Book picks similar to
Allapattah by Patrick D. Smith


fiction
florida
americana
book-club-reads

Cashmere Mafia


Keisha Ervin - 2013
    Tired of being alone, Sunday Rose decides to set out on a quest to find the ‘perfect man’ before the year is done. With the help of her family and friends, she’s set up on multiple dates that will make you shake your head and laugh out loud.

Mango Crush: A Mango Bob Adventure


Bill H. Myers - 2019
    Traveling across Florida in a motorhome, enjoying a laidback lifestyle while trying to stay out of trouble. But trouble never seems to be far. Especially when it involves women. In Mango Crush, Walker gets an early morning call from the mysterious but lovely Abby - aka the Goat Girl - asking him to drive across the state to pick her up in St Augustine. She says they'll be on the road for a week, so he better bring some wine because she's no fun when she's sober. No way he can turn her down, so he loads up his motorhome and heads out. But this is Florida and things rarely go as planned. Soon Walker finds himself in a different kind of hunt. One that will change his life forever. Ride along as Walker and his cat, Mango Bob, travel across Florida in their motorhome, trying to avoid trouble that seems to show up around every curve. A fun read.

Drifting South


Charles Davis - 2007
    Neither does Benjamin Purdue. In a single day he lost his family, his love, his freedom and even his name for reasons he's never known. Now after spending twenty-one years in prison for crimes he didn't commit, the young man he used to be is dead. And the man he's become is no one he--or anyone else--would ever want to know.With only fifty dollars of state money in his pocket, Henry Cole, aka Benjamin Purdue, journeys back to the dangerous outlaw settlement hidden deep in the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia where it all began. The only place he's called home.Instead of answers, he finds only old sunken graves. Now as he drifts southward, he gets closer to the beautiful woman he will never forget--whose untimely visit to Shady that fateful Sunday afternoon ended in a killing. A woman who holds the keys to his past...and his future.

Key West Normal (Bric Wahl Series book 3): The Whole Ball of Whacks (The Bric Wahl Series)


Wayne Gales - 2016
    After a faked drowning and new names, courtesy of the Witness Protection Program, they can travel all over the world and live the life of the rich and famous, but all they really want to do is go home. They know as long as they stay far from Key West they will be safe.Or will they? This third novel in the “Bric Wahl” series takes Bric and Karen on an amazing voyage, first by motor home across the US and then on a sixty one foot sailing yacht, visiting ports in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and Pacific Ocean before they set sail for Key West. They feel safe traveling under their new identities and enjoy their surroundings, believing the people who want to harm them are far away.Or are they?Resigned to leaving Key West forever, they both wonder if all the wealth is worth the loss. After all, the only thing they really wanted was a slice of Key West Normal, and now they have to hide for the rest of their lives.Or do they?Bric and Karen hatch a plan that will let them sneak back to the keys under disguise, but after they return, Bric discovers some disturbing activities in Key West. He takes action, knowing that it may very well end his relationship with the love of his life.

Brotherly Love


Darrien Lee - 2006
    Unbeknownst to him, his wife, Cherise, and younger brother, Vincent, have ignited a passionate love affair. Overcome with guilt, the pair ends the relationship even though they still possess an undeniable attraction to one another. Years later, as Mason decides he's ready for a career change that would give him more time to spend with his family, he's asked to participate in a huge drug case. He concludes that one last job won't hurt, and it might allow him to leave at the top of his game. Besides, Mason realizes that if things get too tough and he has to be away for too long, he can always count on his brother to step in and take care of his family while he's undercover. What Mason doesn't realize is that putting Vincent and Cherise back together again could be as dangerous as his assignment—and tear his family apart once and for all. Darrien Lee takes readers on a roller coaster of emotions as lives, a marriage, and family ties are at stake. Brotherly Love is a book that readers will contemplate long after turning the last page.

When the Whippoorwill


Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - 1931
    and the Florida Crackers -the zany but lovable folks who populated the remote hamlet that was Marjorie Rawlings’ home. With a gift for humor and a venerable ear for dialect comes the author’s personal accounts of the people, scenery and wildlife of Cross Creek.Short Stories:A Crop Of BeansBenny and the Bird DogsJacob’s LadderThe PardonVarmintsThe EnemyGal Young UnAlligatorsA Plumb Clare ConscienceA Mother In MannvilleCocks Must Crow

14/2: The Attack on Pulwama


Vikas Trivedi - 2021
    Joseph’s investigation leads him to various clues, one of which points to a prisoner terrorist Al-Khaled, in India.Through the traps of betrayal, hatred and death, Clinton is determined to bring the perpetrators of the Pulwama attack into the light of justice. Owing to his findings, the Indian Air Force launches an airstrike across the border. The strike leads to the capture of Indian Wg. Cdr Anand behind the enemy lines. As his life hangs by a thread, it is his wit that will help him survive the ordeal.The two stories meld together, taking the patriots through the maze that has vowed to kill every last one of them - and the time's running out.

Conversations With Skip


Donna Foley Mabry - 2011
    He was soon running her life, arranging her romances, and teaching her to laugh again."Dogs don't talk," he told her, and he sounded exactly like the star of whatever movie she had watched the night before.

