Here are 59 books that Bitterroot fans have personally recommended if you like
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I've been a lawyer for 30 years, 20 of them as an elected district attorney, and writing relieves stress for me. Real crime is messy and irrational; crime fiction restores order. But literary fiction is too slow—a novel must compel the reader to turn the page. Good thrillers tackle major issues, revealing themes that deepen our understanding of humanity. I've witnessed courage during grief and stress, but I'd never betray that trust by writing nonfiction accounts. I deliberately jumbled character traits and real events and combined them with my understanding of modern police techniques like geofencing and DNA.
This book by John Grisham asks how moral people live in an unjust society. They either come to terms with the wickedness of a broken world or end their lives.
The opening page of the Grisham novel reveals a man who can’t cope with his sins, those of his ancestors, and society. I submit the reader wants a more courageous protagonist capable of coping with the chaos. The entire purpose of crime fiction is to re-establish the order shattered by evil.
In the long-awaited successor to the novel that launched his phenomenal career, John Grisham brings us the powerful sequel to A Time to Kill. As filled with page-turning twists as it is with legal mastery, Sycamore Row proves beyond doubt that John Grisham is in a league of his own.
Jake Brigance has never met Seth Hubbard, or even heard of him, until the old man's suicide note names him attorney for his estate. The will is dynamite. Seth has left ninety per cent of his vast, secret fortune to his housemaid.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I've been a lawyer for 30 years, 20 of them as an elected district attorney, and writing relieves stress for me. Real crime is messy and irrational; crime fiction restores order. But literary fiction is too slow—a novel must compel the reader to turn the page. Good thrillers tackle major issues, revealing themes that deepen our understanding of humanity. I've witnessed courage during grief and stress, but I'd never betray that trust by writing nonfiction accounts. I deliberately jumbled character traits and real events and combined them with my understanding of modern police techniques like geofencing and DNA.
The king of the cowboy detectives, Walt Longmire, must choose a course for his life after Vietnam. We know our hero devoted his life to serving his neighbors, yet here we confront the moment of stark paths before him. The choice not only represents a personal sacrifice but requires those he loves to sacrifice. The calling to seek justice demands a constant commitment.
Johnson presents a villain who has surrendered to his baser nature. A trope of mystery fiction contrasting with a hero capable of overcoming such self-destructiveness. I listened to the audiobook.
The thirteenth novel in Craig Johnson's beloved New York Times bestselling Longmire series, the basis for the hit Netflix series Longmire
Sheriff Walt Longmire is enjoying a celebratory beer after a weapons certification at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy when a younger sheriff confronts him with a photograph of twenty-five armed men standing in front of a Challenger steam locomotive. It takes him back to when, fresh from the battlefields of Vietnam, then-deputy Walt accompanied his mentor Lucian to the annual Wyoming Sheriff's Association junket held on the excursion train known as the Western Star, which ran the length of…
I've been a lawyer for 30 years, 20 of them as an elected district attorney, and writing relieves stress for me. Real crime is messy and irrational; crime fiction restores order. But literary fiction is too slow—a novel must compel the reader to turn the page. Good thrillers tackle major issues, revealing themes that deepen our understanding of humanity. I've witnessed courage during grief and stress, but I'd never betray that trust by writing nonfiction accounts. I deliberately jumbled character traits and real events and combined them with my understanding of modern police techniques like geofencing and DNA.
My next pick, by C.J. Book, presents Joe Pickett with the dilemma of facing his failings. He didn’t do enough to save his daughter. Further confounding his guilt is the fact the girl was more of an adopted child. Did self-preservation and the preservation of his family compel him to sell her out, or did he do all he could?
Pickett comes to terms with assisting a fugitive to promote a greater good.
Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett heads for the forests of Twelve Sleep County to investigate a massive explosion that may have killed a colorful environmental activist and uncovers evidence of a deadly conspiracy that challenges his courage, survival skills, and ethics. By the author of Open Season. 30,000 first printing.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I've been a lawyer for 30 years, 20 of them as an elected district attorney, and writing relieves stress for me. Real crime is messy and irrational; crime fiction restores order. But literary fiction is too slow—a novel must compel the reader to turn the page. Good thrillers tackle major issues, revealing themes that deepen our understanding of humanity. I've witnessed courage during grief and stress, but I'd never betray that trust by writing nonfiction accounts. I deliberately jumbled character traits and real events and combined them with my understanding of modern police techniques like geofencing and DNA.
