New York Books: The Best Books Set in the Empire State

Book Summary

Freya had been working as a bartender in Maine, but after an emergency left her short on cash, she headed back to her hometown of Somers, New York. In Somers, she could at least stay in the house she inherited from her estranged parents without worrying about rent.

She’s shocked to find that her 15-year-old niece, Aubrey, has been secretly living in the derelict home. While she intended to lay low in Somers, Freya is not only reconnecting with Aubrey, but also encounters childhood friends, familial enemies, and old flames around town.

Throughout the story, Aubrey and Freya begin to repair both the home and their relationship, and readers slowly learn the difficult reasons Freya initially fled from Somers.

Book Summary

While much of the country was experiencing social unrest in 1919, Harlem felt different. This corner of New York was filled with Black pride, as evidenced in the music, theater, fashion, and arts. Positioned right in the heart of this renaissance is a literary editor for a preeminent Negro magazine named Jessie Redmon Fauset.

The magazine’s founder and editor, W.E.B. Du Bois, tasked Jessie with discovering promising young writers whose words could change the world. Jessie wastes no time finding 16-year-old Countee Cullen and 17-year-old Langston Hughes. She also discovers Nella Larsen, who becomes one of Jessie’s best friends.

Subscriptions soar for the already notable magazine, and every Black writer in the country is vying for the opportunity to be published in The Crisis. Jessie’s career is taking off, but her relationship with her married boss, W.E.B., threatens to jeopardize it all. At a time when she faces both overwhelming sexism and racism, Jessie will have to find a way to balance her drive and her desires if she hopes to preserve her legacy and achieve her ambitious dreams.

Book Summary

When the patriarch of the O’Connell family died in a workplace accident within months of the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Grace’s family lost nearly everything. But she was at least making money as a dancer while her twin brother Patrick had a well-paying, but dangerous, job on a crew building the Empire State Building.

Then, life threw them another twist when Grace’s club closed, leaving her without income. Shortly after, her brother was injured on the job. And if he can’t work, his entire four-person crew would be out of a job.

But Patrick has an idea. Could Grace use her time in the circus to take his role on the beams? She’ll have to pretend to be him, but they are twins…could it work?

Book Summary

In 1961, the only son of a family that owns a summer camp in the Adirondacks disappeared while hiking and was never found. Now, in 1975, a camp counselor discovers that their daughter, thirteen-year-old Barbara, is missing. Are the tragedies related?

A frantic search is launched as soon as they realize Barbara is not in her bunk. The investigation is deeply layered, with Barbara’s counselor, Louise, her bunkmate, Tracy, her mother, Alice, and a young female detective, Judyta, all sharing their own impactful stories along the way.

Book Summary

As a kid, Jane was “Poor Janey Jakes,” the punchline character on a sitcom. As an adult, she’s become a Creative Executive at a studio and is embracing her “fake it ’til you make it” mantra.

Unfortunately, she might have taken this strategy too far. In a desperate moment, trying to get her first film approved, she accidentally told a big fib. Jack Quinlan is a huge pop star, and she said he agreed to write an original song for the soundtrack.

While Jane did know Jack twenty years ago, she hasn’t spoken to him since her first kiss with him two decades ago. Now she has to do the unthinkable and spend a week on Long Island with her former crush, Dan, a pompous cinematographer, who has an in to reunite her with Jack so she can convince him to write the song.

Book Summary

This novel captures a unique time and place in Brooklyn after the turn of the century. It provides a poignant, and at times meandering, look at life in the 1910s that still deeply resonates with many readers as reflecting a universal experience.

Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff from her earliest days. Growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn, New York, demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit – and Francie has each of these in spades. Neighbors often scorn her for her family’s erratic and eccentric behavior, including her father’s taste for alcohol and her Aunt Sissy’s habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce. No one, least of all Francie, would say that the Nolans’ life lacked drama.

Book Summary

This atmospheric, dual-timeline thriller, with a side of the paranormal, is a perfect pick for fans of the suspense and horror genres.

