Here are 14 books that East of Troost fans have personally recommended once you finish the East of Troost series.
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Having grown up in segregated Knoxville, TN, I've often wondered what having a black friend as a child would have been like. My MFA thesis, in the 1980s, was a novella about just such a friendship. A small group of my (white) MFA classmates insisted that I could not, should not write about black characters. Although I believed them to be mistaken, I put my thesis away and haven’t looked at it since. About ten years ago, I decided to try again. I took an early draft of a new novel to a workshop with John Dufresne, who encouraged me to continue. The result was Beginning with Cannonballs, which received positive reviews and won the 2021 IPPY Silver Medal for Multicultural Fiction.
Remembering its excellent character portrayals, I re-read this book when I began writing my own novel about an interracial friendship. Set in Kentucky, Stranger Here Below depicts the friendship that develops when outgoing Maze (short for Amazing Grace) and staid Mary Elizabeth room together at Berea College in the 1960s. Mary Elizabeth, who’s quiet and musically talented, is the daughter of a black preacher, while Maze is a chatty Appalachian girl. Although the friendship is interrupted when Mary Elizabeth abruptly leaves school, the two women try, years later, to revive it.
In 1961, when Amazing Grace Jansen, a firecracker from Appalachia, meets Mary Elizabeth Cox, the daughter of a Black southern preacher, at Kentucky's Berea College, they already carry the scars and traces of their mothers' troubles. Poor and single, Maze's mother has had to raise her daughter alone and fight to keep a roof over their heads. Mary Elizabeth's mother has carried a shattering grief throughout her life, a loss so great that it has disabled her and isolated her stern husband and her brilliant, talented daughter. The caution this has scored into Mary Elizabeth has made her defensive and…
Having grown up in segregated Knoxville, TN, I've often wondered what having a black friend as a child would have been like. My MFA thesis, in the 1980s, was a novella about just such a friendship. A small group of my (white) MFA classmates insisted that I could not, should not write about black characters. Although I believed them to be mistaken, I put my thesis away and haven’t looked at it since. About ten years ago, I decided to try again. I took an early draft of a new novel to a workshop with John Dufresne, who encouraged me to continue. The result was Beginning with Cannonballs, which received positive reviews and won the 2021 IPPY Silver Medal for Multicultural Fiction.
I was struck by the beautiful writing in this novel and the way the author, a woman, convincingly depicts male friendship. Augustus Lee Rivers, a black farmer in Arkansas, is happiest when playing his guitar; he has dreams of making it big in Chicago. David Duncan, an enthusiastic fan of Hummin’ Gusty’s music, comes from a wealthy white family. What can happen to a black man’s dreams in rural Arkansas in the 1950s? Trust me, you’ll keep reading to find out.
Independent Publisher Book Awards Bronze Medal for Regional Fiction (2017) Set in Arkansas in 1957, the complexities of identity, yearnings for love and acceptance, and racial tension are all unmasked in the riveting literary drama, Melting the Blues, by debut author Tracy Chiles McGhee. Augustus Lee Rivers, a farmer and bluesman, has two obsessions: his relationship with the Duncan family and his desire to leave small town Chinaberry to become a musician in Chicago. When his plans are prevented by a devastating betrayal, Augustus is driven into the belly of the blues where he must reckon with his past if…
Having grown up in segregated Knoxville, TN, I've often wondered what having a black friend as a child would have been like. My MFA thesis, in the 1980s, was a novella about just such a friendship. A small group of my (white) MFA classmates insisted that I could not, should not write about black characters. Although I believed them to be mistaken, I put my thesis away and haven’t looked at it since. About ten years ago, I decided to try again. I took an early draft of a new novel to a workshop with John Dufresne, who encouraged me to continue. The result was Beginning with Cannonballs, which received positive reviews and won the 2021 IPPY Silver Medal for Multicultural Fiction.
Given that this novel is set in Mississippi in the 1950s, I was intrigued by the teen-aged friendship at its center. When Cassie, who’s black, and Judith, who’s white, learn that they have the same father, they decide to join forces in claiming their share of the family inheritance. The result is a sometimes perilous and even other-worldly road trip from Mississippi to Virginia, during which the girls’ budding relationship is sorely tested.
A spellbinding debut about half sisters, one black and one white, on a 1950s road trip through the American South
Self-educated and brown-skinned, Cassie works full time in her grandmother’s laundry in rural Mississippi. Illiterate and white, Judith falls for “colored music” and dreams of life as a big city radio star. These teenaged girls are half-sisters. And when they catch wind of their wayward father’s inheritance coming down in Virginia, they hitch their hopes to a road trip together to claim what’s rightly theirs.
