25 Must-Read Books Set in New England (Updated 2023)

Nothing says “New England” to me better than this book, one of my personal favorites. This dark tale set on the campus of a fictional New England college follows Richard, an outsider from California who becomes part of an elite group of classics students.

Eventually, they cross borders of morality and descend into what can only rightly be described as evil.

This book will take you into a cold Vermont night and quickly draw you right in.

This classic novel of four sisters is one of the iconic New England novels. Written by Louisa May Alcott, this is an essential read for books set in Massachusetts. Follow the March sisters as they grow and change during the 1860s.

History and literature buffs will want to visit Concord, MA, and see Orchard House, Alcott’s childhood home and the setting on which Little Women was based.

This play reenacts the events of the infamous Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s, using accurate characters, but taking license with the action. Despite the lack of perfect historical accuracy, this is an awesome piece of drama. I think it is essential reading for those visiting Salem.

Written in the 1950s, the play is said to be a commentary on the “witch hunts” of the McCarthy era. The parallels certainly are fascinating.

I can’t say enough good things about this book. It’s one of my personal favorites of all time.

Owen Meany is a small, squeaky-voiced boy who has been sent to earth with a special purpose. Or at least, that’s what he believes.

Set in mid-century New Hampshire, the book tells Owen’s story from the perspective of his best friend. This book will make you laugh, cry, and definitely question your faith in a higher power.

This 1911 book is just 99 pages long, but it packs a lot into a slim volume. According to Goodreads, this is “the classic novel of despair, forbidden emotions, and sexual undercurrents set against the austere New England countryside.”

Edith Wharton is another major New England writer who set much of her work in the region. You can visit her house, The Mount, in Lenox, MA.

This highly-rated crime novel is definitely on my list of books to read. If you’re searching for thriller books set in Boston, you should definitely check out Mystic River.

The story begins in 1970s Boston, when three young boys are set upon by child molesters who are posing as cops. 25 years later, the three boys, now men, find their lives intersecting once again in the wake of a brutal crime.

If you didn’t catch this novel in high school, now’s a great time to read it. The Scarlet Letter is SO New England, not just because it was written by homeboy Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Mostly, it’s because of the intense Puritan atmosphere of the tale, which highlights the impact one single passionate act has on the lives of three colonists: the outcast Hester Prynne, the tortured Reverend Dimmesdale, and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth.

Seeking out books set in Connecticut? This complex novel, published in the 1990s, is a bestseller.

Telling the story of identical twins Dominick and Thomas Birdsey, from Dominick’s perspective. Thomas is a schizophrenic that Dominick largely cares and advocates for.

Over the course of roughly 900 pages, this novel carries readers through a vast realm of themes, including mental health, forgiveness, family dynamics, and what it means to be a twin.

Author Howard Frank Mosher has earned significant critical acclaim for his works, many of which are set in fictional Kingdom County, Vermont. 

A Stranger in the Kingdom focuses on a brutal murder that takes place in a small Vermont town in the 1950s. Suspicion falls upon the town’s new Presbyterian minister, a black man. The ensuing tale of racism and murder in a small New England town will no doubt bring to mind the famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

Mark Twain is another New England author whose home you can visit (in Hartford, Connecticut). During the 17 years he lived in CT, Twain wrote many of his classic novels.

For that New England flavor, consider picking up this one: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. This funny, satirical novel follows a Yankee mechanic is knocked out during a brawl, and wakes to find himself in Camelot, A.D. 528, in King Arthur’s Court. Hilarity ensues.

The name Pollyanna has grown synonymous with optimism and joy. Well, that idea originated here in the novel Pollyanna.

Following the death of her father, Pollyanna Whittier goes to Vermont to live with her curmudgeon of an Aunt. Her commitment to being joyful, using her cheerful “glad game,” earns her the love and attention of the townsfolk she meets. When a terrible injury befalls her, the townsfolk work to help Pollyanna continue to seek gladness in the face of adversity

Gillian and Sally are two sisters from Massachusetts. For over 200 years, the women in their family have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their town, which has made the girls outsiders.

All Gillian and Sally ever wanted to do was to escape, but it seems that the bonds they share will bring them back, almost by magic…

You can’t talk about books of New England without paying homage to Robert Frost. Although he is a poet and not a novelist, Frost is one of the most famous writers to ever emerge from New England.

You likely know him from his popular poem, “The Road Not Taken,” but he is the creative genius behind hundreds of poems, many of which bring the nature, beauty, and community of New England into stark life.

This collection of his poems is the perfect companion for a snowy evening and a cup of tea.

Ah, yes. Mr. King. The horror writer known world-wide for his bestselling novels like The Shining, Carrie, and The Stand. With the vast majority of his novels set in Maine or other parts of New England, one could almost include any Stephen King work on this list of books set in New England.

But ‘Salem’s Lot is one of my favorites; one that I think is one of King’s most iconic, and most atmospheric. And it’s very, very creepy.

Other notable King books set in Maine and New England: It, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Pet Sematary.

Walden, Thoreau’s account of his time living alone in a secluded cabin at Walden Pond, was first published in 1854 and has become one of the most iconic books in American literature.

Read this for beautiful quotes on humanity, solitude, and the importance of nature to our lives.

With her debut collection of short stories, author Jhumpa Lahiri won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, among numerous other awards.

The Namesake takes the same and similar themes even further: “the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations.”

Following an Indian family who settles in Cambridge, MA and their sun Gogol, a first-generation American, this is one of the newer books set in Massachusetts on this list.

Centered around retired schoolteacher Olive Kitteridge, the stories in this Pulitzer Prize-winning book bring Maine vividly to life. (One Goodreads reviewer even said he “breathed in the saltiness of the Maine coast, practically.”

As the small town Maine residents around her struggle with problems large and small, Olive is brought to a more profound understanding of herself and of her own life.

This young adult historical fiction is set in an early Puritan settlement, Connecticut Colony. Kit, an orphan who has come here from the Caribbean to live with relatives, finds friendship with an old Quaker woman who is known as “the Witch of Blackbird Pond.” Will this friendship spark suspicion and fear (and even accusation) among the local Puritans?

I read this Newbury Award-winner back in middle school, but the plot sounds intriguing to me, so I may give it a second read.