Recommendations based on "How to Survive in the Woods A Novel"

In this magical debut, a couple's lives are changed forever by the arrival of a little girl, wild and secretive, on their snowy doorstep.Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart -- he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone -- but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “When it comes to creating character, evoking place, and writing crackling and convincing dialogue, Sara Paretsky has no peer—and Hard Time proves it once again.”—Chicago Tribune“Terrific . . . expertly plotted . . . This book [is] her best.”—The New York Times Book ReviewIn an instant, the lives of two women collided. One was behind the wheel of a Trans Am she liked to drive too fast. The other was lying in the road, dying an agonizing death. When Chicago private eye V.I. Warshawski got out of her car to look at the woman she almost hit, she began a long, harrowing descent into a world of shadowy secrets and tangled lives—and into the darkest heart of her city.In Hard Time, which heralds the triumphant return of the much-loved heroine V.I. Warshawski, Sara Paretsky revisits the gritty urban landscape she illuminates with brilliant compassion and vivid color. For as V.I. unravels the mystery of a battered and discarded woman, she moves through circles of the rich and the troubled, into the bitter home of a powerful Chicago family, into the pampered world of a TV star, and behind the razor wire of a women’s prison. What V.I. finds is a web of conspiracy—and explosive secrets hidden in the darkest places of all. . . .”You’ll feel handcuffed to this book until you’ve finished—probably at 3 a.m.”—The Denver Post

The sixth book in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s treasured Little House series, and the recipient of a Newbery Honor. This edition features the classic black-and-white artwork from Garth Williams.The fledgling town of De Smet in the Dakota Territory is hit hard by the brutal winter of 1880-1881. Laura, Pa, Ma, Mary, Carrie, and little Grace face the winter as best they can, but soon, blizzards have covered the town in snow that piles up to the rooftops, cutting the town off from supplies and trade. Food stores begin to run dangerously low. To save the town from starvation, young Almanzo Wilder and a friend brave the conditions, set off across the prairie in search of wheat, and return victorious. The town is saved, and the townspeople share in an unusual, but joyful, Christmas celebration.The nine books in the timeless Little House series tell the story of Laura’s real childhood as an American pioneer, and are cherished by readers of all generations. They offer a unique glimpse into life on the American frontier, and tell the heartwarming, unforgettable story of a loving family.

In a rural area of northern Wisconsin, a family of three is savagely wiped out by the Iceman, who then torches their house. In pursuit of a damaging photograph, this fiend puts no value on human life. Enter Davenport, the laconic, slightly cynical ex-cop from Minneapolis, who uncovers several disturbing truths before determining the Iceman's identity.

Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli receives the grim news that Maura's charred body has been found in a mountain ravine. Shocked and grieving, Jane is determined to learn what happened to her friend. The investigation plunges Jane into the twisted history of Kingdom Come, Wyoming, where a gruesome discovery lies buried beneath the snow.

Dana Stabenow once again returns to Alaska, America's last frontier, where her unforgettable Aleut investigator, Kate Shugak, faces one of the most painful cases of her reluctant career. Kate was formerly the star investigator of the Anchorage D.A.'s office; now all she wants to do is enjoy the first weeks of autumn on her isolated homestead. Alone. But duty calls, in the form of Ekaterina Shugak, Kate's grandmother, the imposing matriarch of her extended family. It's the week of the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention, and everyone who's anyone - as well as a few nobodies - has gathered in Anchorage for a week of shopping, gossiping, bragging, and more than a little wheeling and dealing. But there's more happening this year than what's on the official agenda. A vote is coming up on the future of tribal lands, and the arguments are heated. Heated enough to raise suspicions about the recent death of a Native Association board member. Kate has always refused to get involved with tribal politics. But the dead woman was a relative, and the one true weakness Kate Shugak has is for her family. Reluctantly agreeing to investigate, she is drawn into a whirlpool of deceit, lies, and secrets; she is torn not only between the modern world and the traditional, but also between opposing factions within each group. And the more Kate investigates, the more she discovers how deeply she is tied to the land, and to what lengths she will go in order to protect it...

In Singing of the Dead, the next installment in Dana Stabenow's acclaimed crime series, Kate Shugak hires onto the staff of a political campaign to work security for a Native woman running for state senator. The candidate has been receiving anonymous threats, and Kate, who went to college with two of the staffers, is to become her shadow, watching the crowds at rallies and fundraisers. But just as she's getting started the campaign is rocked by the murder of their staff researcher, who, Kate discovers, was in possession of some damning information about the pasts of both candidates. In order to track the killer, Kate will have to delve into the past, in particular the grisly murder of a "good-time girl" during the Klondike Gold Rush in 1915. Little can she guess the impact a ninety-year-old unsolved case could have on a modern-day psychotic killer.

A hot summer on the Northumberland coast, and Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son murdered. Luke has been strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers. This stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team intrigued.

In 1923, Arapahos and Shoshones from the Wind River Reservation were recruited to appear as extras in The Covered Wagon, a silent film noted for being Hollywood's first Western to cast real Indians in an effort at authenticity. Charlie Wallowingbull never returned home, leaving people to believe he abandoned his new wife and unborn son.Kiki Wallowingbull, Charlie's great-grandson recently released from prison on a drug conviction, went to Hollywood determined to uncover the truth behind his great-grandfather's disappearance. His family raised him with the belief that only death would have prevented Charlie from coming back to them.But then Kiki himself becomes the victim of murder - his frozen body discovered on the reservation by Father John, and his supposed killer confessing to Vicky that it was self-defense. Together, they must find the connection between two mysteries separated by nearly a century.

With her gritty mysteries steeped in authentic Native American culture, New York Times bestselling author Margaret Coel is “widely considered the most accomplished heir to Tony Hillerman’s legacy,” (Scripps Howard News Service). In the latest Wind River novel, Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and Father John O’Malley confront a ruthless killer in the wake of a miraculous event.        A mysterious penitent confesses to murder, and then flees the confessional before Father John can identify him. Two months later, Vicky discovers rancher Dennis Carey shot dead in his truck along Blue Sky Highway. With the tragic news comes the exposure of an astonishing secret: the most sacred creature in Native American mythology, a white buffalo calf, was recently born on Carey’s ranch.   Making national headlines, the miraculous animal draws a flood of pilgrims to the reservation, frustrating an already difficult investigation. As visitors throw the reservation into turmoil, Vicky and Father John try to unravel the strange events surrounding both Carey’s murder and the recent disappearances of three cowboys from his ranch.   It could be coincidence, given the nomadic life of the cowboy trade, but when one of them fails to appear in court to testify on an assault charge, Vicky wonders if Arnie Walkfast and his Arapaho buddies are guilty of more than just assault. And at the back of Father John’s mind is the voice from the man in the confessional: I killed a man…