Minnesota Fiction

New and recommended fiction by Minnesota authors

Updated October 6, 2025
Rochester Public Library RPL Staff
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Minnesota Fiction

New and recommended fiction by Minnesota authors

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The Book Haters' Book Club
Anthony, Gretchen
Paper Book
"This sparkling novel starts with high energy and unique characters that move from one surprise to another." --Ann Garvin, USA TODAY bestselling author  All it takes is the right book to turn a Book Hater into a Book Lover... That was what Elliot--the beloved...
The crane husband
Barnhill, Kelly Regan
Paper Book
Nebula Award nominee for Best Novella World Fantasy Award nominee for Best Novella "If I had to nominate a worthy successor to Angela Carter, I would nominate Kelly Barnhill. "--Laura Ruby, two-time National Book Award finalist and author of Bone Gap...
The sun collective
Baxter, Charles
Paper Book
*A NEW YORK TIMES 2021 NOTABLE BOOK* A timely and unsettling novel about the people drawn to and unmoored by a local activist group more dangerous than it appears--from the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and "one of our most gifted writers" (Chicago Tribune).
Beguilement /
Bujold, Lois McMaster
Paper Book
"Bujold builds a better fantasy romance with compelling characters and the fascinating clash between their cultures, she a farmer's daughter, he an adventurer on the trail of a deadly demon."--Locus One of the most respected writers in the field of speculative fiction, Lois...
The finders
Burton, Jeffrey B.
Paper Book
Jeffrey B. Burton's The Finders marks the beginning of a fast-paced new mystery series featuring a heroic golden retriever cadaver dog named Vira and her handler, Mason Reid. Mason "Mace" Reid lives on the outskirts of Chicago and specializes in human remains detection....
The sisters of Summit Avenue
Cullen, Lynn
Paper Book
From Lynn Cullen, the bestselling author of Mrs. Poe and Twain's End, comes a powerful novel set in the Midwest during the Great Depression, about two sisters bound together by love, duty, and pain. Ruth has been single-handedly raising four young daughters and...
Stars over Clear Lake
Ellsworth, Loretta.
Paper Book
Lorraine Kindred's most cherished memories are of the Surf Ballroom, the place where youth lost themselves to the brassy sounds and magnetic energy of the big band swing, where boys spent their last nights before shipping off to war - and where Lorraine herself was swept away by a star-crossed...
I cheerfully refuse : a novel
Enger, Leif
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A BARNES & NOBLE BOOK CLUB PICK * A career defining tour-de-force from New York Times bestselling, award-winning and "formidably gifted" (Chicago Tribune) author of Peace Like a River Leif Enger. "A rare, remarkable book to be kept and...
Love medicine :
Erdrich, Louise
Paper Book
This series of four luminescent novels of contemporary Native American and Midwestern life have been repackaged to unify HarperFlamingo's Louise Erdrich fiction list and bring this incomparable author's timeless works to a whole new audience. From the release of her first novel, Love Medicine,...
The quiet librarian
Eskens, Allen
Paper Book
After the murder of her best friend, a librarian's search for answers leads back to her own dark secrets in this sweeping novel about a woman transformed by war, family, vengeance, and love, from award-winning writer Allen Eskens. Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian...
The great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Paper Book
The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald's family and from his lifelong publisher. This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author's own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book...
Chocolate chip cookie murder : a Hannah Swensen mystery
Fluke, Joanne
Paper Book
With allusions to the movie Fargo, Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder stars a red-haired cook called Hannah Swensen and a very eccentric assortment of Minnesota locals whose lives are disturbed by a killer in their midst.
Big in Sweden : a novel
Franson, Sally
Paper Book
"Sally Franson is a world class entertainer. She can finesse a serio-comic moment in a way that leaves you catching your breath. Deft and delicious, this book is a flat out delight machine. A heart opener, a page turner, and a true 'originell!' I laughed out loud, I ugly cried...
Brotherless night : a novel
Ganeshananthan, V. V.
Paper Book
New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * A courageous young Sri Lankan woman tries to protect her dream of becoming a doctor in this "heartbreaking exploration of a family fractured by civil war" (Brit Bennett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half)....
