12 Overlooked Novels with Southern Roots

At the heart of the story is Bone, a bastard child who observes the world around her with a mercilessly keen perspective. When her stepfather Daddy Glen, "cold as death, mean as a snake," becomes increasingly more vicious toward her, Bone finds herself caught in a family triangle that tests the loyalty of her mother, Anney-and leads to a final, harrowing encounter from which there can be no turning back.

After a mysterious double murder brings terror and suspicion to Spencerville, Virginia, a teenage boy and his family must reckon with the past and find out how much forgiveness their hearts can hold.

Generations of women in the Waverley family have been responsible for an enchanted garden behind their North Carolina home. It's now Claire’s turn to tend to the magical fruits and flowers that enhance the lives of all around her. But upon the return of her sister, Sydney, with a young daughter in tow, Claire must reevaluate her powers and what she wants from her life.

After reuniting with his childhood sweetheart, Jacob NcNeely is desperate to escape his dead-end life and his cruel father in Cashiers, North Carolina. In a place where blood is thicker than water and hope takes a back seat to fate, Jacob wonders if he can muster the strength to leave.

A starkly beautiful and morally complicated novel set in 1920s rural Alabama, WORK LIKE ANY OTHER is the story of Roscoe T Martin, a prideful electrician sent to prison after his illegal siphoning of the state’s electrical power to use on a family farm leads to an innocent man’s death.

In QUEEN SUGAR, an African American woman from Louisiana unexpectedly inherits 800 acres of sugarcane land in Louisiana. But those who doubt her say that cane farming is a white man’s business and she struggles to keep up with the demands of a declining farm and a family.

If you’ve read and loved THE GOLDFINCH and THE SECRET HISTORY, the novel Tartt wrote in between is perfect for your 2016 pile. In Alexandria, Mississippi, a woman named Harriet sets out to uncover why her brother died twelve years before, but to do so she must confront family secrets and her town’s rigid lines of race and class.

In a Post-Katrina Mississippi, a 14-year-old boy is sent to live with his grandmother after having a meltdown during a national quiz contest and becoming an overnight YouTube sensation. Before leaving, Citoyen Coldson is given a strange book about time traveling that may hold the key to the disappearance of a young girl in his grandmother’s town.

In a seamless blending of fiction and fact, GUESTS ON EARTH tells the story of Evalina, an orphaned thirteen-year-old who is admitted to a mental institution in North Carolina in 1936 where she is taken under the wing of Highland Hospital’s most notable patient, Zelda Fitzgerald.

Set in the 12 days leading up to Hurricane Katrina’s arrival in Mississippi, a family of motherless children do everything they can to protect and care for each other. SALVAGE THE BONES is a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty.

From a long line of outlaws on Bull Mountain in North Georgia, Clayton Burroughs takes a job as sheriff to distance himself from his family reputation. But when a federal agent shows up to shut down the mountain, a hidden agenda pits brother against brother and could lead Clayton down a dark path of self-destruction.