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Florida Books: The Best Books Set in the Sunshine 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 found your way to our website researching books set in Florida before a vacation, we’ve curated a diverse list of highly-rated titles about the Sunshine State! If you’re looking for another state, check our comprehensive list of books set in every state.
A Few Things Florida is Known For
When many of us think of Florida, a few things immediately come to mind – Disney World, spring break, and hurricanes (not to mention politics). Florida became a US territory in 1821 and the 27th US state in 1845. At that time, nearly half of the state’s population were enslaved African Americans working on cotton and sugar plantations.
The sunny weather and beautiful beaches make Florida a popular vacation and retirement destination. The lack of state income and estate taxes led to Florida having the highest percentage of senior citizens of any state (21% of the state’s population as of 2023). Despite the reputation of great weather, climate change is a major concern for the state. Sea levels across Florida are as much as 8 inches higher than they were in 1950, and the rate of sea level rise is accelerating.
The Best Books Set in Florida
The Love Haters
Book Summary
Katie is on the verge of being laid off from her job as a video producer, so she’s forced to take a gig profiling Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West.
There are two problems with her plan. First, Hutch is her co-workers brother and the men do NOT get along. And more importantly, she told a little fib that she knew how to swim.
Lies turn this assignment in paradise into a mess, but if Katie can face old fears and tell the truth, Hutch may be the man that makes her stop hating love.
Thoughts on This Book
Early readers report loving the fun side characters like Aunt Rue and George Bailey, Hutch’s rescued Great Dane. The lighter aspects of the story are coupled with some deeper topics, including body image and grief.
Racing the Rain
Book Summary
Quenton Cassidy grew up surrounded by nature around the Loxahatchee River. As he explored, he was befriended by Trapper Nelson, “the Tarzan of the Loxahatchee,” a well-known eccentric who lives off the land, despite being warned about Trapper’s past.
In middle school, Quenton hoped to be a basketball star but showed more promise as a long-distance runner. Trapper also encourages his running as a way to further interact with nature. But, when Trapper is arrested for the murder of a moonshiner, Quenton’s loyalty to Trapper is tested. At the same time, Quenton has the perfect opportunity to make his mark as a gifted runner.
Thoughts on This Book
Readers say both the physical setting in Florida and the time setting of the 1960s are well done, with mentions of world events like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of John F. Kennedy woven into the story.
This historical fiction is a 2015 prequel to the 1978 New York Times bestseller Once a Runner.
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
Book Summary
In the 1980s, Augusta turned 80 years old and finally retired from her long career as a pharmacist. It was the perfect time to move to the Florida retirement community of Rallentando Springs in Florida. It’s there that she unexpectedly encounters the boy who broke her heart 60 years earlier, Irving Rivkin.
In 1920s Brooklyn, Augusta’s father was her role model. He owned a pharmacy and was the expert on everything their neighbors needed. After Augusta’s mother died, her great aunt Ester moved in to help the family and brought her own unique healing remedies for the pharmacy’s customers.
As Augusta heads to pharmacy college to follow in her father’s footsteps, she is torn between her dad’s and great-aunt’s different healing methodologies. She’s also forming a new relationship with their delivery boy – Irving. One day, Augusta impulsively uses Esther’s most potent elixir, and that decision has disastrous consequences.
Sixty years later, Augusta is still haunted by the mistake.
Thoughts on This Book
Readers enjoy both the 1920s Brooklyn and 1980s Florida timelines, especially because of the many characters who appear in both decades of Augusta’s life.
The book is both historical fiction and mystery, but also has touches of romance and a very light incorporation of magical realism.
The Incredible Winston Browne
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
Book Summary
This historical fiction is set in a quiet Florida town, Moab, in the 1950s. Sheriff Brown’s daily activities usually involve gossip and drama among the town’s quirky residents. But one day, a seemingly mute 10-year-old girl arrives in Moab. At the same time, the Sheriff receives terrible personal news.
The town tries to do the right thing and take the girl, Jessie, in and help her. They have no idea where she came from, but then two suspicious strangers show up looking for her. While Winston tries to get to the bottom of the girl’s origin, he’s also trying to keep his own secret.