The Blackout Book Club : a novel
Green, Amy Lynn
Paper Book
In 1942, an impulsive promise to her brother before he goes off to the European front puts Avis Montgomery in the unlikely position of head librarian in small-town Maine. Though she has never been much of a reader, when wartime needs threaten to close the library, she invents a book club to keep its...
Stillwater
Helget, Nicole Lea
Paper Book
Clement and Angel are fraternal twinsnbsp;separated at birth; they grow up in the same small, frontier loggingnbsp;town of Stillwater, Minnesota. Clement was left at the orphanage. Angel was adopted by the town's richest couple, but is marked and threatened by her mother's mental illness. They...
A hard ticket home /
Housewright, David,
Paper Book
Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he's willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn't), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has...
Black leopard, red wolf
James, Marlon
Paper Book
One of TIME's 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time Winner of the L.A. Times Ray Bradbury Prize Finalist for the 2019 National Book Award The New York Times Bestseller Named a Best Book of 2019 by The Wall Street...
Just for the summer
Jimenez, Abby
Paper Book
Instant #1 New York Times bestseller and a Good Morning America Book Club Pick! This witty, slow-burn rom-com is the perfect beach read. Justin has a curse, and thanks to a Reddit thread, it's now all over the internet. Every woman he dates...
Lake Wobegon days /
Keillor, Garrison
Paper Book
Garrison Keillor is the consummate storyteller, gifted with the rare ability--both in print and in performance--to hold an audience spellbound with his tales of ordinary people whose lives contain extraordinary moments of humor, tenderness, and grace. This exclusive recording of Garrison Keillor...
The sisters of Sea View
Klassen, Julie
Paper Book
Some guests have come for a holiday, others for hidden reasons of their own . . .When their father's death leaves them impoverished, Sarah Summers and her genteel sisters fear they will be forced to sell the house and separate to earn livelihoods as governesses or companions....
The river we remember : a novel
Krueger, William Kent
Paper Book
AN EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE In 1958, a small Minnesota town is rocked by a shocking murder, pouring fresh fuel on old grievances in this dazzling novel, an instant New York Times bestseller and "a work of art" (The Denver Post). On Memorial Day...
Babbitt
Lewis, Sinclair,
Paper Book
The masterpiece of Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis A Penguin Classic George F. Babbitt, a conniving, prosperous real estate man from Zenith, Ohio, revels in his popularity, his success, and, especially, in the material rewards they bring. He bullies his wife...
The quarry girls : a thriller
Lourey, Jess
Paper Book
Killers hiding in plain sight. Small-town secrets. A girl who knows too much. From the Amazon Charts bestselling author of Unspeakable Things and Bloodline comes a nerve-twisting novel inspired by a shocking true crime. Minnesota, 1977. For the teens of one close-knit...
To catch a storm : a novel
Mejia, Mindy
Paper Book
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER! In this brand new series from national bestseller Mindy Mejia, a physicist and a psychic reluctantly team up to solve two missing persons cases during an ice storm in Iowa. When her husband's car is found abandoned and on fire--in the...
And there he kept her
Moehling, Joshua
Paper Book
"A dark and complex mystery that will consume you."--Julie Clark, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight They thought he was a helpless old man. They were wrong. When two teenagers break into a house on a remote lake in search of prescription drugs, what starts as a...
How high we go in the dark : a novel
Nagamatsu, Sequoia
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE * ROXANE GAY'S AUDACIOUS BOOK CLUB PICK * FINALIST FOR THE URSULA K. LE GUIN PRIZE "Moving and thought-provoking . . . offering psychological insights in lyrical prose while seriously exploring speculative conceits." --...
The things they carried :
O'Brien, Tim,
Paper Book
A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking work of Vietnam War fiction and a meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. ...
Four weekends and a funeral : a novel
Palmer, Ellie
Paper Book
A tender, laugh-out-loud debut romance about a woman who ends up in over her head after a little white lie . . . The right guy at the dead wrong time. When thirty-year-old post-double-mastectomy BRCA 1 carrier and reluctant thrill-seeker Alison Mullally...
