Here are 87 books that Moose Be Love fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have always had a passion for small towns, both real and fictional. After living in a bunch of them myself (in real life, not my head), I decided to try creating my own picture-perfect places. Like most writers, my love of books started with reading. I have read hundreds of wholesome, small-town romance novels, and I hope to read hundreds more! This list has some of my recent favorites. Bonus: All the books on this list are the first in a series, so if you love them, more swoonworthy stories await! (PS The list is in no particular order, I love each book equally!)
Small town that you will want a realtor for: Mirror Valley, CO
What I love about Woodley’s books is that you completely forget you're reading a book at all. Her writing is like listening to one of your closest friends tell you a story, and I mean that in the best way possible. The Next Worst Thing is no exception.
I found myself making up all kinds of excuses to avoid housework, errands, and other chores, so I could spend more time with this super sweet small-town romance. And yes, it’s also a rom com, so you might get some concerned looks from family members as you actually laugh out loud.
I didn’t ask to organize this wedding. And I certainly didn’t ask for the world’s worst best man as an assistant.
But my brother is marrying the love of his life, and I’ll stop at nothing to give him a perfect wedding day–and get our family’s Inn some much-needed publicity in the process.
Which means playing nice with James Weston.
My brother’s best friend and I have been feuding for as long as I can remember. We don’t like each other, plain and simple.
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
I have always had a passion for small towns, both real and fictional. After living in a bunch of them myself (in real life, not my head), I decided to try creating my own picture-perfect places. Like most writers, my love of books started with reading. I have read hundreds of wholesome, small-town romance novels, and I hope to read hundreds more! This list has some of my recent favorites. Bonus: All the books on this list are the first in a series, so if you love them, more swoonworthy stories await! (PS The list is in no particular order, I love each book equally!)
Small town that you will want a realtor for: Cashmere Cove, WI
If you love grumpy/sunshine, fierce sisterly love, and wholesome midwest towns, this is the book for you. Dobrinska does a wonderful job of creating likable characters and a feel-good storyline with tons of delightful twists and turns.
It’s so gosh darn good! I am talking stay-up-way-too-late-reading good. And while I have never been to Wisconsin in my life, after reading Friends Don’t, I am ready to change that!
A heartfelt and hilarious romantic comedy, loosely inspired by While You Were Sleeping.
As the oldest of three sisters, Poppy Kasper doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t the glue holding her siblings—and their lives—together. So moving across the country to Cashmere Cove, the hometown of her new boyfriend, is completely out of character. Add in the fact that said boyfriend is leaving for a months-long pro-golf tour, and it’s enough to make Poppy question her sanity. But it’s fine. Everything’s fine. She can still be a good sister from a distance, and she’ll keep the spark in her relationship…
I have always had a passion for small towns, both real and fictional. After living in a bunch of them myself (in real life, not my head), I decided to try creating my own picture-perfect places. Like most writers, my love of books started with reading. I have read hundreds of wholesome, small-town romance novels, and I hope to read hundreds more! This list has some of my recent favorites. Bonus: All the books on this list are the first in a series, so if you love them, more swoonworthy stories await! (PS The list is in no particular order, I love each book equally!)
Small town that you will want a realtor for: Hunter’s Creek, WA
Okay, not only is this book super sweet, but it’s hilarious. I felt like I was hanging out with friends as I laughed out loud throughout the story. You can bet Faking It With The Grump has a small town you’ll love just as much as the characters.
Not to mention, if you’re like me and fall for side characters just as hard as you do the main ones, you’re going to adore this book! Seriously, where is Hunter’s Creek exactly, and when can I visit it?
The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.
When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…
I have always had a passion for small towns, both real and fictional. After living in a bunch of them myself (in real life, not my head), I decided to try creating my own picture-perfect places. Like most writers, my love of books started with reading. I have read hundreds of wholesome, small-town romance novels, and I hope to read hundreds more! This list has some of my recent favorites. Bonus: All the books on this list are the first in a series, so if you love them, more swoonworthy stories await! (PS The list is in no particular order, I love each book equally!)
