Massachusetts Books: Novels Set in the Bay State

Book Summary

This historical fiction novel is based on the real life of Margaret Fuller, an extremely intelligent, well-read, hard-working writer. She was one of the first feminist icons in the United States.

As a young women, she is invited to the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson to meet his coterie of enlightened friends who are shaping a nation. These connections fuel her passion for education and inspire her to host the first women-only literary salon for students like Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

She never takes no for an answer, and her days include everything from sparring with Edgar Allan Poe to reporting on the writings of Frederick Douglass. Her work earns her a job for Horace Greeley, where she makes history yet again by being the first female foreign news correspondent.

Book Summary

This novel reimagines the story of the woman who inspired Hester Prynne from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter.

In the early 1800s, young seamstress Isobel sailed to the New World from Scotland. Her husband, Edward, has become addicted to opium, so they are trying to leave their secrets and debts behind. However, shortly after arriving in Salem, Edward leaves Isobel alone when he joins a ship as a medic.

When Isobel meets Nathaniel Hawthorne, they grow close. One is a muse, and one is a dark storyteller, but which is which?

Book Summary

Meena prefers to observe the world at a distance through her camera lens. She’s a photojournalist with a major case of wanderlust. She has no family, no permanent address, and no long-term attachements.

Meena has no intentions of settling down, so when she unexpectedly inherits an Victorian brownstone apartment in historic Back Bay, Boston, her immediate plan is to simply sell it and keep moving.

But her journalistic instinct kicks in and Meena finds herself drawn to the mystery of how she wound up with the home of a stranger. The mystery comes witha series of hidden clues, as well as a trio of nosey Indian aunties and a handsome neighbor.

Meena discovers more than she bargained for, including not only new found friendships and community, but also a window into her own past.

Book Summary

Nine-year-old Andrea and her brother Pablo had only known the tiny Massachusetts factory town, Woronoco before her mother abrupted them to the mountains of Puerto Rico. When they arrive to the village, the siblings are left with family while their mother disappears.

Months later, when Andrea and Pablo return to Massachusetts, things are different. Andrea finds herself stuck between family values and American culture while also navigating what it means to grow up a girl in the 1950s.

Book Summary

Cassie was one of the only female firefighters at her Texas firehouse, but she was welcomed as part of the family and loves her job. But when her mother asks her to move to Boston despite their strained relationship, she’s forced to find her footing in a new department.

With a lack of funding, poor facilities, and an old-school hazing culture, the firehouse is not happy to have a woman join their crew for the first time.

Book Summary

The Saturday Evening Girls Club is a pottery-making group in Boston’s North End. It provides four young immigrant women a respite from the struggles in their daily lives.

Sicilian Caprice wants to open a hat shop, but her parents have different plans for her future. Ada wants to take college classes, but her Russian-Jewish father disapproves. Maria is stunning and has plenty of prospects for a husband, but she fears ending up miserable like her Italian Catholic mother. Thea is shy and torn between speaking up for herself or falling in line with an antiquated Jewish tradition.

Despite their cultural differences, the friends draw strength from each other as they fight to transform their immigrant stories into fulfilled American dreams.

Book Summary

Jenna has been married for four years when her husband suddenly asks for a divorce. With newfound time on her hands and everything in her life in flux, she agrees to accompany her eccentric grandmother on a road trip to visit the seaside town in Massachusetts that shaped their family history.

As they drive, Evelyn tells Jenna a star-crossed tale of the teen romance that changed Evelyn’s life more than seven decades ago. While Evelyn insists that the trip back to her hometown has nothing to do with Tony, Jenna isn’t so sure.

Discovering the secrets and truths of Evelyn’s past allows Jenna to discover a whole new side of her grandmother and may also open her eyes to new possibilities for her future.

Book Summary

In this novel, the author has spun a vivid tale based on a true historical event. In 1665, a young man from Martha’s Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College.

The narrator, Bethia Mayfield, is growing up in the settlement of Great Harbor amid pioneers and Puritans. She yearns for education and opportunities that are closed off to her as a woman in the 17th century. At every opportunity, she sneaks away to explore the island’s beaches and observe the native Wampanoag inhabitants.

This is where, at the age of 12, she meets Caleb, the son of a chieftain. The two form a secret friendship that introduces them to each other’s world. Bethia’s minister father begins guiding Caleb’s education, ultimately leading him to Cambridge to study Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. At the same time, Bethia is forced to work as a housekeeper in Cambridge. This puts her in a position to observe the convergence of cultures that Caleb is encountering.