Why We Think You’ll Love It
If you love a mixture of mystery, drama, and heart wrapped up in a small-town story, grab this one ASAP. It’s not a well-known book, but had phenomenal ratings as part of our Lifetime of Reading Challenge.
Book Summary
Samantha’s childhood in her small Florida town was far from idyllic, and she was eager to leave it all behind. She loves her new life as a real estate developer in NYC. When she’s asked to take over for a colleague overseeing a resort development project back in her hometown, she reluctantly agrees only because it will help her earn the promotion she’s after.
Not wanting to get drawn back into small-town life, she makes a plan to avoid all of the local hotspots, but that doesn’t stop her from being confronted by her ex-bestfriend, her high school bullies, and even the town’s golden boy, Austin, who keeps coming to her rescue.
Thoughts on This Book
Readers describe this book as a perfect mix of a Hallmark setup, deeper emotional turmoil, and a snarky, sarcastic main character.
The Girls Who Grew Big
Book Summary
When 16-year-old Adela Wood becomes pregnant, her parents send her away from her comfortable home in Indiana to her grandmother’s home in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. In Florida, she meets several other teens who have faced pregnancy and motherhood at a young age.
This group, called the “Girls,” includes Emory, who brings her newborn to school because she’s determined to graduate, and Simone, who has four-year-old twins and is pregnant again. The small town considers this group the students who have lost their way, but instead, the Girls are finding their way together.
Themes in This Novel
Readers say this character-driven novel is a raw, heartbreaking, real look at the complexities of motherhood, while also highlighting the power of friendships.
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
Book Summary
While you may have heard of Thurgood Marshall and his appointment as the first Black Supreme Court Justice in 1967, his earlier career is lesser known to many of us. This non-fiction title transports us to 1949 Florida and an impactful civil rights case that almost cost the attorney his life.
Lake County, Florida, had a notorious sheriff named Willis V. McCall who was always quick to accuse and turn to violence, including when a 17-year-old white girl claimed rape. Without any evidence, four young Black men, who became known as “the Groveland Boys,” were quickly on McCall’s radar. He was intent on making them pay without going through due process. The Klan quickly arrived to help lynch the boys, and on their way into town, they burned the homes of Black families to the ground and chased hundreds more into the swamps.
The NAACP was involved in helping the boys’ legal case, but one of the legal associates was soon murdered for assisting with the case. Thurgood Marshall, the man known as “Mr. Civil Rights,” then entered the fray that would come to include more deaths.
Format Recommendation
This book won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and an Audie Award for History, among many other awards. While we always recommend listening to a sample, the Audie Awards are usually great indicators that a book has an excellent audio version.
If Sheriff Willis V. McCall sounds familiar, he is also talked about in The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.
The Beach Trap
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
Book Summary
Kat and Blake first met at summer camp when they were just 12 years old. They had an instant connection, but their friendship was shattered when they learned that they were not just besties, but also half-sisters.
Fifteen years later, following the sudden death of their father, Kat and Blake discover that he’s left both of them the family beach house in Destin, Florida. This joint inheritance puts the sisters at immediate odds. Blake desperately needs the money (after being demoted from nanny to dog nanny) and wants to sell the house. Social media influencer Kat, on the other hand, desperately wants to hold onto the house because it holds so many happy childhood memories.
The two agree that they’ll spend the summer renovating the run-down beach house, and then Kat will buy Blake out. They immediately begin butting heads when Blake’s renovation plans don’t align with Kat’s artistic vision. As the summer goes on, the two must come to terms with their shared past and learn how to become sisters.
Thoughts on This Book
While each sister finds herself drawn into a summer romance (complete with a few steamy scenes), this book is more about sisterhood and may even cause you to shed some tears.
Fiction
The Light Pirate
Book Summary
Kirby, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, and their two sons are preparing for the worst as a devastating hurricane approaches their Florida home. When the boys go missing right before the storm hits, Kirby heads out to find them. Then, his wife goes into premature labor while home alone. The baby is named Wanda after the storm, and is an unusual child.
