Washington

Washington writers cover a lot of ground: island fiction, small-town romance, urban fantasy, suspense and historical family drama. The authors filed here include David Guterson, Deb Caletti, Debbie Macomber, Derrick Jensen, Julia Quinn, Kathleen Barber, Kitty Kelley, Kristen Millares Young, Kristin Hannah, Marissa Meyer, Patricia Briggs and Richelle Mead.

If this state's writers are what you seek, this is the shelf where it shows up as setting, mood and subject rather than as a label on a map.

Washington writers split between the wet side of the mountains and the dry side, and the listings here show both habits of mind. David Guterson works the islands and the water; Kristen Millares Young writes Seattle and its edges; Derrick Jensen turns the Northwest landscape into an argument. On the commercial shelf, Debbie Macomber built a career on small-town romance set in a town much like her own, while Julia Quinn and Richelle Mead reach readers who want wit and vampires rather than rain and salmon. Kristin Hannah and Kathleen Barber write women under pressure, one in historical and family drama, one in suspense. Marissa Meyer and Patricia Briggs pull the same region toward fairy-tale retellings and urban fantasy. What separates this group from California or New York is not fame but weather and distance: these authors write places where the nearest big city is hours away and the forest starts at the end of the street.