Illinois Books: Novels Set in the Prairie State

Book Summary

Charlie greets the women in his family, including his wife and four daughters, by saying “Hello, Beautiful” and truly sees something special in each of them. Unfortunately, Charlie is resented by his wife, Rose, because he’s an alcoholic, which also impacts his ability to provide for the family.

Their oldest daughter, Julie, is smart and ambitious. When she meets William, whose family couldn’t be more different than her own, he’s at college on a basketball scholarship. For William, the sport has been his saving grace and a substitute for the love of family. At least until he meets Julie and her family embraces him in their family unit when they become a couple. Once that happens, the family refuses to give up on him.

While you’ll get some fall vibes when Julie heads to college, Hello Beautiful also follows the characters for nearly four decades. The book begins in the main character’s childhood, in the 1960s, and spans into their middle-aged years.

Book Summary

In the summer of 1999, twelve-year-old Felicia lived with her loving mother and her adored older teen brother in Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes housing projects. Their neighborhood is literally coming down around them, and their building is next on the list to be torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority.

At the beginning of the summer, she’s innocent enough to enjoy days of playing Double Dutch with her trio of close friends. When she welcomes a new friend, Tonya, into the group, the dynamics change as rapidly as the buildings around them. Felicia (FeFe) must learn who she can trust and who she needs to let go.

Book Summary

Joanna Teale has thrown herself into dawn-to-dusk work studying nesting birds in rural Illinois for her graduate program. It’s a great distraction from the loss of her mother and her own breast cancer battle.

Out of nowhere, a bruised girl named Ursa shows up. The girl claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles, but provides no other background information. Concerned about the bruises, Joanna lets the girl stay while enlisting the help of her reclusive neighbor to solve the mystery of where the girl came from.

Miracles occur over the summer, but as the end of summer and the fifth miracle approach, Ursa’s dangerous past also gets closer.

Book Summary

One-hundred-year-old Murray McBride is the last man standing – having survived his family and friends. He’s looking for a reason to live when he meets Jason, a 10-year-old with a terminal heart defect. Jason has a list of five things he wants to do before he dies, and Murray is determined to help him. 

The two navigate the perilous streets of Chicago in a ‘67 Chevy as they race against the clock that’s ticking for both of them. Along the way, Murray remembers what it’s like to be young, and Jason fights for the opportunity to grow old.

Book Summary

Afaf, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, is the principal of Nurrideen School for Girls, a Muslim school in the Chicago suburbs. When a shooter, who was racialized online by the alt-right, shows up at the school, Afaf’s mind goes back twenty years to her childhood and teen years to reprocess her life story.

The majority of the book consists of her memories of life growing up in Chicago as a Palestinian immigrant, both what she faced within and outside the home. Those memories are injected with her present-day reality of a shooter in her school, until she eventually comes face-to-face with him.

Book Summary

On the night of the Great Chicago Fire, 17-year-old socialite Delia Spencer meets the charming Marshall Fields, and her life is forever changed.

Fields leads the way in rebuilding the city by reopening his dry goods store and then transforming it into a glamorous palace of a department store like the world had never seen before. He became a retail tycoon in Chicago by wooing female customers with his famous “Give the lady what she wants” motto. He also wooed Delia, but their private lives were riddled with scandal and heartbreak.

Book Summary

Annika prefers to be alone with a book and has trouble communicating with others, but she finds love in a chess club in college. Sadly, her relationship with Jonathan ended due to a tragedy. For the last ten years, she hasn’t seen him.

When they run into each other in a store, they begin talking again. However, before they can move forward, they have to deal with why they were separated in the past.

Book Summary

This roller coaster domestic psychological thriller pulls you into the lives of a wealthy Chicago couple, Simon and Vicky. He’s a law professor, and she’s an advocate for domestic abuse victims. Their life and marriage look perfect, and maybe even dull.

Except that one of them may be a killer. After the death of a socialite, Simon and Vicky’s secrets begin to unravel. From affairs and trust funds to long grudges and revenge, their life is a complex web of lies and deception. But who is conning who?

Book Summary

Lilah has always dreamed of owning her own catering company, and she’s finally had the right idea at the right time. The Covered Dish provides delicious meals for her neighbors, allowing customers to claim the culinary creations as their own. She stays busy, but sometimes it is a challenge to keep her cooking secret.

