Select language, opens an overlay
  • Topic Guide
  • Staff-Created List

Seattle Picks: Seattle Fiction

Take a trip through the many stories of Seattle with a variety of adult fiction books selected by our librarians, primarily published in the past five years plus some contemporary classics. (September 2022)

The Seattle Public Library

19 items

  • Free-spirited astrologer Elle and buttoned-up actuary Darcy go on a disastrous date but agree to pretend they’re dating to make it through the holidays, finding that opposites really do attract.
    BookNew York, NY : Avon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2020] — FIC BELLEFLEUR 2020
  • Pepper Reece has her hands full running the Spice Shop in Pike Place Market, but finds herself investigating the shooting of a childhood friend which is tied to another unsolved murder.
    BookHoboken, NJ : Seventh Street Books, 2020. — MYSTERY BUDEWIT 2020
  • A strange plague has hit teenagers in Burns’ horror graphic novel set in Seattle's Roosevelt and Ravenna neighborhoods in the 1970s. Originally published as a series of 12 comic books.
    BookNew York : Pantheon Books, 2005. — 741.5973 B9372B 2005
  • A northeast Seattle crow, armed with a TV education and a canine pal named Dennis, may be the one to save humanity from extinction. Finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor.
    BookNew York : Grand Central Publishing, 2019. — FIC BUXTON 2019
  • Seattle in 1929 is a city full of magic. Dolly White, hired as a companion for the daughter of the Commissioner of Magi, enacts a plan to take down the corrupt and powerful Order of Saint Michael.
    BookNew York, NY : Tordotcom, a Tom Doherty Associates book, 2022. — SCI-FIC DEEDS 2022
  • When renovations at a Seattle hotel reveal a basement full of stored items from Japanese Americans sent to internment camps during World War II, Chinese American Henry remembers his childhood friendship with Japanese American Keiko.
    BookNew York : Ballantine Books, 2009, 2019. — FIC FORD 2009
  • A big, brave, messy modern family adapts to raising a transgender daughter.
    BookNew York : Flatiron Books, 2017. — FIC FRANKEL 2017
  • Gussy tries to keep his dog biscuit business going amidst Covid anxiety, police brutality, dating apps and the loneliness of lockdown during the summer of 2020 in this graphic novel.
    Graphic NovelSeattle, Washington : Fantagraphics Books Inc., [2022] — 741.5973 G7601D 2022
  • In this examination of justice and injustice, a Seattle attorney takes on the fraught case of white adoptive parents of a young girl born in Ethiopia charged with her murder.
    BookNew York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2022. — FIC GUTERSO 2022
  • Walk, Don't Run

    Growing Up Asian in Seattle

    Hom, Dale,
    In 1961, Chinese American Wallace has just finished fifth grade and is looking forward to summer, a time that will find him exploring beyond his familiar Beacon Hill and International District neighborhoods.
    Graphic NovelUnited States : Dale Hom, [2016] — 741.5973 H75W 2016
  • After a fall from grace, Lane Bueche returns to his childhood home in Lake City and is pulled into a dubious scheme to regain what he has lost.
    BookBerkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2019. — FIC KOHNSTA 2019
  • Roger Morgan, running for Seattle Mayor in 2001, risks having past misdeeds made public when journalist Helen Gulanos probes Morgan’s shady dealings during the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle.
    BookNew York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. — FIC LYNCH 2012
  • Sent to prison for refusing the World War II draft, Japanese American Ichiro returns to Seattle after the war and faces hostility from family and community. A reprint of Okada’s 1957 classic.
    BookSeattle : University of Washington Press, 2014. — FIC OKADA 2014
  • A teacher turned amateur investigator, a missing go-go dancer, a bulldog, and Seattle’s gay community combine in this cozy mystery.
    BookNew York : Crooked Lane, 2022. — MYSTERY OSLER 2022
  • Psychic travel agent Leda Foley saves detective Grady Merritt from boarding a plane that explodes, inspiring Grady to ask for Leda’s help with a case.
    BookNew York : Atria Books, 2021. — MYSTERY PRIEST 2021
  • Emails and school reports chronicle Bernadette’s descent into agoraphobia, fights with fellow private-school mothers, exasperated disdain for Seattle, and disappearance in this humorous novel.
    BookNew York : Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, 2013. — FIC SEMPLE 2013
  • Jumping at a chance to be on air, public radio producer Shay Goldstein and hotshot rookie journalist Dominic Yun fake a relationship for a new show giving dating advice, only for real sparks to start flying between them.
    BookNew York : Jove, 2021. — FIC SOLOMON 2021