In 1982, 20-year-old Viv worked as a night clerk at the Sun Down Motel. She was hoping to save enough money for a move to NYC, but something isn’t right at the hotel, and she’s determined to find out what it is.

In 2017, 20-year-old Carly grew up hearing the story of her aunt Viv’s disappearance from the Sun Down Motel thirty-five years before. When she visits the motel, she soon finds herself entangled in the mystery of the haunted motel.

Book Summary

September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries…and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made.

September 2011. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, widow Taryn Michaels has convinced herself that she is living fully, working in a charming specialty fabric store and raising her daughter alone. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, which was the same day a stranger reached out and saved her. But a chance reconnection and a century-old scarf may open Taryn’s eyes to the larger forces at work in her life.

Book Summary

Pomona is a spoiled Upper East Side hotel heiress who has just stumbled out of a gala to find her grandmother’s body. This wasn’t a shock because her grandma was more mean and paranoid than likable. In fact, she was so paranoid that her will included a clause that all assets be frozen if she died an “unnatural” death.

Pomona is suddenly locked out of her penthouse with nowhere to go…except to Gabe, the son of her former nanny. He also needs the family money unfrozen because it includes his mom’s retirement funds. Can Pomona figure out the cause of death so she can return to her privileged trust fund life? Or will her time with Gabe help her learn that there is more to life than money?

Book Summary

Raymond is a shy Black teen who feels like he doesn’t fit in anywhere – not with his complicated family, and not at school. Mildred is a blind 92-year-old Holocaust survivor living alone since her caretaker disappeared. When Raymond meets Mildred in his apartment building, she introduces herself with the question, “Have you seen Luis Velez?”

Raymond begins to help Mildred with her weekly errands to the banks and the grocery store, and also hopes to help her track down Luis. In a short time, they’ve formed an unlikely friendship. Raymond demonstrates that for every terrible act, there’s a mirror image of kindness. And Mildred helps Raymond see that even when life is difficult, there is always hope.

Book Summary

On one surprising day, Bells Walker learns that her husband Harry has been denied tenure at his Manhattan University, her IUD has failed, and they’re having a third child. When Harry gets a new job at a Hudson Valley college, Bells imagines a farm-to-table utopia based on stereotypes of the region.

However, what she finds in their new town of Pigkill, New York, is not at all a Utopia. To vent, she starts an anonymous blog under the name County Duchess, where she details the activities of hypercompetitive parents and kombucha-drinking hipsters. As her readers grow, she loves having a place to say all the things she’s been thinking about life as a wife and mom.

But when she uncovers a scandal and a post goes viral, everyone wants to know the identity of the County Duchess, which puts Harry’s job, her children, and her friendships at risk.

Book Summary

In this epic historical fiction novel, Edward Rutherfurd weaves together more than 400 years of New York City history. From the humble beginnings of a fishing village, through the Revolutionary War and later the Civil War, onto the Gilded Age, and throughout the 20th century, you’ll see New York like you never have before. This book tells tales of battle, romance, and family struggles through the eyes of the rich and the poor, the native-born and the immigrants.

Book Summary

Mira’s life is unbelievably perfect. She has her dream job and a fiancé everyone adores. Her future seems to be turning into what she has always imagined. She’s not even upset when she has to go on her engagement trip to New York City alone because her fiancé has a schedule conflict. Again.

The simple trip changes her life in more ways than she could imagine. She reconciles with her brother Rumi and his partner Saket, who fled their parents’ judgments years ago. She also finds a ring and becomes obsessed with finding the owner. When her social media post about the ring goes viral, she’s connected with a broody reporter, Krish, who goes on a surprising adventure with Mira to trace their way back to the original owner.

Book Summary

In 1994 at age 7, author Qian Wang moved with her family from China to America. Before the move, her parents were successful professors. Despite the Chinese word for America, Mei Guo, meaning beautiful country, life is much harder for the family here. Her parents overstay their visas and are not in the US legally, which means they must find work in sweatshops instead of classrooms.

