Road Tripping Across the USA Mini Reading Challenge: Minnesota

Bittersweet Homecoming: a romance novel from Eliza Lentzski, author of the Winter Jacket series.

A death in the family has Abigail Henry traveling back to the small hometown she hasn’t visited in a decade. Nearly everything looks untouched by time, but it’s Abigail who has changed. You might never be able to go home again, but it’s Charlotte, the beautiful bartender, who can tempt Abigail into staying.

Available through Kindle Unlimited

She knew that coming back after eight years in a war zone wouldn’t be easy, but she’d underestimated the real difficulties of transitioning back to civilian life.

Looking for a fresh start, former Marine, Cassidy Miller, has left Minneapolis to be a police officer in northern Minnesota. It’s in the tiny town of Embarrass where she learns more about Julia Desjardin. The city prosecutor is cool, professional, and untouchable. But maybe not entirely untouchable.

Available through Kindle Unlimited

When a down-on-her-luck costumer agrees to a fake relationship for quick cash, the last thing she expects is to fall for a celebrity she despises.

Margo Wells is desperate. Fired by Hollywood’s darling, Caroline Jacobs, she’s on the brink of returning home in defeat. But when a friend suggests posing as Caroline’s fiancée for a family wedding in Hawaii, the offer of quick cash is irresistible. Despite her bitterness, Margo can’t turn down the money. Now, she must navigate a glamorous island resort teeming with A-list celebrities and avoid falling for the woman who destroyed her career. In a twist of fate, will Margo find love where she least expects it, or will this charade be her ultimate downfall?

Available through Kindle Unlimited

This is the year we learned to forgive, to hope, to pray, and to love, even after summer ends.

In the wink of one very beautiful blue eye, my life changed. This is the story of Summer and how she taught me to love her. It’s about her quiet, and sometimes fearful, way of teaching me to embrace the moment, and to live recklessly.

Available through Kindle Unlimited

Sometimes, starting over is all that's left to do.

Sam Phillips is lost and feels suffocated by grief. Jennifer Delgado is evacuated from her home for the third time in two years and accepts a contract job in Minnesota. Sparks fly in this workplace romance where starting over is the only thing left to do.

Lilith rescues a small girl from a blizzard and finds she’s not only being hunted by a kidnapper, she’s not even human!

Life’s bleak when you lose your whole family in the blink of an eye, but Lilith’s grief is interrupted by the needs of a strange, lost child she rescues during a snow storm. Determined kidnappers will kill to get her. Will Lilith do what it takes to save this child?

Can Dez and Jaylynn survive long enough to save each other?

Can Dez and Jaylynn survive their supposedly idyllic camping trip when two escaped convicts, law enforcement, and desperate Russian mobsters clash in the woods of northern Minnesota?

Georgia isn't ready to find love again.

What do you do when your world falls apart? You go home. But what if that home hasn’t been home for far too long?

Available through Kindle Unlimited

A mysterious crisis with newborn calves tests a small-town veterinarian

After veterinarian Nedra Wells moves to a small Minnesota town with her schoolteacher partner, Annie, she must confront a mysterious case that imperils her professional credibility. With help from a local policewoman, Nedra uncovers the frailties that threaten life—both animal and human—in her new community.

Some happily ever afters come easy—some have to be fought for.

Emerson is drawn to Mari from the moment they first meet during a Minnesota blizzard. The only problem? Mari will be returning to Los Angeles in six short months. Will they find their happily ever after, or are they doomed to a sweet but short-lived season of halcyon nights?

Available through Kindle Unlimited

It’s almost winter in Minnesota.

As the icy cold begins to grip the Twin Cities, restaurant owner, Jane Lawless, and her eccentric sidekick, Cordelia Thorn, are caught up in a spiraling chain of events centering on the university sorority, Kappa Alpha Sigma. Allison Lord, a popular sorority member with a secret, is killed and the murderer continues to stalk the house amid charges of theft, lesbianism and religious intolerance. Featuring a memorable cast of characters and an intriguing inside view of the dark undercurrents of sorority life, this page-turning mystery by newcomer, Ellen Hart, is full of suspense and surprise.

Shay O'Hanlon is the co-owner of the hip, quirky Rabbit Hole, a popular coffee shop in Uptown Minneapolis.

Police detective JT Bordeaux and her partner show up at the Hole in search of Shay’s best friend, Coop – a chain-smoking, vegetarian tree hugger – who’s wanted for questioning in connection with the bludgeoning death of his less-than-respectable boss, Stanley “Kinky” Anderson. Coop’s prints are all over the murder weapon – an over-sized, bronzed bingo marker – and the cops have themselves a prime suspect.

Suddenly, Shay’s quiet but highly caffeinated world spins out of control faster than a ride on a fairground Tilt-A-Whirl as she tries to save her friend.

"You are mine, and I am yours, and we are one, and our lives are one henceforth, please God, who can alone separate us. I am bold to say this, to pray and to live by it."—Rose Cleveland to Evangeline Simpson, May 6, 1890

In 1890, Rose Cleveland, sister of President Grover Cleveland, began writing to Evangeline Simpson, a wealthy widow who would become the second wife of Henry Whipple, Minnesota’s Episcopal bishop. The women corresponded across states and continents, discussing their advocacy and humanitarian work—and demonstrating their sexual attraction, romance, and partnership. In 1910, after Evangeline Whipple was again widowed, the two women sailed to Italy and began a life together.

Lorraine Tyler is the only queer person in Bend, Minnesota.

Or at least that’s what it feels like when the local church preaches so sternly against homosexuality. Which is why she’s fighting so hard to win the McGerber scholarship — her ticket out of Bend — even though her biggest competition is her twin sister, Becky. And even though she’s got no real hope—not with the scholarship’s morality clause and that one time she kissed the preacher’s daughter.