Best Books Set in North Dakota

Every state is known for something. As you work your way through the list, don't miss the best books set in North Dakota.

North Dakota is a midwestern U.S. state dominated by the Great Plains. Its eastern city of Fargo showcases Native American and modern art at the Plains Art Museum. The area's immigrant history is honored at the Scandinavian Heritage Association in the city of Minot. The Great Plains give way to the rugged Badlands near the border with Montana, where Theodore Roosevelt National Park spans the Little Missouri River.

In this post:

The Night Watchman: Pulitzer Prize Winning Fiction

Amazon Kindle Edition
Erdrich, Louise (Author)

The Night Watchman

Author: Louise Erdrich

Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.

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Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel-bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation” bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress.

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Dakota Trilogy box set: Dakota Born; Dakota Home; Always Dakota

book series
book set

The Dakota Trilogy

Author: Debbie Macomber

Debbie Macomber is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and one of today’s most popular writers with more than 200 million copies of her books in print worldwide. In her novels, Macomber brings to life compelling relationships that embrace family and enduring friendships, uplifting her readers with stories of connection and hope. Macomber’s novels have spent over 1,000 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Fifteen of these novels hit the number-one spot.

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The Grass Dancer

Power, Susan (Author)
English (Publication Language)

The Grass Dancer

Author: Susan Power

Inspired by the lore of her Sioux heritage, this “captivating”(New York Times Book Review) critically-acclaimed novel from Susan Power weaves the stories of the old and the young, of broken families, romantic rivals, men and women in love and at war…

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Set on a North Dakota reservation, The Grass Dancer reveals the harsh price of unfulfilled longings and the healing power of mystery and hope. Rich with drama and infused with the magic of the everyday, it takes readers on a journey through both past and present—in a tale as resonant and haunting as an ancestor's memory, and as promising as a child's dream.

The C.J. Box Highway Quartet Collection: Back of Beyond; The Highway; Badlands; Paradise Valley (Cassie Dewell Novels)

Amazon Kindle Edition
Box, C.J. (Author)

Paradise Valley

Author: C.J. Box

Here together in a convenient ebook bundle, the four thrilling mysteries in the Highway Quartet Collection from Edgar Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author C.J. Box

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Downtown Owl: A Novel

Klosterman, Chuck (Author)
English (Publication Language)

Downtown Owl

Author: Chuck Klosterman

Somewhere in rural North Dakota, there is a fictional town called Owl. They don’t have cable. They don’t really have pop culture, but they do have grain prices and alcoholism. People work hard and then they die. But that’s not nearly as awful as it sounds; in fact, sometimes it’s perfect. Mitch Hrlicka lives in Owl.

He plays high school football and worries about his weirdness, or lack thereof. Julia Rabia just moved to Owl. A history teacher, she gets free booze and falls in love with a self-loathing bison farmer. Widower and local conversationalist Horace Jones has resided in Owl for seventy-three years.

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