Qian escapes to libraries to avoid the teachers and classmates who shun her limited English. Over time, she’s able to master English through her study of books like The Berenstain Bears and The Babysitters Club and begins to glimpse some of the magic of New York City, like Christmas at Rockefeller Center. However, her world changes again when her mom gets sick.

This memoir gives a unique insight into the hidden life and struggles of children trying to thrive in a place where they must also remain hidden in many ways.

Book Summary

In 1902, Daisy Harriman’s residence in NYC was undergoing renovations while they were staying at their summer home in Newport. When she needed to take a quick trip back to the city, she was astonished when the Waldorf Astoria refused to rent her a room as an “unaccompanied woman”.

Her outrage at this Victorian-era rule inspired her to create the first social club for women in New York, similar to the men’s clubs that hosted educational speakers and included sleeping quarters. At the same time, Nora is finishing her architecture training, and Elsie is an actress with a talent for designing beautiful interior spaces.

The paths of the three women collide as part of the Colony Club project, and there is a surprising murder along the way that leads to the “Trial of the Century”.

The book is told as 92-year-old Daisy is interviewed in 1963 about her many trailblazing achievements, including being President Kennedy’s first Citation of Merit Award winner.

Book Summary

For more than sixty years, the Goldman and Weingold families – best friends and business partners – have summered together at their jointly-owned Golden Hotel in the Catskills. But now, the facilities are falling apart and they have an offer from a developer. Should they renovate, or is it time to sell? Everyone, including the grandchildren on both sides, wants a say in the future of the property during the family reunion.

While this family saga is condensed into only a few days, you’ll also see flashbacks to the glory days of the property and glimpses into the complicated lives of many of the family members.

Book Summary

Even as a child in 1910, Sara recognized that she was a gifted Jewish matchmaker and a seeker of soulmates. But on New York’s Lower East Side, this profession is dominated by devout older men who see a talented woman as a threat to their traditions and livelihood.

Two generations later, Abby is a successful Manhattan divorce attorney with some of the city’s wealthiest clients. When her beloved Grandma Sara dies, Abby inherits her collection of handwritten journals in which Sara recorded details of her matches. The pages seem to provide Abby with more questions than answers – including why the work she once found so compelling suddenly feels inconsequential and flawed.

Book Summary

Sawyer is a twenty-something trying to make it in New York, working as an assistant for a publishing company. She’s engaged to her college boyfriend but is extremely lonely in the summer of 1999 as her fiancé keeps working longer and longer hours…with a female coworker named Kendra.

Kendra’s boyfriend, Nick, has the same concerns about the endless hours Kendra is spending at work with Sawyer’s fiancé. After a rough first meeting between Sawyer and Nick, they form a friendship via their AOL Instant Messanger chat. Soon, they start spending every Friday afternoon exploring the city together.

Book Summary

In 1888 New York, the streets were still lit by gas lamps, but the promise of the light bulb looms. However, the switch to electric light came with an additional complication – both George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison claimed to have invented the lightbulb.

A young lawyer, Paul Cravath, is thrust into the world of New York high society when he agrees to defend Westinghouse in a lawsuit brought by Thomas Edison. Edison has spies and vast resources, including the backing of J.P. Morgan. How can they fight against such a force?

When Paul meets Nikola Tesla, he may have found the secret to defeating Edison. But winning requires risks.

Book Summary

Eva is a single mother and bestselling erotica author based in Brooklyn. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she encounters Shane Hall, a reclusive, award-winning novelist, at a literary event. Unbeknownst to the public, Eva and Shane shared a passionate week-long romance as teenagers twenty years prior—a connection they’ve subtly referenced in their writings over the years.

As they reconnect over the course of seven days during a sweltering Brooklyn summer, unresolved feelings and past traumas resurface. Eva grapples with trusting Shane again, especially given the heartbreak he once caused her. Amidst their rekindled chemistry, both must confront their personal demons and decide if they can forge a future together.

Book Summary

When we spotted this new release, we were immediately drawn in by the beautiful cover with its springtime in New York vibes. Though the book is set over nine months, the focus on new beginnings has it at the top of our TBR this spring.