As Wanda grows up, Florida continues to unravel, and many abandon it as nature reclaims the state.
Genre Notes
This book is a fantasy and dystopian novel combined with literary fiction. However, the dystopian element is also based on an unfortunate potential reality for Florida – rising sea levels combined with a powerful hurricane.
Flight Patterns
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
Book Summary
Georgia is an antique expert, specifically Limoges fine china. She enjoys studying the past of others while trying to forget her own. She left her coastal Florida home ten years ago, and never thought she’d return.
When a job brings her back home, her grandfather’s apiary brings her unexpected peace. However, a run-in with her estranged mom and sister brings ghosts of the past back to the forefront of her life.
Thoughts on This Book
If you loved the bees in Mad Honey and how they intertwined with the story, you may also enjoy the beekeeping aspect of this layered contemporary fiction novel.
For more Southern family dramas with a bit of mystery set in Florida, try author Laura Lee Smith’s books Heart of Palm and The Ice House.
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
Book Summary
It’s the 1960s, and Elwood has been raised by his loving but strict grandmother. His hard work and focus on always doing the right thing are about to pay off.
Elwood is getting ready to enroll in the local black college and has big dreams. Everything changes when an innocent mistake causes him to be sent to The Nickel Academy to be “reformed” from his so-called crimes.
While the 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys is fiction, it’s based on real “schools” and the unspeakable treatment of young Black men who were sent there during the 1960s. Elwood does his best to remain optimistic, but his positive attitude is challenged by his new friend Turner, who has experienced a different world growing up.
Thoughts on This Book
This book will make you feel every emotion. Through Colson Whitehead’s writing, you really get to know and feel for the characters and the situation they are thrown into. Regretfully, racial inequality in America is embarrassingly still a relevant topic today. This is not an easy book to read, but books like this are extremely important to add perspective to the ongoing pushes for equality.
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
Book Summary
Letty’s sister Tanya made her promise that if anything happened to her, Letty would take Tanya’s daughter Maya and run. When Letty finds Tanya dead, she knows the murderer is Tanya’s ex, Evan, so she follows Tanya’s instructions to get out of town.
Tanya left behind a go-bag of cash, a massive diamond ring, and a faded magazine article about a small mom-and-pop hotel in a Florida beach town.
Letty heads south to Florida with four-year-old Maya, trying to comfort the child and unravel her sister’s secrets while keeping a low profile among the locals, including the handsome police chief Joe. Sisterhood, romance, and mystery intertwine throughout almost 500 pages, which is great if you’re looking for a longer option.
The Last Train to Key West
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Book Summary
Three women’s stories intertwine in the Florida Keys as a powerful hurricane approaches over the Labor Day weekend of 1935.
Key West native Helen Berner yearns to escape her abusive husband. Elizabeth Preston has traveled down from New York in search of a veteran of the Great War. Mirta Perez’s family suffered great losses in the Cuban Revolution of 1933, and now they have arranged her marriage to a man in a dangerous business, followed by a honeymoon in Key West.
The approaching storm is not the only danger that these women face as their paths unexpectedly cross.
Consider This Before Reading
Some of our readers have reported not loving the audiobook narrator, so consider listening to a sample before choosing this format.
By Her Own Design
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
Book Summary
This historical fiction tells the true story of Ann Lowe, who was one of the most famous dress designers of the twenties through the sixties. Her story began in Tampa, where she learned to be a seamstress from her mother and grandmother, a former slave.
At only 12, Ann was married to an older, alcoholic man and saw her dreams slipping away. However, an encounter with a wealthy socialite changed her life forever. She has the opportunity to escape her marriage and earn a living by designing and sewing clothing for Florida’s society elite.
By 1953, Ann had a dress shop in New York and was preparing for the society wedding of the decade – Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy. However, less than a week before the wedding, a disaster occurs at her dress shop, and she’s forced to recreate Jackie’s dress on an impossible timeline.
