Books Set In Oregon: Oregon Novels

Located in the Pacific Northwest, Oregon is home to Crater Lake (the deepest lake in the country), Mount Hood (the second most explored mountain in the world) and Powell’s City of Books (the largest independent bookstore in the world). So it comes as no surprise there are a vast array of books set in Oregon. The following list is an exploration of this breathtaking state through literature. 🌲

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Books Set in Oregon: Introduction

Perhaps the most well-known title on this list of books set in Oregon is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Set in a Oregon State mental hospital, it was adapted into the movie of the same name.

Many notable local authors are included in this list of books set in Oregon. Molly Gloss writes historical fiction in titles such as The Jump-Off Creek a tale of a pioneer woman. There are novels by Craig Lesley set on northwestern reservations, including Winterkill. Phillip Margolin writes legal thrillers such as Gone, But Not Forgotten. And Jane Kirkpatrick is a prolific writer of historical fiction, with titles such as A Sweetness to the Soul.

Also, it would be impossible to discuss books set in Oregon without mentioning Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. This best-selling memoir relates the authors experience of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail solo; through the states of California, Oregon and Washington.

Books Set in Oregon: Shortlist

If you’re short on time, here are some notable books set in Oregon:

1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
2. Stubborn Twig by Lauren Kessler
3. All Together in One Place by Jane Kirkpatrick
4. No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
5. If I Stay by Gayle Forman
6. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
7. The Wild Birds by Emily Strelow

Books Set in Oregon

1. Trask (The Oregon Trilogy #1) by Don Berry, 1960

Set in 1848 on the wild edge of the continent, in the rainforests and rugged headlands of the Oregon coast, Trask follows a mountain man’s quest for new opportunities and new land to settle. Elbridge Trask is a restless man, a gambler with God, nature, and life itself. Yearning for change, he sets out with Wakila, a young Clatsop Indian, and Charley Kehwa, a tamanawis man or spiritual leader of the tribe, on an extraordinary journey of discovery.
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2. A New Life by Bernard Malamud, 1961

When Sy Levin, a high school teacher beset by alcohol and bad decisions, leaves the city for the Pacific Northwest to start over, it’s no surprise that he conjures a vision of the extraordinary new life awaiting him there: “He imagined the pioneers in covered wagons entering this valley for the first time. Although he had lived little in nature Levin had always loved it, and the sense of having done the right thing in leaving New York was renewed in him.” Soon after his arrival at Cascadia College, however, Levin realizes he has been taken in by a mirage.
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3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, 1962

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. 
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4. Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey, 1964

Following the astonishing success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls “one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century.” This wild-spirited tale tells of a bitter strike that rages through a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. 
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5. Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter, 1964

Don Carpenter’s Hard Rain Falling is a tough-as-nails account of being down and out, but never down for good-a Dostoyevskian tale of crime, punishment, and the pursuit of an ever-elusive redemption. The novel follows the adventures of Jack Levitt, an orphaned teenager living off his wits in the fleabag hotels and seedy pool halls of Portland, Oregon.
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6. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1971

George Orr is a man who discovers he has the peculiar ability to dream things into being—for better or for worse. In desperation, he consults a psychotherapist who promises to help him—but who, it soon becomes clear, has his own plans for George and his dreams. The Lathe of Heaven is a dark vision and a warning—a fable of power uncontrolled and uncontrollable. 
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7. So the Wind Won’t Blow it All Away by Richard Brautigan, 1982

“So the Wind Won’t Blow it all Away” is a beautifully-written, brooding gem of a novel – set in the Pacific Northwest region of Oregon where Brautigan spent most of his childhood. Through the eyes, ears and voice of Brautigan’s youthful protagonist the reader is gently led into a small-town tale where the narrator accidentally shoots dead his best friend with a gun. 
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8. The River Why by David James Duncan, 1983

Leaving behind a madcap, fishing-obsessed family, Gus decides to strike out on his own, taking refuge in a secluded cabin on a remote riverbank to pursue his own fly-fishing passion with unrelenting zeal. But instead of finding fishing bliss, Gus becomes increasingly troubled by the degradation of the natural world around him and by the spiritual barrenness of his own life. His desolation drives him on a reluctant quest for self-discovery and meaning, ultimately fruitful beyond his wildest dreams.
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9. The Postman by David Brin, 1985