This book, by Joe R. Lansdale, tells a coming-of-age story. A world where evil prevails, testing the hero’s Christian faith. His morals are inconsistent with the norms of society.
It presents more of a moral forest far more than the real Big Thicket described in greater detail in my novel.
In The Thicket, award-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale lets loose like never before, in a rip-roaring adventure set at the dark dawn of the East Texas oil boom, the perfect introduction to an acclaimed writer whose work has been called "as funny and frightening as anything that could have been dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm -- or Mark Twain" (New York Times Book Review)
Jack Parker thought he'd already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old. His parents have just succumbed to the smallpox epidemic…
Not only have I been a comic book editor for sixteen years and obsessed with indie comics for much longer, I’m also an avid camper who co-created and co-wrote a comic book series that exalts in the unique feeling of sleeping under the stars. As such, excellent comics about outdoor adventures have a particularly tender spot in my heart.
The immediacy of Whit Taylor’s work and its accessible, urgent symbology is especially poignant in this diary of her Montana road trip with her husband.
Diary comics are one of my favorite genres of graphic storytelling for reasons exemplified here: you are engaging with Whit’s experience with this sprawling, beautiful land and its brutal history alongside her. Big sky, to her pen, to your eyes. It’s an intimate experience, one that comics do best.
2021 Ignatz Award Nominee for Outstanding Minicomic 2021 PW Graphic Novel Critics Poll – Honorable Mention
Cartoonist Whit Taylor (The Nib, Fizzle) documents her road trip across Montana in this diary mini-comic, combining millennial humor with resonant observations about the state’s complicated history.
As she and her husband travel through semi-arid flatlands and sub-alpine mountains, Taylor reflects both on Montana’s breathtaking beauty and the enduring toll of Manifest Destiny on its land and people.
Balancing funny road trip anecdotes with thoughts on melting glaciers and the worrying prevalence of white nationalists, Montana Diary tells a slice of America’s story, knowing…
I have published seven books, all set in the West, including an anthology,West of 98: Living and Writing the New American West, that features writers from every state west of the Mississippi. For four years now, I have been doing a podcast called Breakfast in Montana, where my partner Aaron Parrett and I discuss Montana books. I also published a book in 2016 called56 Counties, where I traveled to every county in Montana and interviewed people about what it means to live in this state. So I have a good feel for the people of this region and for the books they love.
Winter Wheat, published in 1944, tells the story of Ellen Webb, a young woman coming of age on a farm in Montana. Walker moved from back east to Great Falls, Montana in 1933, and she is one of many writers who adopted Montana as their home state and wrote very eloquently about the unique challenges of growing up in such isolation, living a life so focused on hard work and basic survival. Walker published several excellent novels, but Winter Wheatwas her tour de force.
For this Bison Books edition, James Welch, the acclaimed author of Winter in the Blood (1986) and other novels, introduces Mildred Walker's vivid heroine, Ellen Webb, who lives in the dryland wheat country of central Montana during the early 1940s. He writes, "It is a story about growing up, becoming a woman, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, within the space of a year and a half. But what a year and a half it is!" Welch offers a brief biography of Walker, who wrote nine of her thirteen novels while living in Montana.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I am a former wildland firefighter, so I am passionate about writing about it. I’ve included several personal experiences in my books, and I learned integrity and an outstanding work ethic with the firefighters who trained me in the wildland fire community. I met my husband on another fire crew, so I had to write these fire stories in the romance genre. I have friends who also met their spouses in the world of firefighting, and I loved their romances. While not all wildfire stories in real life may have happy endings, I choose to write these as romances because a happily-ever-after is required for the romance genre.
Nora Roberts can always be counted on to write authentic stories, and she makes me care about her characters. This one is dear to my heart because I lived and worked in Missoula, Montana, where the story is set.
This story is also set at the Missoula Smokejumper Base, where I trained as a wildland firefighter. This story has twists and turns, and the slow-burn romance, along with the close-knit wildland fire community, kept me turning the pages.
