Road Tripping Across the USA Mini Reading Challenge: Idaho

She went for the money, but will she stay for something deeper?

When Kate’s father dies, he leaves her a rundown cabin in remote Idaho and the promise of $500,000 if she lives there for a year. She goes for the money, but when she meets Riley Anderson, she might stay for something deeper.

Choosing between love and justice was never part of her plan.

With her horse, her guns and a plan, she scours the old west for those who wronged her family. But an unexpected twist leaves her questioning whether to follow her thirst for vengeance or her heart.

Payback comes with a price.

One year after Sarah Sawyer avenged the death of her parents in a quest that nearly cost her life, the lingering fear of unsettled debts haunts them both. When ghosts from the past come to collect, Sarah risks losing herself to the darkness she’d fought so hard to escape.

When a spate of white killings puts Native Americans in the crosshairs, Sarah reluctantly picks up the badge to seek out the truth.

Peace seems too much to ask for with the influx of new settlers, illness, and brazen thefts stirring tensions. Driven by her desire to protect her town and root out injustice, Sarah reluctantly picks up the badge.

Former army sergeant Seneca Twist has difficulty adjusting to civilian life after losing her brother in Afghanistan.

She picks up her backpack and begins walking. Her travels take her to a boys’ ranch in Idaho where she meets residential psychologist Robyn Mason. Seneca and Robyn couldn’t be more different, and they can’t seem to agree on anything, but when Seneca decides to winter at the ranch, their shared values draw them together.

Roni Oatman belongs to a crew that conducts Search and Rescue Operations for the Forestry Service deep in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho.

They save lost people, but Roni is a bit lost herself. She’s a loner who loves a woman she can’t have. When the SAR crew is short a member, Selena Ayala is assigned to fill the empty spot. Still on the rebound from a sudden breakup with her girlfriend, Selena has issues of her own. But she has to find a way to gain the crew’s trust, and gain it quickly.

In 1930s Idaho, as the sun bakes what's left of the harvest and the bank stands ready to foreclose, the help of good neighbors is the difference between surviving or moving on.

Nell and Aggie are on the edge of losing their years of devotion to their farm, and when townsfolk learn the true nature of their relationship, any hope of credit to the next harvest dries up. Just when Nell and Aggie are considering loading their last possessions on a wagon, a married couple on the run from the law offers a solution. No one, not even the town’s grim patriarchs, can predict what will happen next.

Sara Brighton, Savannah’s rising star in the competitive culinary scene, is devastated when her historic riverside restaurant burns to the ground.

Finding herself without the creative chaos that has defined her world for the last decade, she impulsively decides to pack up her life and return to McCall, Idaho, the last place she remembers being truly happy.

Reprint. Originally published Sapphire Books Publishing, August 2018.

As the secret evil lurking just beneath the surface of their sleepy little lake town emerges, all four women discover that sometimes happiness comes when you least expect it.

Overwhelmed by sudden fame, Lily Larimer retreats from LA and returns to McCall, the last place she’s felt truly happy, even if that means seeing her ex, Sam, who seems to have found exactly what she wanted in life. Hoping to get her future back on track, Lily isn’t looking for romance—not until she meets Alex, the gorgeous Cuban dance instructor at Lake Haven, Sam’s newly opened lesbian retreat.

With her life as a private investigator in Chicago firmly established, Jan Roberts can often forget where she came from—a backwoods survivalist camp run by her paranoid, dictatorial father.

After risking her life at sixteen to escape the camp, she finds it hard to understand the runaway teenager she’s been hired to find. With each step on the trail to find her, Jan realizes the girl is running to the same part of Idaho she fled, a digital age version of her father’s way of life.

River rafting guide and kayaking nut Dez Parker figures her best friend Mel Hammond just isn’t into her romantically, which bums Dez out because they’ll be spending the summer guiding together and Mel seems like the right kind of woman for her.

Then again, Dez doesn’t want to ruin a friendship by admitting her feelings to Mel. That changes when she finds out that Mel might be interested in someone, and Dez is torn between wanting to take a chance and respecting Mel’s choice. Is it really too late for Dez? Or is there something she doesn’t know? Whichever it is, a summer on the river isn’t always a smooth ride.

Where a Family Therapy Comes with a Shovel and an Alibi

Small-town Idaho, where everyone knows your business, is no place for a baby dyke to go looking for love. Especially when murder and homophobia are stalking the streets. For Wilhelmina “Bil” Hardy, trapped in the coils of her eccentric family and off-the-wall friends, neither the course of true love nor amateur sleuthing runs smooth. Mistaken identity, misunderstandings, and mysteries galore take Bil to places she’s never dreamed of visiting.

She thought she was saying goodbye, but it was just the beginning.

When Billie’s estranged father dies, she knows there’ll be a lot to contend with. What she didn’t know was how his death would open up a whole new world of possibilities. New friends and old offer advice, but the decisions are all up to her.

Now that Billie has made her choice to run the farm, it’s time to roll up her sleeves and get to work.

As the farm teems with life, Billie goes after her chores with zeal and tenacity, as her dad did before her. But, unlike her dad, Billie’s no hermit. Before long, the farm has more visitors than ever, but the one person Billie wants in her bed insists on taking things slow, to grow their relationship from the ground up. Dates, day trips, and working with friends on the farm give Billie and Jodie time to get to know each other’s virtues and vices before they are in over their heads. Soon, Billie will learn that nature works on its own schedule.

Billie’s garden is growing. Peppers are popping. Lettuce and tomatoes abound. Squash and melon vines spill over into the yard, and Billie is doing her best not to kill anything.

But every garden comes with a few weeds and pests. Some are harmless, more annoying than anything, but some are noxious, persistent, and intent on destruction. As Billie starts to put down roots in Milepost, with her girlfriend, Jodie, good friends, and helpful neighbors at her side, some unwelcome intruders want to make trouble for her and Jodie.

Autumn leaves are falling.

Just as everything seems to be calming down around Milepost, Billie’s family back in Sacramento gets hit with a crisis beyond anything her mom or Harvey can manage. Will they find answers in Milepost?

When some problems are too big for mere mortals to solve, animals can heal places humans cannot touch.