He was a survivor – a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war. Fate touches him one chill winter’s day when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker to protect himself from the cold. The old, worn uniform still has power as a symbol of hope, and with it he begins to weave his greatest tale, of a nation on the road to recovery.
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10. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, 1989

Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater – and paterfamilias set out – with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes – to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There’s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan… Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins… albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family’s most precious – and dangerous – asset.
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11. The Jump-Off Creek by Molly Gloss, 1989

The profoundly human story of one woman’s struggle to homestead in the unforgiving Blue Mountains of the 1890s. Vivid in its descriptions friendship and loss, of daily struggle and attainment, this book offers its readers an unforgettable portrait of a pioneer woman and her ability to be endure.
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12. River Song by Craig Lesley, 1989

River Song rejoins Danny Kachiah, the Oregonian Nez Perce drifter and failed rodeo rider first introduced in Craig Lesley’s award-winning novel, Winterkill. Danny is determined to get closer to his son, Jack, to teach him traditional ways to steer him away from rodeoing. Danny and Jack survive a forest fire, make a go of it as migrant workers, then finally settle down to salmon fishing on the Columbia River. 
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13. A Gift Upon the Shore by M.K. Wren, 1990

In the Pacific Northwest of the near future, the golden age has ended in apocalypse. Nuclear war has unleased firestorms and the killing cold of nuclear winter. Earthquakes and tidal waves have ravaged the West Coast of America. Desperate violent looters comb the devastated land. And a horrifying pandemic lays waste to the remaining human population. But one of the few survivors, Mary Hope, is determined to see that some spark of culture survives. 
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14. Death Qualified (Barbara Holloway #1) by Kate Wilhelm, 1991

Barbara had given up the law five years before, but she’s still “death qualified,” still able to defend clients in Oregon who face the death penalty if convicted. And now her lawyer father needs her back in the arena to defend Nell Kendricks, who’s been indicted for the murder of her estranged husband, Lucas Kendricks.
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15. Searoad by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1991

In one of her most deeply felt works of fiction, Le Guin explores the dreams and sorrows of the inhabitants of Klatsand, Oregon, a beach town where ordinary people bring their dreams and sorrows for a weekend or the rest of their lives, and sometimes learn to read what the sea writes on the sand. 
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16. Hole in the Sky: A Memoir by William Kittredge, 1992

William Kittredge’s stunning memoir is at once autobiography, a family chronicle, and a Westerner’s settling of accounts with the land he grew up in. This is the story of a grandfather whose single-minded hunger for property won him a ranch the size of Delaware but estranged him from his family; of a father who farmed with tractors and drainage ditches but consorted with movie stars; and of Kittredge himself, who was raised by cowboys and saw them become obsolete, who floundered through three marriages, hard drinking, and madness before becoming a writer.
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17. Ricochet River by Robin Cody, 1992

Set in a fictional Oregon town in the late 1960s, Cody’s superlative coming-of-age novel is the story of Wade, Lorna and Jesse–teenagers preparing to break out of their small-town lives. Wade is the local sports hero. Jesse is his friend, a mythical athlete and the Indian kid who applies his own rules to sports and life. And Lorna is Wade’s sweetheart who knows there’s no hope in Calamus for a bright, independent girl.
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18. Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family by Lauren Kessler, 1993

Masuo Yasui traveled from Japan across the other Oregon Trail – the one that spanned the Pacific Ocean – in 1903. Like most immigrants, he came with big dreams and empty pockets. Working on the railroads, in a cannery, and as a houseboy before settling in Hood River, Oregon, he opened a store, raised a large family, and became one of the area’s most successful orchardists.
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19. Gone, But Not Forgotten by Phillip Margolin, 1993

Darkness has fallen on the city of Portland, Oregon. One by one, the wives of affluent and respected men are vanishing from their homes. The only clues to their disappearance are a single black rose and a note that reads “Gone, But Not Forgotten.” It is the rebirth of a horror that has already devastated a community at the opposite end of the country — and, as it did then, terror and death will follow.
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20. Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore, 1994