Small town that you will want a realtor for: Ponderosa Falls, CO
Even though I haven't asked for a pony for Christmas in years, I still adore reading horse and ranch books. Falling Slow totally hits the spot with its original and heartfelt story. Family resort? Check. Horses? Check. Lovable characters? Check!
I really didn’t think that was possible, but like my love for dessert, my obsession with this story kept reaching new and amazing levels. I didn’t want the story to end, and I can’t wait to dive into book two. (Cowboy) hats off to Muse!
I have lived in Alaska for forty years, working both as a construction worker and a college professor. I love Alaska, but not always the way it is depicted, particularly on reality TV. I hope the characters I create and the stories I tell will bring a more balanced view of everyday Alaskans, who are, after all, Americans too. The Hunger of Crows shows small-town Alaska through the eyes of four characters: two lifelong Alaskans, and two “from Outside” as we say here. Hopefully, it will provide a balanced view of this great place.
This spectacular collection of award-winning short stories set in Anchorage is probably my favorite book of the past two years. Newton is the only one of these five authors whom I’ve never met, so I can say with complete neutrality that these stories make up the most memorable depiction of urban Alaskan life anywhere: doctors with expensive float planes and more expensive mistresses, a disturbed suburban clairvoyant, even one historical flashback to the mudhole the city was founded upon in 1915. Hilarious at times, but also a reminder to me that Alaska has always attracted a certain type of misfit politely referred to as “adventurous,” but often seen as simply “nuts.” Myself included.
*A MOST ANTICIPATED book by Vogue, Literary Hub, The Millions, Good Housekeeping, and Oprah Daily*
From a prizewinning author comes an “electric...stunning” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) debut story collection about women navigating the wilds of male-dominated Alaskan society.
Set in Newman’s home state of Alaska, Nobody Gets Out Alive is an exhilarating collection about women struggling to survive not just grizzly bears and charging moose, but the raw legacy of their marriages and families.
Alongside stories set in today’s Last Frontier—rife with suburban sprawl, global warming, and opioid addiction—Newman delves into remote wilderness of…
I love to read and write about strong women. I don't necessarily mean gunning down aliens while wearing tight pants. Those books can be good too, but let's be honest, tight pants encourage yeast infections. I prefer books where women handle anything from murder to wayward cats with intelligence and compassion, while wearing whatever they want. The women, I mean. Cats already figured out to skip the pants.
I fell in love with Kate Shugak as soon as I met her on the page.
Kate's an Aleutian private investigator who lives with Mutt, her half-wolf, half-husky, on a 160-acreage homestead in Alaska. Do you know why Kate carries a scar from ear to ear? Do you know why Kate and Mutt's nearest other neighbors are a grizzly bear and a moose, and why they like it that way?
If so, you probably know how everyone turns to Kate for justice and that this very first book won an Edgar Award. Maybe you, like me, have read all 26 books in this series. High five.
Kate Shugak returns to her roots in the far Alaskan north, after leaving the Anchorage D.A.'s office. Her deductive powers are definitely needed when a ranger disappears. Looking for clues among the Aleutian pipeliners, she begins to realize the fine line between lies and loyalties--between justice served and cold murder.
Aury and Scott travel to the Finger Lakes in New York’s wine country to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the Songscape Winery. Disturbed furniture and curious noises are one thing, but when a customer winds up dead, it’s time to dig into the details and see…
I've never been anything but a writer, despite growing up and spending my first 50 years in Alaska. Alaska has been my major topic—what else could it be in that overwhelmingly powerful place?—but it has also been my frustration, because Alaska is a real place that exists in most readers’ minds only as a romantic vision, and they resist any other version. Like the real Eskimos in my book, whose world is melting from climate change as they pump millions of barrels of crude oil from their homeland. The writers I chose are all Alaskans, like me, who tell those stories about the magical, terrifying place that lies behind the Disney version you already know.
