarks on her own journey of self-discovery.

Book Summary

In 2017, Libertad (Libi) Morazán is a high school senior who takes heart in writing political poetry for her anonymous Instagram account and a budding romance with someone new. With a contentious 2017 Honduran presidential election looming and protests raging across every corner of the city, Libi’s life is getting complicated. She’s discovered that her older brother is involved in the protest, and her mom just saw texts on her phone mentioning a kiss with a girl.

With political corruption and homophobia surrounding her, she begins dreaming of a future where she can be herself. But after a tragedy, she may have to leave the only home she’s ever known.

Book Summary

In this atmospheric thriller, perfect for fans of The White Lotus, The Mosquito Coast, and Nine Perfect Strangers, hearing-impaired Laelia and her family head to Belize in search of a new start. She’s hoping moving to the verdant jungle will help her relationship with her botanist father.

Despite the beauty of her new surroundings, it’s brutally hot and full of deadly creatures. Worse, Laelia has been having bewildering, fragmented recollections of the past and hears gunshots through her worsening tinnitus. Long-buried secrets, betrayal, corruption, and greed rule her new “paradise”.

Book Summary

This beach read mystery series features recently divorced Dana, who leaves behind her hectic San Francisco life when she inherits a beach house in a Costa Rican seaside town.

In the first book of the series, A Beach House to Die For, Dana’s fresh start in the beach town gets off to a rocky start when she’s suspected of murder.

Book Summary

Each chapter in this novel is like a short story, with the vignettes covering forty years in the life of Irene, a talented artist. After a heartbreaking childhood, Irene finds herself in a small Central American village at a beautiful but decaying lakefront hotel called La Llorona at the base of a volcano.

She ends up loving the hotel so much that she restores and runs it. The vignettes of her life include a rich assortment of characters, drama, romance, humor, a dash of magical realism, and a mystery at the center of it all.

Book Summary

They called Gabi the tree girl because she was always climbing trees in the Guatemalan forest to watch the eagles and the sunrise. One day, while high in the safety of her trees, she witnesses the sights and sounds of a terrible massacre, which was part of the ongoing Maya genocide. Also known as the Silent Holocaust, the Guatemalan military government carried out more than 600 massacres, killing tens of thousands of Maya citizens and destroying more than 400 Mayan villages between 1981 and 1983.

Having lost not only her whole family but also her entire village, Gabi joins the masses of refugees struggling to reach the Mexican border. Throughout the long journey, Gabi continues to hold out hope that she might be reunited with her younger sister.

Book Summary

Maya is seventeen and has a talent for making clothes out of unusual objects. Her fashion design skills have earned her a scholarship to Guatemala City’s most prestigious design school and a finalist spot in the school’s fashion show. Mamá believes in Maya’s talent and even takes on an extra job to make sure Maya has everything she needs at the school.

So when Mamá doesn’t show up at the fashion show, Maya knows something is wrong. The local gangs that terrorize Guatemala City are now too close to home, and Maya and Mamá must flee. Their only hope is to travel through Mexico and to the US. But can they reach the border and asylum?

Book Summary

Forty-something Alex is one year past her divorce and about to celebrate the anniversary of her new life with her friends. Unfortunately, things turn from blissful to blindsided when she finds out her headaches are being caused by a brain tumor. Before jumping into medical procedures, she decides to set off on a grand adventure through Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, & the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Her unexpected companion is a hiker named David who is excited to have found a woman after his own heart. However, no matter how wonderful their adventure is, Alex will have to return home to face her future and find a new way to be happy.

Book Summary

Margot and Anthony were leading lives filled with stresses that would sound familiar to many parents – long hours at work, carpooling, overscheduled kids, and concerns about money. One day, Margot impulsively suggested the family move to Costa Rica, and a short seven weeks later, they were jobless on top of a remote mountain.

In this witty memoir, Margot provides insight into her family’s struggle to get back on track in a new life. She shares insights on parenting and privilege, loneliness, and connection. Along the way, she discovers that even when everything changes, some things still remain the same.

Book Summary

Tara is a surgeon for a London hospital who travels with her cardiologist boyfriend to the southeast Costa Rican village of Puerto Viejo for a family celebration. In recent years, she has strived to escape the grasp of her controlling, affluent family, but agrees to attend an unmissable party in the jungle. However, instead of enjoying a carefree vacation, she encounters a desperately ill local boy.

The boy’s mother is having him treated by the shaman and rejects Tara’s Western medicine approach. However, she is compelled to help however she can and agrees to trek deep into the jungle for days in order to gather the plant that may save his life.

Book Summary

Lucy’s father died five years ago, and since then, she’s been on the run as part of the foster system. This has taught her to be both cautious and street smart. So when Mr. Jameson comes looking for her, she’s not sure if she should trust him, no matter how nice he seems.

He tells Lucy something her father always hid from her. She is Ojibwe and has family she didn’t know existed, including a grandmother who will take her in. But her future isn’t that simple. She’s being followed, and she has secrets of her own.

Book Summary

Through the true story of a racehorse named Lexington, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks manages to weave a tale of spirit and injustice over 150 years of American history.

The book has three timelines. In 1850, you’ll meet an enslaved horse groomer, Jarrett, in Kentucky, who has a special bond with Lexington. There is also a young artist who paints images of the horse. When the Civil War erupts, the artist fights for the Union and runs into the young groom and stallion again, far from the track.

In 1954, a gallery owner on Martha’s Vineyard took a special interest in a 19th-century equestrian painting, even though the artist and provenance are unknown.

In 2019, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia and a Nigerian-American art historian unexpectedly connected through a shared interest in the painting as they sought clues to its origin.

Book Summary

In this masterfully written nonfiction work, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles the decades-long migration of Black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life. Spanning 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America.

The history of this epic migration is told through the lives of three individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who left sharecropping in 1937 and relocated from Mississippi to Chicago, where she later proudly cast her vote for Barak Obama when he ran for his Illinois senate seat in the early 2000s; George Starling fled Florida for Harlem in 1945, where he fought for civil rights; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career and who later became the personal physician to Ray Charles.

This book not only captures the personal side of each story – including the treacherous and exhausting cross-country and the process of adapting to their new lives, but also addresses how the migration changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture, and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work.

Book Summary

This historical fiction novel tells the story of the friendship between two powerful and influential women in American history.

Mary McLeod Bethune, the daughter of formerly enslaved parents, was one of the first black female activists. Through her work as both an activist and an educator, she helped lay a foundation for the civil rights movement. Eleanor Roosevelt shared Mary’s passion for education and women’s rights, and was eager to make her acquaintance. The two became fast friends and confidantes.

After Eleanor’s husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was elected president in 1932, the two women began to collaborate even more closely. She became quite a controversial First Lady for pursuing her own agenda, separate from FDR, and particularly for her outspoken stance on civil rights.

When Elanor begins to receive threats as a result of her close relationship with Mary, both women use it as motivation to fight even harder for equality.

Book Summary

Part travelogue and part history of America’s public lands, you’ll armchair travel across the country to some of America’s most beautiful locations as you read That Wild Country.

The public land trust owned by the citizens of the US is the largest in the world, and the lands serve as havens for wildlife and recreation zones for visitors. However, since the inception of the public land system, there has been controversy. Some want conservation, while others want the vast resources utilized. This book is the perfect primer on the topic.