Book Summary

While the rest of our list is fiction, including some very light, entertaining picks, we wanted to include one solid non-fiction for anyone wanting to learn more about the history of Thanksgiving. We selected This Land is Their Land, which was published in 2019, right before the 400th Anniversary of the landing at Plymouth Rock.

The book focuses on the Wampanoag Indian tribe, starting with the relationship and alliance between the chief and Plymouth’s governor, John Carver, which led to a successful harvest and the first Thanksgiving. You’ll learn about the next 50 years of uneasy peace between the tribe and the local government, which ended in 1675. Silverman explores the tensions before, during, and after the treaty in this well-researched book.

The author was determined to remain neutral in tone and focus on historically documented facts, which is an asset but also creates a more scholarly style instead of reading like fiction. That makes it a longer read, so we recommend picking it up a bit at a time in conjunction with other books versus sitting down to read straight through.

Book Summary

This historical fiction mystery tells the story of six turbulent generations of the Pratt clan – all the way back to Horace Taylor Pratt, a founding father of Massachusetts.

The Pratt family has a secret that dates back to the time of George Washington and Paul Revere. Through the years, the family is searching for a stolen tea set that they believe is hidden somewhere in the Back Bay section of Boston. In the modern timeline, historian Peter Fallon stumbles upon the Pratt’s secret while researching some old family papers. He begins asking questions about the tea set and the Pratt family history.

This novel goes back and forth in time, telling the story of the Pratt’s through the years, along with the story of Peter Fallon’s search for answers.

Book Summary

Jess thought she had the perfect life in Charleston, but when she finds out that her husband has been cheating on her, she leaves behind her high-profile lawyer job and returns to her childhood home on Cape Cod. The best part is that this puts her closer to her lifelong friend, Allison.

Allison loves her career as a magazine editor, but with circulation dwindling, she’ll soon be forced to find a new direction. When she learns that the owner of her beloved local bookstore is looking to sell, it’s the perfect opportunity. Allison and Jess decide that they, together with their adult daughters, should take over the shop. 

In the process of reopening the bookstore to their community, they also open themselves up to the possibility of romance and second chances.

Book Summary

Roussel wedding gowns have been bringing brides joy for multiple generations. Soline was raised in the family business, but during WW2, her heart is broken, and it ruins her faith in love. She’s determined to box everything up and forget her past.

Four decades later, Rory leases the Roussel property to open a gallery and finds a box of letters along with an unworn wedding dress. The items seem too precious to ignore, so Rory tracks down Soline to return the box. The two women from different generations form an unlikely friendship as they begin to see eerie parallels in their lives.

Book Summary

In coastal Massachusetts, a March storm is raging. Alex is alone in a farmhouse with no electricity when there is a knock on her door. She’s shocked to find her estranged younger sister, Riley, outside. How did Riley find Alex, and how did she make it through the impassable roads? And why did she disappear back into the night as mysteriously as she arrived?

Decades earlier, the sisters had a traumatic childhood, with Alex taking over the mother role of both Riley and Colleen at the young age of 11 after her mother’s suicide. Now, each sister has their own struggles, but Alex and Colleen are determined to find Riley and reconcile their past.

Book Summary

The book follows two significant periods in the life of Lily Bloom. As a teenager, she notices one of her classmates, Atlas, sleeping in the unoccupied house behind hers. When she begins sneaking him food, they develop a friendship that leads quickly to a deep first love. Lily’s life at home isn’t perfect, but everything feels right with Atlas. When they are separated, they vow to find each other again as adults.

Years later, on the day of Lily’s father’s funeral, she has a chance encounter with a gorgeous neurosurgeon, Ryle Kincaid. Despite Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships, he has a total soft spot for Lily. From the first time he sees her, he can’t get her out of his mind. Lily is busy trying to set up her own business, but when they run into each other again, she’s intrigued.

Book Summary

When a forty-four-year-old police officer, Joe, begins having problems thinking clearly and controlling his temper and his physical movement, he thinks it’s just the stress of his job. He’s a respected officer, devoted husband, and proud dad of four twenty-something children. When he finally agrees to visit a neurologist, the diagnosis is devastating – Huntington’s Disease.

News of this lethal, degenerative disease is devastating in more than one way. It’s also hereditary, meaning Joe’s four children each have a 50% chance of having Huntington’s themselves. A simple blood test can determine their faith, but with no cure or treatment, do they want to know?

