Come Sit on the Porch: Where to Start With Southern Fiction

The other thing is that I do not like recommending books. It's such a deeply personal thing for me, and the last time I did recommend a handful to a friend, she asked me if I was trying to make her depressed. I'm not a "happy ending equals a good book" kind of girl. I also love a novel in which the setting is a main character. I will stick with a book with the slowest of plots if I fall in love with the town or especially the scenery. Not everyone is like that.  

That's one reason, I think, that I'm attracted to Southern fiction, in particular. Set a story in a small town in Alabama, a ritzy Atlanta neighborhood, the South Carolina lowcountry, or swampy backwoods in Florida, and you've sold me. Add some suffocating humidity, moss in the trees, church gossip, and family drama that dates back to the Civil War, and you've sold me twice. Make it Southern Gothic, and I'll pay you to let me read it.  

Related: The Lost Art of Reading

In lieu of subjecting y'all to yet another "best of 2025" article, I thought I'd end the year by recommending some of my favorite Southern reads. One of my goals for 2026 is to read more, and if yours is too, maybe some of these books will pique your interest. Aside from being set in the South, there's no common theme here. These are just books I've enjoyed, including some of my all-time favorites, and I'll try to share a sentence or two to explain why.  

1. The Little Friend by Donna Tartt 

This is actually my favorite book, not just my favorite Southern fiction. Set in Mississippi, it's about a little girl who is trying to find out how her brother died, and things turn dark. This is definitely one of those "the plot is slow, but the setting and atmosphere make it worth it" for me. I actually made my dad read it, and he asked me "Does anything ever happen?" But it's so good. Tartt's book The Secret History is another favorite of mine, but it's set in the northeast. 

2. A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor 

This is an anthology of short stories by the queen of Southern Gothic herself. Most of them are funny and/or unsettling, and expose a lot of unpopular truths about human nature, but it's one of those I find myself coming back to for inspiration time and time again.  

3. The Honk and Holler Opening Soon by Billie Letts 

Full disclosure: This one is set in 1980s Oklahoma, and I'm not one of those people who consider Oklahoma "The South." (Seriously, who let them into the SEC?) But it's got the same kind of vibes, and it's another one of my all-time favorites. Essentially, it's about a small-town diner and a group of misfits there.   

4. The Cypress House by Michael Koryta 

This one is dark, but I couldn't put it down. It takes place during the Great Depression and tells the story of a World War I veteran who is heading to Florida for work. He ends up in a small, crooked town during a hurricane, and he soon finds himself trying to figure out how to escape. It's got a slight paranormal element to it, but not in a way that makes it feel silly. The guy can tell when people are near death.    

5. The House on Tradd Street by Karen White

This one is a bit of a placeholder title because the truth is that I love all of Karen White's books. I also adore her as a person (we've interacted on social media a good bit, so in my head, that makes us BFFs).  But this particular title, which is the first in a series, is how I found her work. It's part romance, part supernatural mystery, and it's all set in one of my favorite places, Charleston, South Carolina. I recommend checking out anything of hers if you like women's fiction or Southern fiction.   

6. The River Witch by Kimberly Brock

This is a slow burn, but it's so well-written that you feel like you're there on the Georgia coast with the characters. It's about a dancer who, after a series of tragedies, secludes herself on a remote island, where she ends up befriending a 10-year-old girl from a troubled family. This is arguably one of my top 10 favorites of all time.  

7. Heart of Palm by Laura Lee Smith

This is one of those that my friend said made her depressed, but I loved it — another one of my top 10 favorites. Part of that may be because it's set in a small town near St. Augustine, Florida, another one of my favorite places. It's basically about a notorious family in that town, their baggage, and how they grapple with moving on and leaving the past behind.

8. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

This one is sweet, funny, and it will break your heart. It's a coming of age story about a little girl who has a mentally ill mother. She goes to Savannah to live with her eccentric great aunt and meets a unique cast of Southern characters who help her rebuild her tragic little life.  

9. At the End of the Road by Grant Jerkins 

This one pulled me in because it takes place near a park where I used to hike and walk my dogs almost daily several years ago. It's told from the perspective of a 10-year-old boy in the 1970s in rural Georgia. Something bad happens at the end of his dirt road, and suddenly, he realizes that many of the adults around him have troubling secrets. 

10. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin 

This one also starts out in the 1970s with two young boys in rural Mississippi who become the best of friends. A girl goes missing, and it wrecks the town and their friendship. Years later, another girl goes missing, and the two boys cross paths as men. I couldn't put this one down.  

11. South of Broad by Pat Conroy

This is a big book that covers a lot of ground. It actually took me a while to read it, though it wasn't because of the length. One of the authors on this list actually told me it took her a long time too. It's just a lot of story. Anyway, my attraction to the book was Charleston — few can write about the South Carolina coast like Conroy. It's about a group of friends who go through a lot of messy stuff over the course of several decades, but Charleston remains the backdrop and the anchor. 

12. Desperation Road by Michael Farris Smith 

This is another one that takes place in rural Mississippi and tells the story of an ex-con and a single homeless mother and her child. It's kind of a thriller/crime novel, and I don't want to give too much away, but it's another one of those that I practically read in one sitting. 

13. Savannah Blues by Mary Kay Andrews 

This is straight up girly girl fiction. I have enjoyed almost every single one of Mary Kay Andrews' books, but this one is my favorite. The Savannah setting is part of that. Think two divorced women in Savannah who get caught up in a murder mystery. It sounds silly, but it was so much fun that I got sad when I realized I'll never be able to read it for the first time again.  And if this is your thing, you may like all of Andrews' books, but just don't follow her on social media. She's political, and you won't like that at all. Thankfully, her novels are not.   

14. When We Were Worthy by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

I don't have a lot to say about this one — a tragedy strikes a small Georgia town, and it exposes all sorts of secrets. Having grown up in such a town, it was very relatable. If you like stuff like Friday Night Lights, you'll probably like this.  

15. Bound South by Susan Rebecca White 

This is another one of my all-time favorites, which isn't bad for something you randomly picked up at yard sale for 50 cents. It's very Atlanta-centric, which was a draw for me because I knew the places, but it tells the stories of three very different women in the city whose lives intersect. It's just so well-written. I actually made my dad read this one, too, because he grew up in Atlanta, and he really liked it. You will laugh so hard and cry too.   

16. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens 

This one is probably the most well-known book on the list, so I'll keep this very short. It's about a girl who grows up, basically alone, in the North Carolina marsh, and who eventually becomes a suspect in a murder. The setting is a living, breathing thing in this one.   

17. Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones 

This one is the story of three children who grow up in Atlanta during the infamous Atlanta Child Murders of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and how it impacts their lives. The book haunts me to this day (I read it in May 2020, according to GoodReads). I actually dream about one of the characters occasionally. I don't think I've ever cried as hard as I did after finishing this book. 

18. Rush by Lisa Patton 

I'm not a sorority girl type, so I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. It's a fictionalized version of sorority life at Ole Miss, and while it touches on some serious topics, it's still a light read. When I finished, I wished I had written it. Oh, and Eli Manning makes an appearance, which made it even more fun.  

19. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns 

My ninth grade English teacher made me read this book. My mom already had a copy and loved it, and once I read it, I understood why. It's told from the point of view of a 14-year-old boy in a small town in Georgia. His widowed grandfather marries a young woman, and, as you can imagine, it's a scandal that leads to a lot of humor, heart, and even sadness. I'm not one who reads books twice, but since I was so young when I read this one the first time, I've since read it again as an adult.     

20. Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter 

This is another placeholder title because I really love just about everything Karin Slaughter writes. If you watch the Will Trent TV series, it's based on some of Slaughter's novels. I found her through her Grant County and Will Trent series years ago, and I think I read through every one of them in a matter of weeks. The characters began to feel like friends, but a lot of the appeal is that they were all set in Atlanta or Georgia in general. Like her other books, Pretty Girls is an Atlanta-based crime novel, but it's a stand-alone, and it's dark. Very very dark. Like some people I know couldn't finish it. So, keep that in mind. 

Hopefully, there is something here on this list that interests you. Happy reading, and Happy New Year!