When someone drops dead at Bingo after chili made by Lilah on behalf of one of her clients, she finds herself in a big mess. To save her business and stay out of jail, she needs to find the real murderer quickly.

Book Summary

In 1985, Yale was the director of a Chicago art gallery on the verge of a career breakthrough. Yet all around him, the growing AIDS epidemic is stealing his friends, including Nico.

In Paris, thirteen years later, Nico’s younger sister is finally coming to terms with the devastating way AIDS affected her life all those years before.

Book Summary

In order to win the job as host of a local morning show, Marin agrees to travel home to her small town in Illinois for the holidays (for the first time in 8 years) and to let a camera crew capture her and her family doing all their family traditions.

Marin didn’t plan on bumping into her ex, Max, and she especially didn’t expect the viewers back in Denver to fall in love with him. The viewers want to see them as a couple. But will fake flirting for likes and shares turn into something more?

Book Summary

Shelby Tebow went missing first. Then, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanished just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen. This strikes fear into a once-peaceful community. But are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried. And no one is prepared for the answers.

Book Summary

Let us start by saying that Michelle Obama’s memoir is not about politics – in fact, she is pretty blunt about her disdain for politics throughout this book. Of course, she does talk about her experience as the wife of a politician and as the First Lady of the United States of America, where she used her platform as an advocate for women and girls around the world. 

This memoir, however, is much more of an in-depth reflection about her early life experiences and the all-too-familiar struggle to find the right balance between career and family, especially under the microscope of the media.

The first of three sections in Becoming focuses on Obama’s upbringing on the South Side of Chicago and her education at Princeton University and Harvard Law School. She speaks honestly about the experience of being a working-class black student at an elite, predominantly white campus. In the second section, she talks about her marriage and career before becoming First Lady. And in the final section, she shares about living at the most famous address in the world.

Both a gifted writer and narrator, Obama has written a deeply personal memoir filled with humor, wit, emotion, and refreshing honesty about both her triumphs and disappointments – both public and private.

Book Summary

Hannah and Libby inherited their grandmother’s PR agency, but they’re rapidly losing clients. If they want to save the company, they’ll need a big-name client that can help them get back on the map.

When they learn that an influential self-help guru, Lou, is shopping for a new agency, they think it could be the answer. But Lou insists that whoever she works with must participate in her 12-week “Crush Your Comfort Zone” challenge. Shy Hannah is challenged to go on 12 first dates, and Libby, who spent her youth avoiding gym class, must compete in an obstacle course.

Book Summary

Twenty-two-year-old Olga was her tough parents’ perfect daughter, but when she was killed in a tragic accident, the expectations on her younger sister, Julia, rose.

While it falls to Julia to reassemble her broken family, none of them seems to notice that she is very broken, too. Instead, her mother has become even more critical, pointing out all the ways she is different from Olga. When Julie discovers that Olga may not have been as perfect as everyone thought, she sets out to learn more with the help of her best friend and her boyfriend.

Book Summary

Lila has just returned to her hometown to help her Tita Rosie’s restaurant, which is struggling financially. Lila’s ex-boyfriend, an annoying food critic, visits the restaurant and suddenly dies in his dessert shortly after an argument with Lila.

She’s the prime suspect, and to clear her name, she’s determined to find out what really happened. The Filipino food descriptions incorporated throughout the book will make your mouth water! As a bonus for foodies, the characters also visit other restaurants in town, and the author provides detailed descriptions of those meals as well. Each restaurant is part of a different culture, so it’s a bit of a culinary tour around the world.

Book Summary

This book alternates the true stories of two men connected to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Daniel H. Burnham is the architect of the fair, responsible for constructing the famous “White City,” which attracted appearances by Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison.

Dr. Holmes erected the World’s Fair Hotel near the fairgrounds with a gas chamber and crematorium. He lured both guests and victims to his hotel with his charismatic personality.

Book Summary

The seven books of the Knitting in the City series follow seven friends in Chicago who are all members of the same knitting group.

In the first book, Neanderthal Seeks Human, we meet Janie. She’s just lost her boyfriend, her apartment, and her job all in the same day. The only thing that could make it worse is that it was all witnessed by Quinn Sullivan (aka Sir McHotpants).

Janie is incapable of engaging in conversation without sharing TMI, especially when she’s unnerved. And no one unnerves her more than Quinn. So the very last thing she needs is for him to make her an offer that she can’t refuse.