One Brilliant Flame
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
Book Summary
The Florida Keys were a nineteenth-century utopia, with the booming cigar industry making Key West the most prosperous city in Florida. But in 1886, the town was also a rebel base for the anticolonial insurgency in Cuba, making it a tinderbox for six friends with big dreams.
Set against the backdrop of the Great Fire of Key West, this historical fiction novel tells the stories of six young people whose lives intertwine as revolution smolders and passions ignite.
Historical Context
The 1886 Great Fire of Key West destroyed a significant portion of the city of Key West.
Summer at Hideaway Key
Book Summary
When Lily’s father dies, she’s surprised to inherit a beach cottage that she didn’t know he owned. While she’s never been big on lounging on a beach, she heads to the Gulf Coast home hoping to learn more. When she arrives, the shutters are peeling on the outside, but the inside is full of memorabilia.
Lily has never known much about her aunt, Lily-Mae. In fact, her mother refused to speak about her. The house contents include a carton of Lily-Mae’s journals that share stories Lily has never heard about her mother’s childhood in Tennessee, bringing new understanding about herself and her family.
More About This Book
This novel is told from the perspectives of both Lily and her aunt Lily-Mae, including Lily in the 2010s and her aunt in the 1950s. While this is a beach read that does include some romance, it also includes deeper storylines and mystery elements.
Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
Book Summary
In the 1920s, cities began to rise up from the Florida wetlands, from Coral Gables and Boca Raton to Miami Beach. The cities were developed with artistic vision and featured grand hotels that played host to the glitz and excess of the Roaring Twenties.
Gambling was condoned, and prohibition was not enforced. This attracted tycoons, crooks, and celebrities alike. This rapid development also spawned a new subdivision civilization. The decade saw the largest human migration in US history – far exceeding the settlement of the west – as millions flocked to this new American frontier in the sunshine.
This non-fiction book examines the social, economic, and environmental impacts of this boom. It also shows how the decisions of three real estate moguls, combined with a once-in-a-century hurricane, triggered the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression.
What You Do To Me
Book Summary
Cecilia James has a new career music journalist and sucker for a great love song. Although her personal life with her father and boyfriend are both struggling, she’s pulled into a music mystery as she writes a story for Rolling Stone.
Rock star Eddie Vee once dedicated his hit love songs to Sara Friedman, but then he disappeared into anonymity. And Sara moved thousands of miles away toward a life she and Eddie once opposed. Can Cecilia convince them to open up about their broken hearts? Along the way, you’ll find many page-turning twists in the lives of both Cecilia and Sara.
Why We Think You’ll Love It
The author was once in the music industry herself and reimagined the song Hey There Delilah as her inspiration for this story. Readers praise the Jewish representation throughout and also highly recommend the read for fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid.
Florida Keys Mystery Series
Book Summary
In the first book of this series, Crazy in Paradise, Madison inherits her aunt’s beachfront rental cottages in the Florida Key. But the cottages don’t come with perfect vacationing families. Instead, she finds herself dealing with both colorful and shady tenants, including drunks, ex-convicts, and fugitives.
Her new tenants aren’t even her biggest challenge; a slimy lawyer and the former property manager have their own bad motivations. Madison’s life might not be as safe in Tarpon Grove as she expected.
About the Series
You’ll find a mix of humor, mystery, and romance throughout this light read. While the first book is still highly rated, the ratings are higher for all the subsequent titles.
There are currently 36 books in this series with the most recent published in February of 2026, all of which are included with Kindle Unlimited as of 2/18/26.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Book Summary
This classic follows Janie Crawford as she reflects on her life and three marriages in early 20th-century Florida. Framed as a conversation with her friend Pheoby, the novel traces Janie’s journey from her younger years under her grandmother’s care to a series of relationships that shape her understanding of love and independence.
More About This Book
This novel, which is writen in written in Black Southern dialect, is considered a classic of the Harlem Renaissance. Be aware that this book includes descriptions of both physical and emotionally abusive relationships, as well as other mature themes.
Book Summary
Lacy is a lawyer and has worked as an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct for the last nine years. Most of her cases aren’t very exciting and deal with incompetent judges.