Gary Gilmore, the infamous murderer immortalized by Norman Mailer in The Executioner’s Song, campaigned for his own death and was executed by firing squad in 1977. Writer Mikal Gilmore is his younger brother. In Shot in the Heart, he tells the stunning story of their wildly dysfunctional family: their mother, a blacksheep daughter of unforgiving Mormon farmers; their father, a drunk, thief, and con man.
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21. Deadline (Ollie Chandler #1) by Randy Alcorn, 1994

Deadline is the story of a politically correct journalist forced by tragic and mysterious circumstances to come to terms with his own mortality. In the process he must also deal with the consequences of his skewed perspectives on life, family, morality, and religion. Intended for believers and unbelievers.
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22. A Sweetness to the Soul (Dream Catcher #1) by Jane Kirkpatrick, 1995

Based on historical characters and events, A Sweetness to the Soul recounts the captivating story of young, spirited Oregon pioneer Jane Herbert who at the age of twelve faces a tragedy that begins a life-long search for forgiveness and love. In the years that follow, young Jane finds herself involved in an unusual and touching romance with a dreamer sixteen years her senior, struggles to make peace with an emotionally distant mother, and fights to build a family of her own. 
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23. Winterkill by Craig Lesley, 1996

Danny Kachiah is a Native American fighting not to become a casualty. His father, Red Shirt, is dead, his wife, Loxie, has left him, and his career as a rodeo cowboy is flagging. But when Loxie dies in a car wreck, leaving him with his son, Jack, whom he hardly knows, Danny uses the magnificent stories of Red Shirt to guide him toward true fatherhood. Together, Danny and Jack begin to make a life from the dreams of yesterday and the ruins of today’s northwestern reservations.
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24. Night Dogs (Hanson #2) by Kent Anderson, 1997

The North Precinct of Portland, Oregon, is home to two kinds of cops: sergeants and lieutenants who’ve screwed up somewhere else, and patrolmen who thrive on the action on the Avenue. Officer Hanson is the second kind, a veteran who has traded his Bronze Star for a badge. War is what Hanson knows, and in this battle for Portland’s meanest streets, he’s fighting not so much for the law as for his own code of justice.
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25. All Together in One Place (Kinship and Courage #1) by Jane Kirkpatrick, 2000

For Madison “Mazy” Bacon, a young wife living in southern Wisconsin, the future appears every bit as promising as it is reassuringly predictable. A loving marriage, a well-organized home, the pleasure of planting an early spring garden–these are the carefully-tended dreams that sustain her heart and nourish her soul. But when her husband of two years sells the homestead and informs her that they are heading west, Mazy’s life is ripped down the middle like a poorly mended sheet forgotten in a midwestern storm. 
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26. Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon by Chuck Palahniuk, 2003

Want to know where Chuck Palahniuk’s tonsils currently reside? Been looking for a naked mannequin to hide in your kitchen cabinets? Curious about Chuck’s debut in an MTV music video? What goes on at the Scum Center? How do you get to the Apocalypse Café? In the closest thing he may ever write to an autobiography, Chuck Palahniuk provides answers to all these questions and more as he takes you through the streets, sewers, and local haunts of Portland, Oregon.
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27. Good Grief by Lolly Winston, 2004

Thirty-six-year-old Sophie Stanton desperately wants to be a good widow – a graceful, composed, Jackie Kennedy kind of widow. Alas, she is more of the Jack Daniels kind. Self-medicating with ice cream for breakfast, breaking down at the supermarket, and showing up to work in her bathrobe and bunny slippers-soon she’s not only lost her husband, but her job, house… and waistline.
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28. Dies the Fire (Emberverse #1) by S.M. Stirling, 2004

The Change occurred when an electrical storm centered over the island of Nantucket produced a blinding white flash that rendered all electronic devices and fuels inoperable. What follows is the most terrible global catastrophe in the history of the human race – and a Dark Age more universal and complete than could possibly be imagined.
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29. Deep Freeze (Northwest #1) by Lisa Jackson, 2005

Former movie star Jenna Hughes left Hollywood for an isolated farm in Oregon to get away from fame. But someone has followed her – an obsessed fan whose letters are personal and deeply disturbing. And while Jenna’s already shaken up by what she’s seen on paper, she’d be terrified if she knew what Sheriff Shane Carter is investigating. It’s a shocking case that started with the discovery of a dead woman in the woods. Now two more women are missing, one of whom bears a striking resemblance to Jenna.
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30. Twenty Questions by Alison Clement, 2006

