Whitehead, inspired by a real-life reform school that abused and terrorized boys for over a century, shares a tale of racial injustice,...

The debut novel from one of my favorite authors tracks a horse thief and an orphan who bond and find love amid the turmoil and...

Lula Dean focuses on the incredible power of books and truth-telling as characters discover their bravest selves and confront difficult...

Blaylock's story centers around a packhorse librarian in 1930s Appalachian Kentucky and adds layers like a complicated past, second...

The historical fiction story about the building of the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, had a romantic element that was...

Percival Everett's James is a fascinating retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of enslaved Black character...

I didn't feel drawn into this novel of the horrifying serial killing of children of color in a small Virginia community and the...

The Madstone begins as an against-the-odds attempt to evade evil and develops into a beautiful heartbreaker of a story about duty,...

North Carolina Love! I love reading novels with Southern, Appalachian, and specifically North Carolina settings. Here are six I've loved...

Ron Rash's newest Appalachian-set novel explores a small town shaken by upended expectations, the Korean War, and selfish rigidity that...

ICYMI: Smith evokes a vivid sense of the regional South in her fiction, and in this memoir she traces her Appalachian youth, offering...

William Kent Krueger's writing is beautiful, and J.D. Jackson reads the audiobook wonderfully, but I felt impatient with the focus on...

Kingsolver offers an epic story of a faulted, unlikely hero in danger of being crushed by exceptionally difficult circumstances. His...

Geraldine Brooks's Horse digs into issues of race across three timelines, linked by a special bond between an enslaved man and a horse in...

Kim Michele Richardson's historical fiction offers a 1936 Appalachian setting, the magic and unassuming power of a rural librarian, and...

All Her Little Secrets shines when Ellice Littlejohn wrests control of her increasingly dangerous circumstances and when racial issues...

Stout's recently published middle-grade story is irresistibly strange, full of difficulties and a tough young heroine's gritty...

Brown's signature immersive details and wonderfully imagined, rich characters bring Depression-era scenes to life against an irresistible...

ICYMI: Taylor Brown's five-star, 1950s North Carolina-set novel offers mountain clans, whiskey runners, folk healers, family conflict,...

This Depression-era-set historical fiction story tracks characters in intensely difficult situations as they successfully fight for...