In an old junk car, with a frying pan, a ham, and a few dollars…
Having grown up in segregated Knoxville, TN, I've often wondered what having a black friend as a child would have been like. My MFA thesis, in the 1980s, was a novella about just such a friendship. A small group of my (white) MFA classmates insisted that I could not, should not write about black characters. Although I believed them to be mistaken, I put my thesis away and haven’t looked at it since. About ten years ago, I decided to try again. I took an early draft of a new novel to a workshop with John Dufresne, who encouraged me to continue. The result was Beginning with Cannonballs, which received positive reviews and won the 2021 IPPY Silver Medal for Multicultural Fiction.
I loved the way the mystery at the heart of this novel was so slowly and stunningly revealed. Why does Isabelle, an elderly white woman in Texas, want Dorrie, her much younger black hairdresser, to drive her all the way to Ohio for a funeral? It seems a lot to ask of a friend. The answer lies in a secret Isabelle has kept since she was a teenager in 1930s Kentucky.
A moving love story inspired by a true story and perfect for fans of The Help
In a time of hate, would you stand up for love?
Shalerville, Kentucky, 1939. A world where black maids and handymen are trusted to raise white children and tend to white houses, but from which they are banished after dark.
Sixteen-year-old Isabelle McAllister, born into wealth and privilege, finds her ordered life turned upside down when she becomes attracted to Robert, the ambitious black son of her family's housekeeper. Before long Isabelle and Robert are crossing extraordinary, dangerous boundaries and falling deeply in love.…
I write and read realistic fiction. I’m not a fan of fantasy, sci-fi, ghost stories, or magical (other than, you know, Tolkien). I don’t want to have to suspend a lot of belief and buy into an alternate reality. And yet, and yet. . . . All these books have a little element of something going on, and they each grabbed me and kept my attention, and I didn’t roll my eyes once. The supernatural is just a little extra kick and, in every case, as believable as it can possibly be.
The most supernatural of this list, this book has occasional short chapters (usually just a paragraph or two) by the angel who is shepherding a dying man toward death.
These little interludes give the reader flickers of insight into the author’s vision of dying without anything like proselytizing. The engrossing overarching story is one of friends and family in a small Southern town and one woman’s struggle with her identity and her religion, again without judgment.
There are no easy answers – this book is real and heartwarming at the same time that it is heartbreaking.
"There's a set time, a season, for everything under the heavens," Tobiel said. "You can ask God to do something numerous times. Get others to ask for you. And He still will not move until the set time, when everything is beautiful. Including you." --from IF I COULD DIE
John "Dusty" Wilson's life is falling apart. His wife Lisa has left him, and he's having a hard time convincing her to come back home. When his alcoholic uncle's health fails and he's faced with more difficulties, Dusty wonders if God is the refuge that he needs or the source of…
I write and read realistic fiction. I’m not a fan of fantasy, sci-fi, ghost stories, or magical (other than, you know, Tolkien). I don’t want to have to suspend a lot of belief and buy into an alternate reality. And yet, and yet. . . . All these books have a little element of something going on, and they each grabbed me and kept my attention, and I didn’t roll my eyes once. The supernatural is just a little extra kick and, in every case, as believable as it can possibly be.
This one gets all the way to the end before the mysterious creeps in, where it felt completely natural.
I find Trafford’s novels both engrossing and enlightening—genre-merging legal/psychological thrillers that are also thoughtful and literary. I loved the books prior to this one, but this is the one that first introduces a little supernatural healing that was surprising and then . . . good. Intriguing. He carries it forward into the second book of the Dark River series.
The bridge in this book is an actual bridge over an actual river (the Mississippi) connecting Missouri and Illinois at St. Louis. The story is fiction, involving a body that washed up on the Missouri side of the river, which sets the stage for all that follows.
I write and read realistic fiction. I’m not a fan of fantasy, sci-fi, ghost stories, or magical (other than, you know, Tolkien). I don’t want to have to suspend a lot of belief and buy into an alternate reality. And yet, and yet. . . . All these books have a little element of something going on, and they each grabbed me and kept my attention, and I didn’t roll my eyes once. The supernatural is just a little extra kick and, in every case, as believable as it can possibly be.
Going into it, I have to say that the cohort of talking animals was a bit much for a realist like me.
But I kept reading as the animals inhabit the dreams of a young neuroscientist who is dealing with personal issues while trying to complete her graduate studies. I realized that the animals became what people couldn’t be for her at this precise time. Maybe they were figments of her imagination. It doesn’t matter in the end. They enlightened her struggles and got her through.
