Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists: Books Set in North America

In the predawn hours of July 10, 2014, the son of Alaskan scientist and National Geographic Explorer Roman Dial walked alone into Corcovado National Park, an untracked rainforest along Costa Rica's remote Pacific Coast. He carried a light backpack and machete. Cody emailed his father that he would do 4 days in the jungle and a day to walk out. He was never seen again. The authorities suspected murder. Dial was forced to confront the question: Was he responsible for his son's fate? (Description from catalog.)

#1 New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston takes readers on an adventure deep into the Honduran jungle in this riveting, danger-filled true story about the discovery of an ancient lost civilization.
(Description from catalog)

A fictional account of the young lives of Mirabal sisters Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa, otherwise known in the Dominican Republic as Las Mariposas, describes their suffering and martyrdom in the last days of the Trujillo dictatorship. (Description from NoveList)

As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters--her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead. Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago. Believing Nena dead, Naestor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind.
(Description from catalog)

Wynn and Jack have been best friends since freshman orientation. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing. When they decide to canoe through northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddles and picking blueberries and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey.
(Description from catalog)

A suburban wife confronts the loss of everything at the same time her husband is found dead on the beaches of St. John, where he harbored a secret second family. (Description from NoveList)

Lala must deal with a chain of events that have terrible consequences when her petty criminal husband is interrupted in his attempt to rob one of the mansions in their "paradise" home of Baxter Beach, Barbados.
(Description from catalog)

In this powerful debut novel inspired by true stories, three women's lives are bound together by a long-lost letter, a mother's love, and a secret network of people fighting for the right to choose.
(Description from catalog)

Vietnamese refugees Debbie and Phil Tran have built a comfortable life for themselves in Toronto with their family nail salon. But when an ultra-glam chain salon opens across the street, their world is rocked. Complicating matters further, their landlord has jacked up the rent and it seems only a matter of time before they lose their business and everything they've built. They enlist the help of their daughter, Jessica, who has just returned home after a messy breakup and a messier firing. Together with their son, Dustin, and niece, Thuy, they devise some good old-fashioned sabotage.
(Description from catalog)

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of Canada's Surete du Quebec is called to Three Pines, a tiny hamlet south of Montreal, just north of the U.S. border, to investigate the suspicious hunting "accident" that claimed the life of Jane Neal, a local fixture in the village. (Description from NoveList.)