In this #1 New York Times bestseller, Nora Roberts delves into the world of elite firefighters who thrive on danger and adrenaline-men and women who wouldn't know how to live life if it wasn't on the edge.
Little else in life is as dangerous as fire jumping. But there's also little else as thrilling-at least to Rowan Tripp. Being a Missoula smoke jumper is in Rowan's blood: her father is a legend in the field. At this point, returning to the wilds of Montana for the season feels like coming home-even with reminders of the partner she lost last season…
My family moved frequently and, as a result, I was raised in a number of different small towns in Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, and Massachusetts. I now live in a large city but the experience has never left me. There was always a certain amount of crime and corruption in the towns I grew up in, but I only had a child’s eye view of it. However, a child’s eye view is usually the most vivid. This experience and the books that I have listed above all had a direct influence on Blue Hotel.
I grew up in a small Montana town, so Watson’s
novel has a special meaning for me. It is a vivid portrayal of small-town life
on the Great Plains and takes place during the same time period as my own book. It tells of the corruption of a trusted official and its effect on
his family, his victims, and the town itself. Watson’s novel allowed me to feel and understand the deep emotions,
the pain, the anxiety, the love, and the disappointment that his characters were
feeling.
"From the summer of my twelfth year I carry a series of images more vivid and lasting than any others of my boyhood and indelible beyond all attempts the years make to erase or fade them " So begins David Hayden's story of what happened in Montana in 1948. The events of that cataclysmic summer permanently alter twelve-year-old David's understanding of his family: his father, a small-town sheriff; his remarkably strong mother; David's uncle Frank, a war hero and respected doctor; and the Haydens' Sioux housekeeper, Marie Little Soldier, whose revelations turn the family's life upside down as she relates…
One of my favorite writers, Ralph Ellison, said art could "transform dismal sociological facts" through "tragi-comic transcendence." For me, finding humor in the horrific is a means of survival. It's a way of embracing life's tragedy and finding beauty. My two novels, Pickard County Atlas and Little Underworld, try to do that.
The first time I finished reading this book, I felt ambushed. The description is breathtaking and the dialogue is hilarious.
So much of the book is surreal: The main character hunts for a runaway girlfriend who’s absconded with his electric razor (which is useless; it has no cord). A woman at a bar blows smoke rings without a cigarette. A guy known only as “airplane man” winds up nabbed, with a large plush bear, by the FBI—and the main character’s major epiphany is sparked by a horse fart. Then, suddenly, near the end, I cried so hard the words blurred. And the final scene is perfection.
Funny, heartbreaking, absurd, and poignant at once.
A contemporary classic from a major writer of the Native American renaissance — "Brilliant, brutal and, in my opinion, Welch's best work." —Tommy Orange, The Washington Post
During his life, James Welch came to be regarded as a master of American prose, and his first novel, Winter in the Blood, is one of his most enduring works. The narrator of this beautiful, often disquieting novel is a young Native American man living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. Sensitive and self-destructive, he searches for something that will bind him to the lands of his ancestors but is haunted by…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I am a world traveler, who has been blessed to live in many different countries, studying human interactions and culture. People matter. I’m fascinated to see how people react and relate to each other. As a proficient people watcher, it makes sense that when I read or write a book, characters are most important to me. They make or break the story with their quirks and hurts and hang-ups. It always gives me great pleasure to see my own characters grow as the story develops. I enjoy putting them into situations that may not be comfortable for them and then seeing what God does to bring them through.
Look at him… who doesn’t love a cowboy with a hat? Knox draws you into the beginning of a conspiracy that spans several different series. What I love about this author is that she creates a community of characters who could be your next door neighbor. Hello. Why not? This is a people watcher’s dream come true.
*Susie writes a delightful story! - NYT bestselling author Dee Henderson.*
Susan May Warren is the USA Today best-selling, Christy and RITA award-winning novelist of 80 novels, including the best-selling Montana Rescue and Montana Fire series.
He's not looking for trouble...
Montana rancher Knox Marshall's danger years are behind him. A former bull-rider, he now runs the Marshall family ranch, raising champion bucking bulls for the National Professional Bullrider's Expo (NBR-X). Wealth and success are his, but life is stable, expected, and...ordinary. But he wants more from life...