The ninth metal
Percy, Benjamin
Paper Book
"[In THE NINTH METAL] debris from a comet drops a fabulously valuable new metal on Northfall, MN., turning it into a bloody, brawling boomtown. Great characters, fine writing, totally engrossing." --Stephen King "Take one part dystopia, one part sci-fi, two...
Brood : a novel
Polzin, Jackie
Paper Book
An exquisite new literary voice--wryly funny, nakedly honest, beautifully observational, in the vein of Jenny Offill and Elizabeth Strout--depicts one woman's attempt to keep her four chickens alive while reflecting on a recent loss.   "Full of nuance and humor and strangeness......
A council of dolls : a novel
Power, Susan
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD The long-awaited, profoundly moving, and unforgettable new work of historical fiction from PEN Award-winning Native American author Mona Susan Power, a powerful family saga spanning three generations of Yanktonai Dakota women from the...
Where they last saw her : a novel
Rendon, Marcie R.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From the award-winning author of the Cash Blackbear series comes a compelling mystery of a Native American woman who learns of the disappearance of one of her own and decides enough is enough. "Rendon shows how harm done to a marginalized community can...
Giants in the earth :
R˛lvaag, O. E.
Paper Book
"The fullest, finest, and most powerful novel that has been written about pioneer life in America."--The Nation O. E. Rolvaag's classic novel of a family of Norwegian settlers in the Great Plains--a vivid and intimate portrait of the nineteenth-century immigrant experience and the...
Rules of prey
Sandford, John
Paper Book
#1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford's "haunting, unforgettable, ice-blooded thriller"* that introduced Lucas Davenport...   The killer was mad but brilliant.   He left notes with every woman he killed. Rules of murder: Never have a...
The listening house
Seeley, Mabel
Paper Book
Down and out in the Depression, Gwynne Dacres moves into a seedy and sinister boarding house, where she exposes deadly secrets in this classic mystery by Mabel Seeley After losing her copywriting job, young Gwynne Dacres seeks a place to live when she stumbles upon Mrs. Garr's old...
Romantic comedy : a novel
Sittenfeld, Curtis
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * A comedy writer thinks she's sworn off love, until a dreamy pop star flips the script on all her assumptions--a "smart, sophisticated, and fun" (Oprah Daily) novel from the author of Eligible, Rodham, and Prep....
Small town girl
Spencer, LaVyrle.
Paper Book
Saturday night at the Lakeside Supper club : a novel
Stradal, J. Ryan
Paper Book
"Stradal serves up another saga of food and family, hurt and healing, pitched between cliff-hanger moments. . . that make the pages fly." --People From the New York Times bestselling author J. Ryan Stradal, a story of a couple from two very different restaurant families...
Deep into the dark /
Tracy, P. J.
Paper Book
"Tracy seems to have found her literary sweet spot." --Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review New York Times bestseller P. J. Tracy returns with Deep into the Dark, a brand new series set in LA and featuring up-and-coming LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan...
French braid
Tyler, Anne
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Spool of Blue Thread--a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family's foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild...
Ink blood sister scribe : a novel
Törzs, Emma
Paper Book
NAMED A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR & ONE OF THE BEST FANTASY NOVELS OF THE YEAR  "Astonishing and pristine, the kind of debut I love to be devastated by, already so assured and sophisticated that it's difficult to imagine where the author can go from here. . . ....
Sharks in the time of saviors
Washburn, Kawai Strong
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2020 PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FOR DEBUT NOVEL. One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020. A finalist for the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Named one of the Best Books of 2020 by the New York Times (#30), the Guardian, the Boston Globe, Oprah<...
The seed keeper : a novel
Wilson, Diane
Paper Book
A 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Big Reads Selection Winner of the Minnesota Book Award A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakhóta family's struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters...
The Mesmerist : a novel
Woods, Caroline
Paper Book
AN NPR BOOK OF THE YEAR . A tightly plotted page-turner ripped from the headlines of history, as three very different women must work together to stop a killer and save the truest home they've ever known. Before hypnotism, there was Mesmerism. And in 1894 Minneapolis, in the wake...
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