Haines was best known as a poet, highly respected by other writers but uncompromising and without much commercial success or recognition. This collection of essays in the form of a memoir similarly makes no compromise, dispensing with plot, characters, or even a clear sense of time and geography. Instead, Haines takes the reader deep into the mind of a lone man surviving for decades in the harshest wilderness, thinking, observing, and writing—his own mind. And the writing is so strong, it turns out, that he doesn’t need those usually necessary tools of narrative he pointedly ignores. Instead, we feel the cold, see the hypnotic stars above the snow, and feel the brittle edge of aloneness. Through sheer stylistic austerity, those dark lonely nights are real.
In this wilderness classic, the quintessential Alaskan frontiersman relates his experiences from over twenty years as a hoemsteader. As New York Newsday has said of his work, If Alaska had not existed, Haines might well have invented it.''
As a former U.S. Navy Aviation Rescue Swimmer and sponsored mountaineer, I’ve always been wired a bit differently. Whether it’s jumping from a helicopter to save a drowning person or topping out on the highest peak in the world, I’m always drawn to adventure and, specifically, stories of survival. Having operated in highly traumatic environments, I’ve gleaned a lot of wisdom through the years, which I’m now able to retell through my writing. I hope you enjoy the books on this list and they have a profound impact on you the same way they did on me!
Having climbed North America’s highest peak 3 times, Denali’s Howl describes a horrific situation on a mountain I’m all too familiar with.
The weather patterns, distance, and size of Denali make it an unforgiving peak to climb. I couldn’t put this book down as Hall recounted the dire scenario the climbers went through resulting in tragedy.
In the summer of 1967, twelve young men ascended Alaska's Mount McKinley-known to the locals as Denali. Engulfed by a once-in-alifetime blizzard, only five made it back down.
Andy Hall, a journalist and son of the park superintendent at the time, was living in the park when the tragedy occurred and spent years tracking down rescuers, survivors, lost documents, and recordings of radio communications. In Denali's Howl, Hall reveals the full story of the expedition in a powerful retelling that will mesmerize the climbing community as well as anyone interested in mega-storms and man's sometimes deadly drive to challenge the…
I grew up in a wilderness cabin in Alaska, surrounded by more wild animals than humans. For many years, I worked in the heavily male-dominated Alaskan fishing industry. I still work as a scientist in rural Alaska. I care passionately about the place, and the truthful stories written about it by people with deep roots and diverse backgrounds here.
This book tells of Indigenous resistance to white colonizers in northern Alaska and the fierceness of a mother’s love as she fights to save her daughter from kidnapping.
Lily Tuzroyluk’s voice is fresh and utterly compelling. She writes of a place she knows. This book both broke my heart and thrilled me.
In the spring of 1893, arctic Alaska is devastated by smallpox. Kayaliruk knows it is time to light the funeral pyres and leave their home. With her surviving children, she packs their dog sled and they set off to find family. Kayaliruk wakes with a bleeding scalp and no memory of the last day. Her daughter was stolen by Yankee whalers, her sons say. They begin chasing the ship, through arctic storms, across immeasurable distances, slipping into the Yankee whalers' town on Herschel Island, and to the enemy shores of Siberia. Ibai, an African American whaler, grew up in New…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I've been book obsessed since I was nine years old and always seemed to gravitate toward realistic stories about animals—especially dogs—and kids facing tough times. So when I became an author, those were naturally the same type of stories I wanted to write. So far I’ve penned seven middle-grade novels. All the books in this list provided inspiration to my own writing in one way or the other and helped me to become a more compassionate and empathetic storyteller. I hope you find the same joy and inspiration when you read them.
I first discovered this little gem of a book while researching a historical fiction novel of my own. Set in the 1920s, it’s about a little orphan girl named Bo who's being raised by two rough and tumble gold miners—both men. It’s a fun and exciting adventure story, while at the same time providing an insightful and authentic look at life after the famous Alaska gold rush. A perfect read for ages 8-12.
It's the 1920s, and Bo was headed for an Alaska orphanage when she won the hearts of two tough gold miners who set out to raise her, enthusiastically helped by all the kind people of the nearby Eskimo village. Bo learns Eskimo along with English, helps in the cookshack, learns to polka, and rides along with Big Annie and her dog team. There's always some kind of excitement: Bo sees her first airplane, has a run-in with a bear, and meets a mysterious lost little boy. Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill is an unforgettable story of a little…
