Reviews & Recs of books about Maine, set in Maine, and by Maine authors.
Love Letters to Maine
If you’re looking to read a love letter to Maine or three, Chelsea Diehl’s Just Up the Road and Amy Calder’s Comfort is an Old Barn both fit the bill. They strike two distinct tones, with Calder having grown up in Somerset County and working as a reporter based out of Waterville. Diehl is a relative newcomer to the state on a personal journey of exploring spots on and off the beaten path throughout the state. Having read both in quick succession, I pulled out some of these writings’ striking quotes about what Maine means.
Sleigh Magic
Sleigh Magic is a children’s book that is a fun imagining of how the elves came to be at the North Pole as Santa’s assistants. It’s a clever story with a good mix of animal cuteness and the magic of Christmas that kids will love. As an added bonus to the fun story, the illustrations are absolutely beautiful!
Inn Mates: An Innkeeper’s Memoir
I love puns, so Inn Mates’ title immediately had a hold on me. If you’re looking for a book that will make you chuckle, grimace, and shake your head in wonder and worry, Inn Mates is the memoir for you. Easy to read, but not short on eventful moments, the book shares Teri and Jeff Anderholm’s story, centered around their experience buying, owning, and selling a luxury inn in Bar Harbor.
Francena Hallett’s Heart
Before reading Francena Hallett’s Heart, I did a quick perusal of the book’s Goodreads page. There, a reviewer described the book as “sweet” which is a description I cannot improve upon for the bulk of the novel. No direct spoilers, but the action ratchets up at the end - in a way that readers of the entire trilogy will probably most be able to appreciate.
The Miraculous Flight of Owen Leach
Rose and Hank are headed out for an anniversary dinner in their small Maine town when their evening is interrupted. Rose sees a baby - Owen - falling from a window and likely saves its life when she catches it. This split second heroic action sets into motion events for Rose, Hank, and the baby’s mother Sophia, tying their lives together and forcing them into decisions and situations they likely never foresaw being part of their lives.
The Toll Road North
In The Toll Road North, a gunman’s actions in a Lewiston sandwich shop result in a series of events that pull main character Dee into the past, or, as the book’s opening so artfully states, “the place in her memory that she has kept locked.”
In The Vanishing Hour
Did you grow up romping through the woods and along the streams and rivers of New England? The setting of this book will seem familiar to you, though hopefully your experience had less tragedy than that encountered by the characters of Sarah Beth Martin’s In The Vanishing Hour.
Hunger Hill
Russian mobsters. A hitwoman. The local cops. A strong-willed and capable teenager. An antagonistic newspaper reporter. If this cast of characters doesn’t grab your interest, Hunger Hill might not be for you.
The Spy Coast
Having read most of the Rizzoli & Isles books, I was excited to crack open The Spy Coast, Tess Gerritsen’s newest book. However, after reading the summary, I was a little worried it might be trying too much to take on the general idea behind Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series. I was pleasantly surprised that it did not feel dependent on Osman. Instead, The Spy Coast has its own distinctive tone, plot, and characters, even though it does use the retired senior citizen spy as a main character.
Murder On The Rocks
Newcomer (aka she’s From Away - in this case, Texas) Natalie Barnes is running herself ragged operating a barely-surviving B&B on Cranberry Island by herself, with the exception of some help from her visiting niece. In comes an out-of-state developer wanting to build a large resort on the island that would threaten both Natalie’s livelihood and the environment of an imperiled bird species. When he’s found dead, Natalie is a prime suspect.
A Little Yuletide Murder
A death at Christmas time rocks Cabot Cove - even moreso because the victim, Brent, is the man who played the town’s Santa Claus. Jessica Fletcher is home for the holidays and she’s ready to start digging into the motives of the murderer and figure out who the murderer actually is.
The Poacher’s Son
The Poacher’s Son is our introduction to Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch, now the protagonist of a dozen novels by Paul Doiron. Warden Bowditch had a tough upbringing - his father was an aggressive drunk, he and his mother escaped and moved to southern Maine where his mother remarried, but throughout the book we see that Bowditch has never really escaped that past.
Chickens, Gin, and a Maine Friendship
A book that includes writing from E.B. White, do I have to say much more? Probably not, but I will.
Chickens, Gin, and A Maine Friendship is a compilation of the letters sent between E.B. White and Edmund Ware Smith during the 1950s and 1960s. Though the two lived within driving distance of each other in coastal Maine, they were not frequent visitors of each other.
Dolores Claiborne
Let’s just start out by saying this is not your typical Stephen King supernatural horror story. There are hints of the supernatural - much of the book works toward the culminating event which takes place during an eclipse - but if you’re expecting vampires, zombie pets, or demons, this isn’t the book for you.
The Stranger In The Woods
What could there possibly be new to say about The North Pond Hermit? If you live in most any part of Maine, but especially Central Maine, you were bombarded with news about The Hermit/Christopher Knight when he was captured by the Maine Warden Service in 2013. Then, you were bombarded with news about him as he went to trial. And again when Michael Finkel published his GQ article on the topic. Finkel expanded that article to bring the world The Stranger In The Woods, a tale of the hermit and of Finkel’s relationship with him.
Town In A Lobster Stew
A stereotypical cozy mystery that hits all the notes of a cliche book set in coastal Maine, Town in a Lobster Stew is a quick read and an entertaining distraction from everyday life. Candy Holliday, amateur sleuth and local reporter, is put on the case of a missing recipe by Wilma Mae, an elderly woman in the town. The recipe is a guaranteed winner for the annual lobster stew contest, and so is considered highly valuable amongst the townspeople. Deaths begin to happen in the town, and Candy concludes that they are all related to the missing recipe.