Greg was also a lawyer before he was disbarred, but now is coming forward as a whistle-blower about a Florida judge who he says has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined. He needs Lucy’s help to put a stop to the judge’s money-making scheme, but he’s not the only one involved. The cash the judge is skimming involves the a new casino on Native land, which was financed by the dangerous Coast Mafia.
Consider This Before Reading
Reviewers say that this novel gets pretty in depth legally, which some love and others less interested in legal thrillers didn’t enjoy. However, all seem to agree that they enjoy the Native American sub-plot and Florida setting.
A Land Remembered
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
Book Summary
This novel covers 110 years of Florida history in 400 pages as you watch the vast wilderness of 1858 transition into real estate wealth by 1968. You’ll watch the state’s evolution through three generations of the MacIvey family, starting with Tobias, who brought his wife and infant son to the swampy new frontier of Florida to start a new life. They start as very poor farmers, but work their way into being cattlemen, also known as Crackers at the time, for the sound of their whip as they rounded up cattle.
Two generations later, Solomon is saddened to realize how much of the beautiful land was spoiled and exploited by human greed. In between these generations, the family faces endless challenges and introduces you to a fascinating cast of side characters.
Thoughts on This Book
This epic has been voted best Florida book over and over, including honors by the Historical Society. The author was even nominated multiple times for a Nobel Prize for Literature. However, because the book was originally released in 1984, some of the language may be outdated.
If you’re looking for a bit more recent book, Stiltsville starts in the 1960s and takes you through three generations of a family in Miami over three decades.
Althea Rose Mystery Series
Book Summary
This series follows Althea Rose, a sharp-witted, middle-aged woman who relocates to the island seeking a fresh start. She runs Luna Rose Potions & Tarot Shop and is surrounded by eccentric residents, colorful tourists, and the laid-back yet tightly knit island community. Althea soon finds herself entangled in local murder investigations, and she uses her intelligence, curiosity, and growing network of friends to uncover secrets hidden beneath the sunny exterior of Key West.
The first book of the series, One Tequila, involves a love triangle and murder, but readers describe as good clean fun.
Pink Glass Houses
Book Summary
Sunset Academy is the most coveted public elementary school in Miami Beach. While the students come from a wide range of economic backgrounds, the PTA is comprised of socialites who raise massive amounts of money to set the school apart from the rest.
Melody Howard is new to town, having just moved from Wichita, Kansas, where the PTA events were bake sales rather than galas, and birthday parties were cookies and streamers rather than $100,000 affairs.
PTA alpha mom Charlotte Giodani is quick to take Melody under her wing, and their daughters become fast friends. But as Melody gets sucked into the glossy and frenetic world of Sunset Academy moms, she begins to understand why people describe Miami Beach as “a sunny place for shady people.”
Before the end of the school year, a white crime investigation threatens to take down the whole institution.
Told from alternating points of view that include Melody and Charlotte, as well as billionaires Don and Patricia Walker (the school’s biggest benefactors), and Sunset parent and Judge Carol Lawson.
Our Thoughts on This Book
We spend so much time researching every book for our lists that it’s rare for us to go into a book blind, but Angela picked this book up at an airport bookstore as she was about to board a flight for a summer trip. The gorgeous cover caught her eye, and the blurb about PTA moms sold her (as a former PTA President herself). It wasn’t until she returned home from her vacation that she realized she had enjoyed the book significantly more than the 3.4 Goodreads rating would have suggested.
Nonetheless, she can see why this book might not be for everyone, and we don’t recommend it for those who don’t enjoy reading about the wealthy behaving badly.
This short novel (just 272 pages) is Mean Girls meets Real Housewives, so if that appeals to you, we think you’ll have fun reading Pink Glass Houses.
Read Around the USA – Books Set in Other States
We hope you enjoyed this book list of books about Florida 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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Printable Version of This Book List
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I was thrilled to see The Light Pirate listed. It’s a wonderful book. I’d also like to recommend an old classic by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearling, which is a beautifully told coming of age story in the Florida backcountry.