It seemed to June that she had the perfect marriage until the day Ronald Pruett was arrested for the murder of Vernay Hanks. Through her job at an elementary school, June knew both the victim’s child and Pruett. Moreover, on the day of the murder, she had almost taken a ride from Pruett herself. This connection with the murder becomes an obsession – leading June into a deceitful and increasingly complicated relationship with the dead woman’s brother and her child. 
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31. The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss, 2007

In the winter of 1917, a big-boned young woman shows up at George Bliss’s doorstep. She’s looking for a job breaking horses, and he hires her on. Many of his regular hands are off fighting the war, and he glimpses, beneath her showy rodeo garb, a shy but strong-willed girl with a serious knowledge of horses. So begins the irresistible tale of nineteen-year-old Martha Lessen, a female horse whisperer trying to make a go of it in a man’s world.
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32. The Shack by William Paul Young, 2007

Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation, and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his “Great Sadness,” Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend.
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33. Heartsick (Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell #1) by Chelsea Cain, 2007

Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go. She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind—addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind. 
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34. No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July, 2007

Award-winning filmmaker and performing artist Miranda July brings her extraordinary talents to the page in a startling, sexy, and tender collection. In these stories, July gives the most seemingly insignificant moments a sly potency. A benign encounter, a misunderstanding, a shy revelation can reconfigure the world. Note: this is a short story collection, some of which are set in Oregon.
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35. If I Stay (If I Stay #1) by Gayle Forman, 2009

Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love – music – even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind? Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it’s the only one that matters. Note: this is a YA novel.
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36. My Abandonment by Peter Rock, 2009

A thirteen-year-old girl and her father live in Forest Park, the enormous nature preserve in Portland, Oregon. There they inhabit an elaborate cave shelter, bathe in a nearby creek, store perishables at the water’s edge, use a makeshift septic system, tend a garden, even keep a library of sorts. Once a week, they go to the city to buy groceries and otherwise merge with the civilized world. But one small mistake allows a backcountry jogger to discover them, which derails their entire existence, ultimately provoking a deeper flight.
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37. The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha, 2009

Irene and Nate Stanley are living a quiet and contented life with their two children, Bliss and Shep, on their family farm in southern Illinois when Nate suddenly announces he’s been offered a job as a deputy sheriff in Oregon. Irene fights her husband. She does not want to uproot her family and has deep misgivings about the move. Nevertheless, the family leaves, and they are just settling into their life in Oregon’s high desert when the unthinkable happens. Fifteen-year-old Shep is shot and killed during an apparent robbery in their home. 
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38. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow, 2010

This debut novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy. With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white.
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39. Lean On Pete by Willy Vlautin, 2010

Fifteen-year-old Charley Thompson wants a home, food on the table, and a high school he can attend for more than part of a year. But as the son of a single father working in warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, Charley’s been pretty much on his own. When tragic events leave him homeless weeks after their move to Portland, Oregon, Charley seeks refuge in the tack room of a run-down horse track. 
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40. Mink River by Brian Doyle, 2010

In a small fictional town on the Oregon coast there are love affairs and almost-love-affairs, mystery and hilarity, bears and tears, brawls and boats, a garrulous logger and a silent doctor, rain and pain, Irish immigrants and Salish stories, mud and laughter. There’s a Department of Public Works that gives haircuts and counts insects, a policeman addicted to Puccini, a philosophizing crow, beer and berries.
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41. The Quick and the Thread (An Embroidery Mystery #1) by Amanda Lee, 2010

When Marcy Singer opens an embroidery specialty shop in quaint Tallulah Falls, Oregon, she throws a soiree and a Stitch-In. Soon, Marcy’s sign-up sheet for embroidery classes fills up and everyone in town seems willing to raise a glass – or a needle – to support the newly-opened Seven Year Stitch.
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42. Riversong (River Valley #1) by Tess Thompson, 2011

