Crooked River by Valerie Geary

Two young girls are visiting their father outside of Bend, Oregon.  One summer day they discover the body of a young women in the river outside the rural property where they share a teepee with their dad.  This has been a summer adventure for older sister Sam for a few years but with the death of their mother, her younger sister Ollie has joined her.  Ollie has not spoken since her mother's death out of fear that her voice will be replaced by the voices of the spirits she sees all around her. When their father is accused of the murder of the women, Sam begins a search for the real killer.  An intriguing mystery with an interesting local connection. 

A Sudden Light by Garth Stein

This is a story of a logging family in the Pacific Northwest but Sometimes a Great Notion it ain't.  When 13 year old Trevor and his father return to the family estate outside of Seattle, the thing he is most anxious to learn about is the "family curse."  The former grand estate is a shambles but still the home to his aunt and grandfather.  The question that his father is here to help resolve is what to do with Grandpa and what is to be done with the estate.  No surprise - there is little agreement.  But there is an interesting backstory which is revealed in chapters interspersed through the main story - and there is guilt - and there are ghosts - and occasionally some elegantly phrased passages about the old growth forests and our relation to them.

The Thing with Feathers by Noah Strycker

The writing is elegant from this young local author but it is really a book for bird lovers.  Full of fascinating details and bird / human comparisons, the research is extensive -  full of bird lover stories and scientific birdy discoveries.  An added perk are the wonderful drawings by the author.  The book is certainly a testament to Strycker's passion and knowledge of all things bird.

The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

In this very 19th century Northwest story, young William Tallmadge finds himself the soul caretaker for an fruit orchard in the foothills of the Washington Cascades.  His solitary life is interrupted by the appearance of two young girls -  both almost feral in their behavior and both obviously pregnant.  His attempts to care for the girls draw the three together in a life story that is both tragic and full of human kindness.  As they move in and out of each others lives, it may be the child that is born, Angelene, that most affects the course of William's life but never can he stray far from the pull of the orchard.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

Eli and Charlie Sisters are famous gun slinging killers for hire in the late 1800's.  They are employed by the Commodore, a powerful nasty figure who operates out of Oregon City in the Oregon Territory.  They are on their way from Oregon City to the gold fields of California to kill Hermann Kermit Warm and steal his formula for an amazing liquid which makes the hard to see gold shine in the river beds.  Both brothers seem to kill without a bit of remorse and the killings are frequent which makes the fact that this book is full of humor hard to explain.  The language and voice are pure Twain.  The ending is both strange and satisfying which is good because somehow DeWitt has created two killers you kinda like.

Mink River by Brian Doyle

Doyle invites us into the small fictional Oregon coastal town of Neawanaka.  Like some omniscient observer, we telescope into particular moments, discovering how, even in the smallest of towns, lives can be vastly different.  Or we learn how it might be that everyone - all at the same time - might find themselves brought to their knees. The reader must be willing to suspend reality and enter into the genre of magical realism.   Only then will they understand why a nun might teach a crow to speak or how the mysterious Worried Man while searching for the place where time is saved is often interrupted by his ability to sense the pain in others. The often lyrical style is full of Native American and Irish immigrant mythology. The writing is both humorous and beautiful, the characters intriguing and the setting is so very Pacific Northwest.

When She Flew by Jennie Shortridge

This book is based on the same real events as Peter Rock's My Abandonment but this is told in two alternating voices. The first is the young girl, Lindy, surviving in the woods around Portland with her father. The second is the police officer, Jessica, who discovers the two of them. Jessica is estranged from her own daughter and it is that sense of loss that motivates her decision making regarding Lindy and her father. Her story also seems to be most dominant. My sense is that the writing was more engaging in Rock's book but the events in this book are truer to the actual incident. Both books borrow different details from the real story and it is interesting to think about what each writer chose - particularly when you consider the fact that one author is male and one is female.

My Abandonment by Peter Rock

This eerie story of a young girl and her father living at the margins of society in a nature preserve just outside of Portland is based on real events. The narrator is the young girl, Caroline, who clearly adores her father. Although there are few details about how they ended up living like this, it appears that the father's post traumatic stress issues are clearly a part of this. The writing is almost poetic at times but the ending is both shocking and highly unlikely. Generally the book is as fascinating as the fact that it could really happen.

The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha

Winner of the 2010 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. In this, her first novel, Rakha explores the capacity to forgive. Irene Stanley's son is killed and the murderer sits on death row in the Oregon State Penitentiary for nineteen years. For many of those years Irene empties herself of all feeling except hate and anger as she waits for his execution. And then a letter causes her to question the waste of her life and the truth about the man who is finally scheduled to die. This book will play devil's advocate with your notion of capital punishment no matter where you stand on the issue.

The Girl who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow

Eleven year old Rachel has survived a tragedy that killed her family. Multiple voices supply the back story of that tragedy. But the real story is the struggle she faces as the daughter of a white mother and a black father. She is smart and light skinned - not "black" enough for the black culture she must navigate while being raised by her Grandmother. And what does the white half of her mean? For the reader, a disturbing question to ponder. How much of the fear attached to racism is a fear of culture as much as color? Will we ever as a country reach the point where the culture of education, success, elegance is not attached to a color? Has a President of color made any difference to either culture? There has been much written about the two worlds that people of color must negotiate. Rachel gives a real voice to that dilemma.

Her Mother's Daughter by Linda Carroll

I never would have picked this book up to read but once I started, I read it all in one night. Author Linda Carroll is a therapist in Corvallis, Oregon. She is also the mother of Courtney Love and the daughter of Paula Fox. I only know Love from the tabloids in the grocery line but Paula Fox is a Newbery winning author and the reason I picked it up to read at all (She also doesn't actually appear in the story until the very last chapters). What I wasn't prepared for was the warts and all story of Carroll's life. Adopted at birth, her mother is uncomfortable at best with Linda's challenging personality and her father is one small doorway away from being a sexual threat. Her life is a long series of poor relationships and bad decisions. That she and her family survive at all is amazing. Behind all of this is the mystery of her birth mother. After her parents' death, she gets serious about the search and finds Paula Fox. Their reconciliation is bittersweet and completely believable.