Book Summary

In the early 1930s, young Grace lived on a rural estate in Dorset, England. As the old child of a beekeeper, she spent a lot of time learning her dad’s trade. When her father suddenly dies, she’s left alone outside of the man she loves, but knows will never be hers.

In 1970s Massachusetts, Grace’s daughter Trixie is in love with the wild lead singer in a rock band. When he has to return to his home in England, he promises to return if she’ll wait for him.

Unaware of each other’s secrets, Grace and Trixie both search for lost loves and eventually must face the lies told long ago.

Book Summary

Life in late nineteenth-century Boston is tough, and Aiden and Charles struggle each day to earn enough money to feed themselves (and in Aiden’s case, also his mother and sister). The two adolescent boys survive the wicked Boston streets by forming an alliance. Together, they rob drunken sailors in the brothel district, but things go wrong one night. They accidentally kill their target.

To avoid arrest, the boys flee the city and con their way into the Boston Farm School. In 1889, this school only accepted boys with squeaky-clean pasts (certainly not those with criminal records), which made it the perfect hiding place for Aiden and Charles. But soon, they struggle to keep their stories straight. The pressure damages their friendship and puts their futures at risk.

Book Summary

Every summer for the past two decades, Rocky’s family has vacationed at the same rental house in Cape Cod. This year, Rocky is squarely sandwiched between her young adult kids, who still need her in many ways, and her aging parents, who are beginning to need her more and more. All the while, Rocky herself is in the throws of menopause, complete with hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy.

As usual, the family’s annual beach week is spent reminiscing about summers past as well as making new memories. But this year, with so much feeling in flux in her own life, Rocky finds herself fixating on an event from her past that she’s kept secret for far too long. She must come to terms with both her family’s history and future.

Book Summary

After her exhausting years of law school, Ismay was looking forward to a relaxing summer at her fiancé’s family beach house on Mariners Island, near Cape Cod. She’s the first to arrive, and before Remy can join her after the conclusion of his med school exams, a hurricane bears down on the island. While she’s alone, she makes a disturbing discovery in Remy’s childhood closet.

Ismay is relieved when Bo, the property caretaker, stops by to check in on her. His home was damaged by the storm, so he takes shelter with Ismay until the arrival of one of Remy’s family members forces Bo back to his own place.

Ismay continues to find herself drawn to Bo and to the sense of security that he provides. She wonders if she might prefer a different future than the one laid out before her. But when she finds out that Bo has secrets of his own, she questions if she can trust any of the men in her life or even her own heart.

Book Summary

Dense with late-1980s iconography and pop culture references, this novel follows a 1989 girls’ high school field hockey team. Set in Danvers, Massachusetts (which in 1692 was known as Salem Village, the site of the Salem Witch Trials), the team is desperate for a winning season.
The teammates – including captain Abby Putnam, a descendant of the infamous Salem accuser Ann Putnam – discover that giving in to their dark impulses (like those of their Salem forebears) may be their key to field hockey success.

Book Summary

In this story of love and loss, Emma married her high school sweetheart, Jesse. The two are building a life of adventure together on the West Coast, far from the expectations of their families back east. But on their first wedding anniversary, Jesse’s helicopter crashes over the Pacific Ocean and he is assumed dead. 

Just like that, the book closes on the fairy tale life that Emma thought would be her happily ever after. She moves back home to Massachusettes to rebuild her life. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma finally found love again after reuniting with an old friend, Sam. But when Jesse is found alive after more than four years, Emma will be forced to choose between her husband and her fiance.

Book Summary

Daisy Shoemaker has a great life, with her own business and a beautiful home. Except she’s still discontent with her distant husband, typical teenage daughter, and a lack of a close friend. While she’s dealing with these relatable challenges, she starts getting emails for Diana, a successful single woman with a very similar email address.

The women begin to build a relationship over the misdirected emails, but then Daisy finds out the connection was NOT accidental. Who IS Diana? With page-turning wit, the book explores past, future, and the power of sustained friendship.

Book Summary

Lucy was just 8 years old when her marine biologist mother died while conducting research about Great White Sharks off the coast of Massachusetts. Four years later, the tide brings a Great White and another tragedy to the coastal town of Rockport where Lucy lives with her father.

In order to survive a new wave of grief, Lucy must grab the line that connects her depressed father, a stubborn fisherman, and a curious widower to her mother’s unfinished research. If Lucy can find a way to help them all follow the sharks her mother loved, she’ll finally be able to look forward rather than only back to what she’s lost.