In the wake of her husband’s tragic death, Lee is pregnant and one million dollars in debt to a dangerous loan shark willing to do anything to collect. Out of money and options, Lee seeks refuge in the small Oregon town where her mother’s dilapidated home sits vacant, as desperate for a fresh start as Lee herself. With a baby on the way and a living to make, Lee opens a restaurant and begins to rebuild her life.
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43. The First Day of the Rest of My Life by Cathy Lamb, 2011

Madeline O’Shea tells people what to do with their lives. A renowned life coach, she inspires thousands of women through her thriving practice – exuding enviable confidence along with her stylish suits and sleek hair. But her confidence, just like her fashionable demeanor, is all a front. For decades, Madeline has lived in fear of her traumatic past becoming public. Now a reporter is reinvestigating the notorious crime that put Madeline’s mother behind bars, threatening to destroy her elaborate facade. 
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44. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt, 2011

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn’t share his brother’s appetite for whiskey and killing, he’s never known anything else. But their prey isn’t an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm’s gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living – and whom he does it for.
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45. Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith, 2012

Isabel is a single, twentysomething thrift-store shopper and collector of remnants, things cast off or left behind by others. Glaciers follows Isabel through a day in her life in which work with damaged books in the basement of a library, unrequited love for the former soldier who fixes her computer, and dreams of the perfect vintage dress move over a backdrop of deteriorating urban architecture and the imminent loss of the glaciers she knew as a young girl in Alaska.
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46. Sara’s Game (Sara Winthrop #1) by Ernie Lindsey, 2012

Two years ago, Sara’s husband left for the gym one morning… and never came back. His car was found. He wasn’t. Unbelievably, the police report said, “No foul play suspected.” There were a few unreliable sightings over the following months, but little else. Now, on the last day before summer break, her three children have gone missing from their schools, all at the same time.
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47. Little Century by Anna Keesey, 2012

Orphaned after the death of her mother, eighteen-year-old Esther Chambers heads west in search of her only living relative. In the lawless frontier town of Century, Oregon, she’s met by her distant cousin, a laconic cattle rancher named Ferris Pickett. Pick leads her to a tiny cabin by a small lake called Half-a-Mind, and there she begins her new life as a homesteader. If she can hold out for five years, the land will join Pick’s already impressive spread.
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48. Speechless (Speechless #1) by Kim Fielding, 2012

Travis Miller has a machining job, a cat named Elwood, and a pathetic love life. The one bright spot in his existence is the handsome guitar player he sometimes passes on his way home from work. But when he finally gathers the courage to speak to the man, Travis learns that former novelist Drew Clifton suffers from aphasia: Drew can understand everything Travis says, but he is unable to speak or write.
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49. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed, 2012

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State – and she would do it alone.
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50. The Never List by Koethi Zan, 2013

For years, best friends Sarah and Jennifer kept what they called the Never List: a list of actions to be avoided, for safety’s sake, at all costs. But one night, against their best instincts, they accept a cab ride with grave, everlasting consequences. For the next three years, they are held captive with two other girls in a dungeon-like cellar by a connoisseur of sadism.
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51. Red Moon by Benjamin Percy, 2013

When government agents kick down Claire Forrester’s front door and murder her parents, Claire realizes just how different she is. Patrick Gamble was nothing special until the day he got on a plane and hours later stepped off it, the only passenger left alive, a hero. Chase Williams has sworn to protect the people of the United States from the menace in their midst, but he is becoming the very thing he has promised to destroy. 
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52. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer, 2014

The Committee, an international cabal of industrialists and media barons, is on the verge of privatizing all information. Dear Diary, an idealistic online Underground, stands in the way of that takeover, using radical politics, classic spycraft, and technology that makes Big Data look like dial-up. Into this secret battle stumbles an unlikely trio: Leila Majnoun, a disillusioned non-profit worker; Leo Crane, an unhinged trustafarian; and Mark Deveraux, a phony self-betterment guru who works for the Committee. Note: this one takes place around the world.
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53. I Loved You More by Tom Spanbauer, 2014

I Loved You More is a rich, expansive tale of love, sex, and heartbreak, covering twenty-five years in the life of a striving, emotionally wounded writer. In New York, Ben forms a bond of love with his macho friend and foil, Hank. Years later in Portland, a now ill Ben falls for Ruth, who provides the care and devotion he needs, though they cannot find true happiness together.
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54. Close to Home by Lisa Jackson, 2014

