Gaspé Peninsula (Québec, Canada) – 
Desolation Wilderness (Lake Tahoe, California, USA) – 
Longboat Key (Florida, USA) – 
Biloxi (Mississippi, USA) – 
Allagash (Maine, USA) – Novel set mainly in ABRUZZO
TripFiction armchair travel by book – NORTH AMERICA
18th April 2020
TripFiction armchair book travel – North America.
We may all be confined to quarters for a while, but TripFiction is here to help you travel vicariously through books with a strong sense of place. The TripFiction team have been trawling through their database of thousands of books – novels, memoirs and travelogues – and hope you’ll enjoy what we’ve dug up.
NORTH AMERICA
We have more than 2,000 books set in North America. Check out our Great Books Map for some top 5 or 10 literary wanderlust suggestions in New York, California, Chicago, Florida, Los Angeles, New Orleans, San Francisco and Washington. But get off the beaten track and hunt down a few books set in more quirky places around the USA and Canada. Here are a few ideas to get you exploring with a book…
Gaspé Peninsula (Québec, Canada) – We Were The Salt Of The Sea by Roxanne Bouchard
As Montrealer Catherine Day sets foot in a remote fishing village and starts asking around about her birth mother, the body of a woman dredges up in a fisherman’s nets. Not just any woman, though: Marie Garant, an elusive, nomadic sailor and unbridled beauty who once tied many a man’s heart in knots. Detective Sergeant Joaquin Morales, newly drafted to the area from the suburbs of Montreal, barely has time to unpack his suitcase before he’s thrown into the deep end of the investigation.
On Quebec’s outlying Gaspé Peninsula, the truth can be slippery, especially down on the fishermen’s wharves. Interviews drift into idle chit-chat, evidence floats off with the tide and the truth lingers in murky waters. It’s enough to make DS Morales reach straight for a large whisky…
Both a dark and consuming crime thriller and a lyrical, poetic ode to the sea, We Were the Salt of the Sea is a stunning, page-turning novel, from one of the most exciting new names in crime fiction.
Desolation Wilderness (Lake Tahoe, California, USA) – Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown
It’s been a year since Billie Flanagan–a Berkeley mom with an enviable life–went on a solo hike in Desolation Wilderness and vanished from the trail. Her body was never found, just a shattered cellphone and a solitary hiking boot. Her husband and teenage daughter have been coping with Billie’s death the best they can: Jonathan drinks as he works on a loving memoir about his marriage; Olive grows remote, from both her father and her friends at the all-girls school she attends.
But then Olive starts having strange visions of her mother, still alive. Jonathan worries about Olive’s emotional stability, until he starts unearthing secrets from Billie’s past that bring into question everything he thou ght he understood about his wife. Who was the woman he knew as Billie Flanagan?
Together, Olive and Jonathan embark on a quest for the truth–about Billie, but also about themselves, learning, in the process, about all the ways that love can distort what we choose to see. Janelle Brown’s insights into the dynamics of intimate relationships will make you question the stories you tell yourself about the people you love, while her nervy storytelling will keep you guessing until the very last page.
Longboat Key (Florida, USA) – The Pit and the Passion by M S Spencer
At midnight, in the darkness of a deserted hotel, comes a scream and a splash. Eighty-five years later, workmen uncover a skeleton in an old elevator shaft. Who is it, and how did it get there? To find out, Charity Snow, ace reporter for the Longboat Key Planet, teams up with Rancor Bass, best-selling author. A college ring they find at the dig site may prove to be their best clue.
Although his arrogance nearly exceeds his talent, Charity soon discovers a warm heart beating under Rancor’s handsome exterior. While dealing with a drop-dead gorgeous editor who may or may not be a villain, a publisher with a dark secret, and an irascible forensic specialist, Charity and Rancor unearth an unexpected link to the most famous circus family in the world.
Biloxi (Mississippi, USA) – Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan Miles
A profound new novel about a paralyzed young man’s unexplainable recovery–a stunning exploration of faith, science, mystery, and the meaning of life
Rendered paraplegic after a traumatic event four years ago, Cameron Harris has been living his new existence alongside his sister, Tanya, in their battered Biloxi, Mississippi neighborhood where only half the houses made it through Katrina. One stiflingly hot August afternoon, as Cameron sits waiting for Tanya during their daily run to the Biz-E-Bee convenience store, he suddenly and inexplicably rises up and out of his wheelchair.
In the aftermath of this “miracle,” Cameron finds himself a celebrity at the center of a contentious debate about what’s taken place. And when scientists, journalists, and a Vatican investigator start digging, Cameron’s deepest secrets–the key to his injury, to his identity, and, in some eyes, to the nature of his recovery–become increasingly endangered. Was Cameron’s recovery a genuine miracle, or a medical breakthrough? And, finding himself transformed into a symbol, how can he hope to retain his humanity?
Brilliantly written as closely observed journalistic reportage and filtered through a wide lens that encompasses the vibrant characters affected by Cameron’s story, Anatomy of a Miracle will be read, championed, and celebrated as a powerful story of our time, and the work of a true literary master.
Allagash (Maine, USA) – The River at Night by Erica Ferencik
‘A thought came to me that I couldn’t force away: What we are wearing is how we’ll be identified out in the wilderness.‘
Win Allen doesn’t want an adventure.
After a miserable divorce and the death of her beloved brother, she just wants to spend some time with her three best friends, far away from her soul-crushing job. But athletic, energetic Pia has other plans.
Plans for an adrenaline-raising, breath-taking, white-water rafting trip in the Maine wilderness. Five thousand square miles of remote countryside. Just mountains, rivers and fresh air.
No phone coverage. No people….
We hope these off-the-beaten track books set in North America help you escape for a little while. Let us know what other quirky places you’ve heard of in North America, and check out our database for any books set there.
The TripFiction Team
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