I enjoy reading fiction with a genealogy theme. It seems to show up frequently in cozy mysteries. I'm currently reading Death on the family tree by Patricia Sprinkle. It looks like this will be the first of a series. Does anyone have suggestions of other good titles?

KathEichfeld:

This thread covers fiction (as well as nonfiction). It's a good place to look for good genealogy-related fiction titles...

Message edited by its author, Mar 18, 2007, 1:04pm.

Cane River by Lalita Tademy is excellent.
Others:
The Long Search by Isabelle Holland

Tangled Roots by G.G.Vandergriff
a mystery involving genealogy

Rett MacPherson has a series of books featuring amateur sleuth Tori O'Shea, a genealogist/historian from New Kassell, MO.

I've just finished reading The Family Tree by Barbara Delinsky which has a genealogy theme (among others). I picked it up on spec at the bookstall at Miami airport and it kept me engrossed for most of the 8 hour flight to London.

The view from Castle Rock by Alice Munro.

Message edited by its author, Nov 12, 2007, 8:22pm.

Great books with this theme are the Vilhlem Moberg tetrology, beginning with The Emigrants and Unto a Good Land. Also Wiliam Maxwell's The Ancestors.

Several books do four generations and many were modeled from East of Eden. Haley's, Roots, sprouted from Steinbeck's creation. Lost Man's River or the trilogy compilation Shadow Country would be my recomendation. Matthiessen has the son of a legendary character study the legend and family history of the father.

Message edited by its author, Jul 9, 2008, 8:56pm.

The Blood Doctor by Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell).

Message edited by its author, Jul 9, 2008, 9:29pm.

I really enjoyed The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Goff and Ursula, Under by Ingrid Hill.

Janeology by Karen Harrington is a thriller that examines one woman's personality from the perspective of her geneaology, going back four generations on each side of her family to explore the dark traits she may or may not have inherited.

In full disclosure, I am the author of this work. :) It was fueled by my own passion for researching my own family's geneaology.

I'm not a member of this group, but I'd like to mention William Gibson's (not the sci-fi writer) A Mass for the Dead as an elegaic portrait of the author's family. I'd also like to second the recommendation for William Maxwell. They Came Like Swallows, is a moving novel about the aftermath of the death of Gibson's mother from, I believe, Spanish Influenza.

Message edited by its author, Jul 19, 2008, 1:16pm.

The Heir Hunter, a mystery built around finding heirs of people that die without a will or family.

Message edited by its author, Oct 25, 2008, 9:07pm.

Wally Lamb's newest book The Hour I First Believed has a good genealogy subplot dealing with the main character's parents, adopted parents and other extended family. It's a great read!!

China Court by Rumer Godden

Search for the Shadowman by Joan Lowery Nixon is a great children's book with a geneology theme. A sixth grade boy is doing a school assignment of searching his family tree and finds evidence of a man who is not in family records. The boy searches him out. There are several unexpected twists.

Just looking at the books mentioned previously, Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff is one of my favorites. I loved reading the chapters told by Willie's ancestors and watching as her family tree grew and grew.

I read and liked Death on the Family Tree by Patricia Sprinkle, but was less enthused about the second book in the series and never continued after that. G.G.Vandergriff's Tangled Roots was too much romance and not enough mystery for my taste.