By the time I finished reading the book, I looked at them the way I look at talking animals in really good children’s books: they do the work, say the things, and be the “people” that human characters couldn’t manage nearly as well.
Frankie Conner, first-year graduate student at UC Berkeley, is finally getting her life together. After multiple failures and several false starts, she's found her calling: become a neuroscientist, discover the cause of her depression and anxiety, and hopefully find a cure for herself and everyone like her.
But her first day of the program, Frankie meets a mysterious group of talking animals who claim to have an urgent message for her. The problem is, they're not willing to share it. Not yet. Not until she's ready.
While Frankie's new friends may not have her highly evolved, state-of-the-art, exalted human brain,…
My seven novels all celebrate the natural world—while, I hope, telling a good story. Nature has always been my solace and delight. I’ve also had the honor of developing and directing an MFA in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University, one of the few nationwide programs to focus on cutting-edge environmental writing. While I mainly write novels, I’m the author of two nonfiction books and one play and the editor of three environmental anthologies. When not writing or teaching, I can be found sauntering around the West, especially in my home state of Colorado. I love travel and adventuring, and I like looking at birds, stars, clouds, and sea glass.
Another of my favorite authors, Erdrich, also has a big social and environmental justice theme throughout her works. There’s a delightful premise—a ghost haunts a bookstore in Minneapolis, and a mystery must be solved!—but it also takes on very serious subjects.
Set in 2019-2020, it covers the race riots, pandemic stress, and social justice issues. One thing I love is a book that has a seriousness of purpose but is still truly joyful and fun to read.
In this stunning and timely novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage and of a woman's relentless errors.
Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but…
Dogs make great supporting characters, adding drama or humor or pathos, and revealing so much about the humans in the story. I discovered this in writing my first novel: The narrator’s dog keeps her grounded when things go wrong and makes it possible for her to keep going through difficult times. For the reader, he provides levity and depth without turning it into a book about a dog. I had a great model – I used my own dog Boris, even appropriating his name. I think of the fictional Boris as real-life Boris’s best self.
This is a feel-good book with just enough punch to keep it from being cute.
It comes with a building project, some hurricane-induced drama, a bit of romance, and two dogs.
Cooper and Bubba are the canines who wind themselves around the main characters, as most dogs do in real life. Cooper is everyone’s friend, and he orchestrates introductions.
But he’s also a bolter who gets lost just as flooding begins and evacuation becomes unavoidable.
Catherine Drake’s books are always a respite between heavier reading, and this one is one of the best.
A young, determined woman figures out life and love while staying true to herself in this whip-smart and genuinely witty debut.
Twenty-eight-year-old Hannah Spencer wants nothing more than to change everything about her life. After ten years of living in cities, Nathan Wild has just moved back home to Vermont and doesn't want to change anything about his.
Recently laid off from her depressing job in Boston and ready for a challenge, Hannah heads to Vermont for the summer to take care of her sister's kids and do some serious soul searching. There, against the stunning landscape of the Green…
Dogs make great supporting characters, adding drama or humor or pathos, and revealing so much about the humans in the story. I discovered this in writing my first novel: The narrator’s dog keeps her grounded when things go wrong and makes it possible for her to keep going through difficult times. For the reader, he provides levity and depth without turning it into a book about a dog. I had a great model – I used my own dog Boris, even appropriating his name. I think of the fictional Boris as real-life Boris’s best self.
What Comes After is a heart-rending story of a boy who is brutally murdered.
A school friend commits suicide shortly after, leaving a note confessing to the murder, but there are unanswered questions.
Meanwhile, a destitute and pregnant teenager shows up in town with worries and questions of her own. Rufus the dogs brings the dad and the girl together, then rides along with both of them as their intertwining stories unfold.
He doesn’t solve crimes or save lives, but he does what rescued dogs so often do – rescue their people.
This book is tagged as a murder mystery and a thriller, and it is both those things.
But essentially it is the first-person narrative of an aching father, the people around him, and the dog who shares his grief.
Named a top beach read of summer by Oprah Daily, Good Housekeeping, The Wall Street Journal, and more
“Nail-biting wallop of a debut . . . a thoughtful, unexpectedly optimistic tale.” —The New York Times
“If you enjoyed The Searcher by Tana French, read What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins. . . . a mystery—and a gritty meditation on loss and redemption, drenched in stillness and grief.” —The Washington Post
After the shocking death of two teenage boys tears apart a community in the Pacific Northwest, a mysterious pregnant girl emerges out of…