Book Summary

Chicago librarian Henry suffers from a rare genetic disorder that causes him to drift unpredictably through time. On one of his travels, when Henry is 36, he meets a six-year-old girl named Clare. The two marry at a different point in time when Henry is 31 and Clare is 23. 

This is a story about their passionate love for one another, but the complexities of marriage are multiplied by Henry’s inability to remain in one time and place. Told from both points of view, the book asks the question, “Don’t you think it’s better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?”

Book Summary

With a split timeline between the 1925 jazz scene and a film student in 2015, this one sounds promising! Honoree Dalcour is a sharecropper’s daughter who has fought her way up to a dancing position at an exclusive club frequented by big names like Louis Armstrong.

Ninety years later, she’s 110 years old and holds the only remaining link to famous filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. Film student Sawyer is at her bedside, trying to get the full story before it’s too late.

Book Summary

The police assume the death of Ruby King’s mother in Chicago’s South Side is just another act of violence in a black neighborhood. For Ruby, the loss of her mother means being left alone with her violent father. Layla, Ruby’s best friend, is the only person who knows how dangerous and scary Ruby’s life is now.

Ruby is even more alone when Layla’s father, the pastor of their church, demands that Layla stop hanging out with Ruby. However, Layla refuses to give up on her friend and discovers the murky loyalties and dark secrets tying their families together for three generations.

Book Summary

Noah is a Broadway playwright, but his first musical was just panned by the New York Times. As he ponders whether his career is over, a family emergency requires him to return to his small Illinois hometown.

When he arrives, he’s horrified to discover that his agent secretly arranged for him to stage an amateur version of his poorly reviewed musical. In addition to the emotions of being surrounded by his show again, he has to deal with small-town amateur actors, and he keeps running into Luke, his high school bully. It’s a nightmare!

But these days, Luke is both gorgeous and beloved by the whole town. And instead of being as annoying as he anticipated, his new cast is warm and full of legitimately good suggestions for the show. Maybe his agent was right, and this is the perfect time for a second chance.

Book Summary

As a Black woman in a male-dominated department, Detective Harriet Foster knows that adapting to a new partner will be a struggle. It’s even more difficult because she’s still mourning the sudden death of her former partner. However, crime won’t wait for Harriet to sort out her personal life.

When a young red-haired woman is found brutally murdered in downtown Chicago, Harriet is assigned the case. Her biggest clue is the red lipstick encircling the victim’s wrists and ankles. Unfortunately, another victim soon shows up with the same markings, indicating the presence of a new serial killer in her town.

Book Summary

Oliver Marks was a young actor studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college. Both onstage and off, he and his friends play hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, and ingenue. But when secondary characters begin to usurp the stars, their plays begin to dangerously spill over into real life, and one of them is found dead. Oliver is found guilty.

Detective Colborne helped put Oliver in jail for a murder that he may or may not have committed. A decade later, Colborne is preparing to retire as Oliver is being released from jail. The detective wants to know once and for all what really happened, so he meets Oliver upon his release to ask just that.

Book Summary

Kamilah Vega’s family runs a Puerto Rican restaurant in a Chicago neighborhood that is quickly gentrifying. In order for the restaurant to survive, Kamilah knows it needs some updates. She also wants them to enter the Fall Foodie Tour. But convincing her family is another story. Her blackmailing abuelo (grandfather) says that he’ll only let her change his restaurant if she agrees to marry his best friend’s grandson – a man she can’t stand.

Irish American Liam Kane has spent a decade building up his family distillery, and he and his grandfather are on the verge of winning a national whiskey competition. Then he learns that his Granda (grandfather) has cancer. His dying wish is to see Liam married. But not just to any girl. It has to be Kamilah.

If Liam and Kamilah refuse, their grandfathers intend to sell the building that houses both of their businesses. So the pair decides to try to outfox the octogenarian duo by faking an engagement.

Book Summary

The Jarretts look perfect from the outside, but beneath the surface, they’re grieving the death of their oldest son, Buck. He’s not the only son on their mind, though. Conrad has been having major mental health struggles.

Back at home after months in a psychiatric hospital, Conrad remains consumed with guilt and depression. Therapy with the straightforward Dr. Berger slowly helps him open up, while new friendships and a budding romance offer hope. At the same time, his parents, Calvin and Beth, cope in very different ways. Calvin longs to connect, while Beth retreats further, creating growing tension in their marriage.