Plews


Arley L. Dial - 2014
    Before the outlaws, lawmen, gamblers, and cowboys made their mark however, the lands west of the Mississippi were explored by a certain 'reckless breed' of individuals. Men we know as mountain men.These doughty men who braved empty plains, forbidding mountain ranges, and turbulent rivers, did so seeking one thing: beaver pelts, or as they called them plews. Battered by extremes of weather, menaced by beasts with little fear of man, and harried by unpredictable Indians, the mountain men risked their lives to harvest the valuable furs.Stories came downriver of a place where the beaver were abundant and the finest plews on God's earth could be found. The stories were sporadic however, as few men had ever trapped the area and lived to tell the tale. The place was called 'Three Forks' and was the home of the Blackfoot, the most feared tribe of Indians in the mountains.Seasoned trapper Walter Hatcher knew that if a group were to trap the 'Three Forks' successfully it would be made up of the toughest bunch of men he could find. Trappers with cunning and courage beyond that of other men would have to come together in order to bring home the plews. If such an audacious plan were to be carried out, those who accomplished the feat would surely be known as the most daring of the 'reckless breed' and that is just what Hatcher sets out to do.Almer Johnson did not consider himself reckless, or much of anything at all, as he works on the St. Louis docks. When an unexpected opportunity arises to join a fur trapping expedition the young man seizes the chance to make something of himself. Facing danger at every turn, Almer sets his poles for the mountains knowing he will be lucky if he makes it back with his scalp, but willing to take the risk for the plews.

The Alchemist


Paolo Coehlo
    

Pearl of Pit Lane


Glenda Young - 2019
    Annie loves Pearl like her own daughter but it isn't easy to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Annie knows the best way to supplement their meagre income is to walk the pit lanes at night, looking for men willing to pay for her company.As Pearl grows older she is unable to remain ignorant of Annie's profession, despite her aunt's attempts to shield her. But when Pearl finds herself unexpectedly without work and their landlord raises the rent, it becomes clear they have few choices left and Annie is forced to ask Pearl the unthinkable. Rather than submit to life on the pit lanes, Pearl runs away. She has nothing and nowhere to go, but Pearl is determined to survive on her own terms... Praise for Glenda Young: 'I really enjoyed... It's well researched and well written and I found myself caring about her characters' Rosie Goodwin 'All the ingredients for a perfect saga' Emma Hornby 'Glenda has an exceptionally keen eye for domestic detail which brings this local community to vivid, colourful life' Jenny Holmes 'I enjoyed it enormously, being totally absorbed from the first page. I found it extremely well written, and having always loved sagas, one of the best I've read' Margaret Kaine

B4 The G-Spot: The Legend of Granite McKay


Noire - 2014
    The prequel to G-Spot, the #1 bestseller that established the Urban Erotic genre. Meet the Man and the Myth...the Kingpin and the Killer...The Lover and the Legend...The Gangsta who put the G in the G-Spot...The TRUE King of Harlem! "I didn't come to Harlem ridin' shotgun. I came packin' one!"--GRANITE MCKAY. WARNING! This here ain't no romance, it's an urban erotic tale These gutter plots I drop will have you biting off your nails! A menace has arrived, a terror Harlem’s never seen He started from the bottom and turned a dollar into a dream! Before the ballin and the stuntin and the sexin and the flexin, Brutal vision and ambition is how this gangsta manifested! So let’s stand up and salute the ruthless boss who paved the way Let’s go back B4 the G-Spot to: The Legend of GRANITE McKAY!

Ride the Man Down


Luke Short - 1942
    Phil Evarts is dead, and the Hatchet Range is up for grabs. That’s 70,000 acres of prime turf just waiting for the man rich enough to buy it . . . or the gunman crazy enough to kill for it. Every schemer in town has his eyes on Hatchet, and Bide Mariner leads the charge. An unscrupulous rancher who’ll stop at nothing for cash, Mariner has the money and the guns to take whatever he wants. Only Will Ballard stands in his way—and that means Ballard is marked for death.   The foreman at Hatchet Range, Ballard is an honest man who’ll do anything to keep the ranch from falling into Mariner’s hands. In a town so rotten with greed that even the sheriff is against him, Ballard must stand alone to save this little piece of the American West.   Voted one of the top twenty-five westerns of all time by the Western Writers of America and made into a 1952 Republic film starring Rod Cameron, Ride the Man Down showcases award-winning author Luke Short at the height of his writing powers.

Queen Anne's Lace


Dawn Gardner - 2019
    Lacy starts on a journey to find to find the man that could change her life. As Lacy gets closer to finding the man, circumstances force her to do something that she will regret for the rest of her life. This explosive coming-of-age story set in the late 1970s is full of twists and turns, forgiveness and courage.

Chocolate Star


Sheila Copeland - 1997
    Then the way to fame was leading him toward a mistake that could send him straight to hell...She never looked back.Lies, drugs, too many men-- golden skinned singer Topaz Black would do anything to get a hit to the top of the charts, even walk away from her friends and family. But surrounded by greed and lust, the love the longed for seemed to be slipping away forever.He broke all the rules.Brought up in South Central L.A., movie producer Gunther Lawrence learned early how to get the wealth and women he wanted-- and to turn his back on his roots. Now, blinded by Hollywood's glitter, his illusions may shatter when he discovers who really controls his career.As their lives touch, ignite, and explode, three talented African-Americans pursue fame at any cost...and the price may be their happiness...or their lives..An alternate selection of the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club