Vowing to make a fresh start, Sarah McAdams has come home to renovate the old Victorian mansion where she grew up. Her daughters, Jade and Gracie, aren’t impressed by the rundown property on the shores of Oregon’s wild Columbia River. As soon as they pull up the isolated drive, Sarah too is beset by uneasy memories–of her cold, distant mother, of the half-sister who vanished without a trace, and of a long-ago night when Sarah was found on the widow’s walk, feverish and delirious.
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55. A Light in the Wilderness by Jane Kirkpatrick, 2014

Letitia holds nothing more dear than the papers that prove she is no longer a slave. They may not cause white folks to treat her like a human being, but at least they show she is free. She trusts in those words she cannot read – as she is beginning to trust in Davey Carson, an Irish immigrant cattleman who wants her to come west with him.
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56. The Memory Weaver by Jane Kirkpatrick, 2015

Eliza Spalding Warren was just a child when she was taken hostage by the Cayuse Indians during a massacre in 1847. Now the young mother of two children, Eliza faces a different kind of dislocation; her impulsive husband wants them to make a new start in another territory, which will mean leaving her beloved home and her departed mother’s grave – and returning to the land of her captivity. Eliza longs to know how her mother, an early missionary to the Nez Perce Indians, who dealt with the challenges of life with a sometimes difficult husband and with her daughter’s captivity.
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57. A Merciful Death (Mercy Kilpatrick #1) by Kendra Elliot, 2017

FBI special agent Mercy Kilpatrick has been waiting her whole life for disaster to strike. A prepper since childhood, Mercy grew up living off the land – and off the grid – in rural Eagle’s Nest, Oregon. Until a shocking tragedy tore her family apart and forced her to leave home. Now a predator known as the cave man is targeting the survivalists in her hometown, murdering them in their homes, stealing huge numbers of weapons, and creating federal suspicion of a possible domestic terrorism event. But the crime scene details are eerily familiar to an unsolved mystery from Mercy’s past.
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58. The Child Finder (Naomi Cottle #1) by Rene Denfeld, 2017

Three years ago, Madison Culver disappeared when her family was choosing a Christmas tree in Oregon’s Skookum National Forest. She would be eight years old now – if she has survived. Desperate to find their beloved daughter, certain someone took her, the Culvers turn to Naomi, a private investigator with an uncanny talent for locating the lost and missing. Known to the police and a select group of parents as The Child Finder, Naomi is their last hope.
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59. Right Behind You (Quincy & Rainie #7) by Lisa Gardner, 2017

Eight years ago, Sharlah May Nash’s older brother beat their drunken father to death with a baseball bat in order to save both of their lives. Now thirteen years old, Sharlah has finally moved on. About to be adopted by retired FBI profiler Pierce Quincy and his partner, Rainie Conner, Sharlah loves one thing best about her new family: They are all experts on monsters. Then the call comes in. A double murder at a local gas station, followed by reports of an armed suspect shooting his way through the wilds of Oregon. 
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60. The Third Victim (Robin Lockwood #1) by Phillip Margolin, 2018

A woman stumbles onto a dark road in rural Oregon – tortured, battered, and bound. She tells a horrific story about being kidnapped, then tortured, until she finally managed to escape. She was the lucky one – two other women, with similar burns and bruises, were found dead. The surviving victim identifies the house where she was held captive and the owner, Alex Mason – a prominent local attorney – is arrested. 
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61. The Wild Birds by Emily Strelow, 2018

Cast adrift in 1870s San Francisco after the death of her mother, a girl named Olive disguises herself as a boy and works as a lighthouse keeper’s assistant on the Farallon Islands to escape the dangers of a world unkind to young women. In 1941, nomad Victor scours the Sierras searching for refuge from a home to which he never belonged. And in the present day, precocious fifteen year-old Lily struggles, despite her willfulness, to find a place for herself amongst the small town attitudes of Burning Hills, Oregon. 
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What do you think of these books set in Oregon?

How many of these books set in Oregon have you read? Are you planning a trip to Oregon soon? Have some great books set in Oregon that I’ve missed? Are you interested in other novels set in the United States? I’d love to hear more about your tips for books set in Oregon in the comments below!

Looking for more ideas?

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