Eva grew up in the midwest with a traditional family who never really got her. She feels much more at home in her cozy Brooklyn apartment and she’s inching closer to her dream career. Her romantic life, on the other hand, isn’t much to write home about. She’s come to expect men to disappoint her, but what she didn’t expect was to discover that she’s expecting a baby after an uncharacteristic one-night stand.

The unplanned pregnancy begins to affect every relationship in her life. The baby’s father is supportive but conflicted. And Eva is feeling disconnected from her best friend, Willa, just when she needs her the most. Surprisingly, it’s Willa’s older brother, Shep, who steps up to help.

As her pregnancy progresses and winter turns to spring, Eva discovers that family and love can sneak up on you when you least expect it.

Book Summary

Although initially not the most popular book of the 1920s, a century later, The Great Gatsby is considered a classic of 1920s literature and a quintessential novel of the Jazz Age. 

The mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby, who is obsessed with the beautiful and unattainable debutante, Daisy Buchanan, plays host to lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted: “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession.” The book paints a portrait of the Roaring Twenties, with all of its excess, idealism, and social upheaval.

Book Summary

Just before Christmas of 1799, Elma slipped out of her Quaker boarding house and never came home. No one is sure if she ran away or eloped…until her body is found. Her family is certain she was killed by a carpenter named Levi, and they even circulate handbills around town accusing him of her seduction and murder.

Levi’s wealthy brother calls in a favor to lawyer Aaron Burr, who needs cash to fund his political campaign and expensive tastes. His rival, Alexander Hamilton, doesn’t want Burr to get publicity alone, so he joins the defense of Levi with Burr. With both the trial and election around the corner, Burr and Hamilton work to save Levi’s life while also trying to destroy each other.

Book Summary

Abby is 33 and has made peace with her plus-sized body. She is engaged to Mark, who she met at a summer weight loss camp 15 years earlier. Abby feels like she’s headed toward the happy life she’s dreamed of…but also like something isn’t quite right.

When she gets a last-minute invite to join a cycling trip from New York City to Niagara Falls, she hopes the journey will give her a chance to reflect on her life and relationship. Things get complicated when Sebastian, a former one-night stand, is also on the trip. But she’s determined to keep her distance from his playboy ways. Even more distractingly, her mom, Eileen, who Abby blames for her former body insecurities, shows up for the ride.

Over the next two weeks and 700 miles, new friendships are formed, truths come to light, and Abby is forced to reconsider everything she believes about herself, her mom, and love.

Book Summary

It’s New Year’s Eve 1984, and 85-year-old Lilian Boxfish decides to walk all ten miles to the party she plans to attend. Along the way, she looks back over her long life in the city. Her walk is both a quintessential New Year’s Eve reminiscence and a love letter to New York City.

In the 1930s, Lillian was a copywriter for Macy’s who worked her way up to being one of the highest-paid ad women in the country. Throughout her life, she’s seen a lot in her changing city and country – from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic and from the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop.

Book Summary

Emily was determined to make changes in the world and was an active participant in the women’s suffrage movement. But when her husband, Washington Roebling, was injured on the job as the Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, Emily put her own work on hold to take over for her husband. As the bridge rises, Emily wonders if she’s building her own legacy or that of her husband.

This novel is based on the true story of how Emily Roebling transformed this project of monumental scale. Her work took her into the bowels of the East River, to suffragette riots, and into the halls of Manhattan’s elite.

Book Summary

If you delight in those moments when you discover the perfect dress that boosts your confidence, you’ll adore this NYC novel. A renowned designer is retiring and has released what’s acclaimed as the “It” dress of the season. Throughout the book, you’ll meet nine different women who procure the dress and witness how it influences their lives.

Some women are deserving of this almost magical dress, while others may not be. The tales of how each woman acquires the dress are frequently humorous, but then you’ll see how it impacts their lives in significant ways. As you read, you’ll visualize each moment as if you’re watching a classic rom-com film.