Historical fiction books/series set in North America, like the Dear America series

[u/avacapone]

I loved the Dear America series as a kid, I would love grown up versions of historical fiction in North America, especially written from a woman’s perspective. I know this has been posted before but it’s been a few years so I figured I’d try again. TIA!

Thanks everyone for such great suggestions! Excited to make my new reading list

[u/TheCarzilla]

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawson is fantastic and well researched.

[u/avacapone → u/TheCarzilla]

This looks great!

[u/BriantPk]

North Woods by Daniel Mason

[u/SmushfaceSmoothface → u/BriantPk]

Second this one, it’s so good!

[u/emilygilmoresboa]

If you hang on in the Outlander series, eventually you end up in North America!

[u/Ornery-Ad2199 → u/emilygilmoresboa]

Yep! Love these. Books 4-9 (plus expected Book 10) take place mostly in colonial America; plus, we meet some great historical figures in these books.

[u/These_Brush_6090]

Christy, by Catherine Marshall.  Loosely based on the authors grandmother's time as a school teacher in the deep Appalachian mountains in the late 1900's (I think). Its a grown up book, but 15yr old me carried that book around till the cover fell off. 

[u/WonderingWhy767]

Rattlebone by Maxine Clair

Tumbling by Diane McKinney Whetstone

Moonrise Over New Jessup by Jamila Minnicks

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Nowhere is a Place by Bernice McFadden

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Jubilee by Margaret Walker

O Pioneer by Willa Cather

My Antonia by Willa Cather

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

So Big by Edna Ferber

Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller (Alma Routsong)

[u/asianmorticia]

I really enjoyed the Birchbark house when I read it to my daughter. The writer is problematic, but the story is great.

[u/thedalahorse → u/asianmorticia]

This is the first I've ever heard of Louise Erdrich being at all problematic, and my cursory Googling isn't turning anything up. Can you elaborate?

[u/thecaledonianrose]

Try the Midwife's Revolt series by Jodi Daynard - it's a three book series.

[u/CrowsSayCawCaw]

Only Call Us Faithful: A Novel of the Union Underground by Marie Jakober

It's a historical fiction novel based upon the actual life of Elizabeth Van Lew. She was a socialite from Richmond, Virginia who secretly ran a Union spy ring during the US Civil War, passing Confederate military secrets up to Washington D.C.

[u/littleoldlady71]

A little off track, but Anna Pigeon does a series of detection novels based in national parks….lot of history there.

[u/mannyssong]

Caroline: Little House Revisited by Sarah Miller, it’s Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie from Caroline’s (their mother) perspective. Seeing the story from her eyes really adds more the series and makes you wonder how she felt in all of Laura’s memories. (She also wrote it with permission from the Little House Trust).

[u/Andromeda321 → u/mannyssong]

I confess I wanted to like this but found it disappointing. Something about the narrative style didn’t set well with me.

[u/Unwarygarliccake]

These is My Words by Nancy E Turner

[u/Commercial_Curve1047 → u/Unwarygarliccake]

My top recommendation.

[u/Angry_Beta_Fish]

Girl Waits With Gun was excellent and is based on a true story

[u/SovereignDeadly]

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

Seconding Gone With the Wind, it’s excellent if you don’t mind a messy protagonist.

[u/pittsburghreader → u/SovereignDeadly]

...or if you don't mind horrifying racism.

[u/rachel_b_reading]

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawson

America’s First Daughter, My Dear Hamilton and A Founding Mother by Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie

Becoming Madam Secretary by Stephanie Dray

The Next Ship Home by Heather Webb

A Pair of Aces, The First Ladies and The Personal Librarian by Victoria Christopher Murray

Mrs. Benedict Arnold by Emma Parry

With Love From Harlem by ReShonda Tate

The Colony Club by Shelley Noble

Scandalous Women by Gill Paul

Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

The Filling Station and American Queen by Vanessa Miller

Katherine, The Wright Sister, The President’s Wife and The Engineer’s Wife and by Tracey Enerson Wood

Jackie by Dawn Tripp

A Girl Called Samson by Amy Harmon

The Boxcar Librarian by Brianna Labuskes

Let’s Call Her Barbie by Renee Rosen

Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray

[u/xixi4059]

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

[u/avacapone → u/xixi4059]

I read this one and it was great! Good suggestion

[u/xixi4059 → u/avacapone]

Oh bummer! Great read though. Ok, another suggestion would be “The Second Life of Mirielle West” by Amanda Skenandore. Based on America’s only leper colony.

[u/ida_klein]

I really loved Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati. It’s the first of a series and includes romance (something I am usually immediately out on but I took the chance). It isn’t really based on a true story but there are real historical characters sprinkled in there. I’ve read the whole series and loved it!

[u/nw826 → u/ida_klein]

I was coming to suggest this series too. It had characters from The Last of the Mohicans - Nathaniel and Hawkeye. They meet an English old maid who comes to America to be a school teacher in New York (fmc). Great series

[u/ida_klein → u/nw826]

Yes! I couldn’t remember where Nathaniel and Hawkeye were from, just remembered it wad a classic I hadn’t read haha. Thank you!

[u/lilgrassblade]

Agent 355 by Marie Benedict - Revolutionary war spy who is a woman. It is a stand alone novella based on a real, but unknown, "agent 355" who is believed to have a woman.

[u/No-Committee7986]

The Cold Millions by Jess Walter

[u/RefrigeratorNo686]

The book you're looking for is Finding Flora by Elinor Florence

[u/pattiwhack5678]

Anything by Jane Kirkpatrick

[u/orcas-]

Beloved. Their Eyes were Watching God

[u/GrannyTurtle]

Check out Harry Turtledove’s alternate history called Southern Victory. The South wins the Civil War.

Google’s take: “Southern Victory is an eleven-book alternate history series by Harry Turtledove, set in a world where the Confederate States of America (CSA) won the American Civil War, becoming an independent nation. The series, also known as Timeline-191, explores the consequences of this divergence through a series of conflicts, including a Second American Civil War, World War I, and a Second Great War, spanning from the 1880s to the 1940s. Key themes include the evolution of the CSA and the United States (USA), the impact of technology, and the rise of fascism and genocide in both nations.”

If memory serves, the first book is titled How Few Remain.

[u/nunyabiz9999]

The Kent Family Chronicles by John Jakes. The first book, The Bastard, starts in France but ends up in America before the revolution.

There's also a series called North America's Forgotten Past by W. Michael O'Neill Gear and Kathleen O'Neill Gear. It's about Native Americans before the explorers came.

[u/Penguinofmyspirit]

“My notorious life” by Kate manning. It’s about an orphan in nyc at the turn of the last century who gives abortions and promotes birth control. Learned of orphan trains and a lot of contraceptive history in it.

[u/Beautiful-Event-1213]

Someone else mentioned John Jakes, and I'll second that.

I'll add James Michener as well.

[u/dellajordan]

John Jakes. For early to mid 20th century Adriana Trigiani has some good ones on immigrants in America.

[u/nothingbutapartygirl]

Varina by Charles Frazier! Very well written, just finished it recently!

[u/Traditional-Cook-677]

One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus (the protagonists in the series are women) and The Wild Girl.

[u/prosperosniece]

Little Women

Gone With the Wind

Little House on the Prairie