Mountain life book series in reading order

by Adriana Trigiani

by Donald Harington

William Wallace Johnstone, October 28, 1938 to February 8, 2004, was an American author of westerns, horror and survivalist fiction. The Devil's Kiss opened the run in 1981, followed by The Last of the Dog Team (1981), Out of the Ashes (1983) and Anarchy in the Ashes (1984). Series filed under the name include Ashes, First Mountain Man, Smoke Jensen, Last Gunfighter, Blood Bond and Duff MacCallister, and subjects include outlaws, frontier and pioneer life, revenge and Texas. The catalogue carries 544 titles under the Johnstone name dated 1981 to 2026, well past the 2004 death date, and 400 of them carry a William W. Johnstone credit.

Sharyn McCrumb

35 books• 9 series

Appalachian history and folklore run through Sharyn McCrumb's fiction. Born in 1948, McCrumb is an American novelist whose Ballad series is set in the North Carolina and Tennessee mountains; the Elizabeth MacPherson books are mysteries, and the St. Dale series takes NASCAR as its subject. The catalogue holds 35 titles published between 1984 and 2017, from Sick of Shadows to Old Land, Dark Land, Strange Land. Forensic anthropology, murder investigation and mountain life recur as subjects.

Gilbert Morris produced Christian historical fiction at length: 248 catalogued books between 1977 and 2014. The House of Winslow follows one family across American history; the Appomattox Saga and Bonnets & Bugles take up the Civil War; Cheney Duvall, M.D. follows a woman physician; the Seven Sleepers, Dixie Morris and Too Smart Jones series sit alongside, with children's fiction among the subjects. The catalogue opens with Race Against Time (1977), reaches Raina's Choice, and is listed as likely complete.

Phillip DePoy is a mystery novelist with 23 catalogued books from Angels (1995) to Sammy Two Shoes (2021). DePoy's series are Fever Devilin, Flap Tucker, Foggy Moskowitz and Christopher Marlowe. Several early titles play on one word, as in Easy, Too Easy, Dead Easy and Easy as One, Two, Three. The Devil's Hearth (2003) and The Witch's Grave (2004) are later books, and folklorists, mountain life and Atlanta appear among the subjects.

Adriana Trigiani

24 books• 8 series

Adriana Trigiani is a New York City-based author, playwright, television writer and producer, film director and entrepreneur who has published a novel every year since 2000. Big Stone Gap (2000) opens the 24-book catalogue, followed by Big Cherry Holler (2001) and Milk Glass Moon (2002). Trigiani's series include Big Stone Gap, the Valentine Trilogy and Viola. Subjects include Italian American families, mountain life and domestic fiction. Do You Want Me to Go? (2026) is the newest title.

Ron Rash

24 books

Ron Rash is an American writer working in three forms: poetry, short fiction and the novel. Rash holds the Parris Distinguished Professorship in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University, and mountain life, town life and regional history run through the writing. His 24 catalogued books open with the 1994 story collection The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth, take in the poetry of Eureka Mill (1998) and the novels One Foot in Eden (2002), Saints at the River (2004) and Serena (2008), and end at The Caretaker (2023).

Janice Holt Giles, born in 1905 and died in 1979, was an American novelist who lived near Knifley in Adair County, Kentucky and wrote about that state. Frontier and pioneer life, mountain communities and country life fill the Kentuckians and Piney Ridge books. Twenty-three titles are catalogued, from The Enduring Hills (1950) through The Kentuckians (1953) and Hannah Fowler (1956) to Act of Contrition (2001).

Lin Stepp writes romance set in the Smoky Mountains. 24 catalogued books run from The Foster Girls (2009) to Wildflower Haven (2026). Mountain Home carries the Tennessee and North Carolina stories, among them Tell Me about Orchard Hollow (2010), Delia's Place (2012) and Saving Laurel Springs (2015); Edisto and Lighthouse Sisters are the other two series. Widows, single mothers, foster children and changes of life run through the subjects.

Thomas Wolfe

30 books• 1 series

Look Homeward, Angel (1929) is the first novel of Thomas Wolfe (Thomas Clayton Wolfe, October 3, 1900 to September 15, 1938), an American novelist and short story writer. Wolfe was an early practitioner of autobiographical fiction and ranks with William Faulkner among the key authors of the Southern Renaissance, earning the label North Carolina's most famous writer. Wolfe wrote four long novels plus short stories, novellas and dramatic works. The catalogue holds 30 books, including Of Time and the River (1935) and You Can't Go Home Again (1940), with posthumous editions through 2021.

Jean Craighead George

100 books• 11 series

Julie of the Wolves won Jean Craighead George the Newbery Medal, and My Side of the Mountain (1959) earned a Newbery Honor. George, born July 2, 1919, and died May 15, 2012, was an American writer of more than one hundred books for children and young adults, with the environment and the natural world as recurring themes. George also wrote at least two guides to cooking with wild foods and an autobiography, Journey Inward, and was the U.S. nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1964. The catalogue lists 100 books from Vulpes, the Red Fox (1948) to Crowbar: The Smartest Bird in the World (2015). Series include 13 Moons, Ecological Mysteries, American Woodland Tales and One Day in the..., and subjects name wolves, owls, falcons and ecology.

Daniel Woodrell (1953–2025) was an American novelist and short story writer. Woodrell set most of the fiction in the Missouri Ozarks among the rural poor, and coined the term country noir for Give Us a Kiss (1996); reviewers then applied it to the rest of the work. The Rene Shade novels came first and take place in Louisiana: Under the Bright Lights (1986), Muscle for the Wing (1988) and The Ones You Do (1988). Eleven titles are catalogued in all, including Tomato Red (1998), Winter's Bone (2006), The Outlaw Album (2011) and The Maid's Version (2013).

Cynthia Rylant, born Cynthia Smith on June 6, 1954, is an American author and librarian who has written more than 100 children's books across picture books, short stories, novels, nonfiction and poetry. Missing May took the 1993 Newbery Medal, A Fine White Dust was a 1987 Newbery Honor book, and two further titles are Caldecott Honor Books. The catalogue records 229 books from When I Was Young in the Mountains (1982) onward, with series including Henry and Mudge, Mr. Putter & Tabby, Poppleton and the Lighthouse Family.

David Robbins is a Western writer, according to subject records that name Skye Fargo and Canyon O'Grady as fictitious characters and cite frontier and pioneer life, Colorado and Texas. Series listed under the name include Wilderness, Canyon O'Grady, White Apache, Mountain Majesty, Davy Crockett, Preacher's Law and Blood Feud, alongside Omega Sub and Battlefield Mars. Endworld is also among the linked names. Stalked (2020) is the most recent title in the listing.

Donald Harington (22 December 1935 – 7 November 2009) was an American author and visual artist. Every Harington novel after the first is set in, or tied to, Stay More, an invented town in the Ozark Mountains modelled in part on Drakes Creek, Arkansas, where Harington spent childhood summers. The catalogue lists 17 books from The Cherry Pit (1965) to Double Toil and Trouble (2020), including Lightning Bug (1970), The Cockroaches of Stay More (1989) and The Choiring of the Trees (1991).