Florida isn’t just beaches and theme parks; it’s a place that sparks incredible stories. You find everything here – steamy swamps, energetic cities like Miami, quiet islands, and characters that jump right off the page.
Authors have set all sorts of tales in the Sunshine State, from detective mysteries sweating under the southern sun to stories about finding yourself in the middle of nowhere.
Here are 26 novels that really capture the feel of Florida’s different places and its complex personality.
Imagine nuclear war hits America. This classic story shows what happens next in the small, fictional Florida town of Fort Repose. Society breaks down, and Randy Bragg has to figure out how his community can survive.
It’s a tense look at ordinary life turned upside down in a quiet Southern spot.
This book mixes raw words and photos to show you South Florida adolescence in the 1990s. A teenager drifts through a world filled with drugs and a feeling of not belonging. He searches for something meaningful in the humid, swampy environment that is both beautiful and decaying.
This historical epic follows the MacIvey family across three generations. They start in the 1800s when Florida was wild frontier country and build a cattle and citrus empire.
You see the incredible effort and toughness it took to carve out a life, and you also see how things changed as Florida became more modern.
Tom Wolfe throws you right into Miami’s diverse mix of cultures, which often collide. The story revolves around Nestor Camacho, a young Cuban-American cop who suddenly becomes famous.
The book explores immigration, identity, money, and power through Miami’s different groups, from the art world to distinct neighborhoods.
Carl Hiaasen delivers his signature satirical crime style here. Andrew Yancy is a disgraced detective working as a health inspector in the Florida Keys.
He finds a severed arm while fishing, which pulls him into a mystery full of corrupt developers, truly strange locals, and environmental absurdity. It’s dark humor soaked in Florida weirdness.
This one is pure Miami chaos, sparked by a teenage prank that escalates wildly. Picture a suitcase bomb, clueless hitmen, a dog that enjoys vodka, and many other odd characters. Smuggling, the FBI, and general mayhem follow. It perfectly captures South Florida’s frantic energy.
This book became the movie "Big Trouble" (2002), directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring Tim Allen, Rene Russo, and Dennis Farina.
Someone steals priceless F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from Princeton University. The investigation leads to Bruce Cable, a popular bookseller on a fictional Florida island known for its literary scene.
A writer named Mercer Mann needs money, so she agrees to go undercover and get close to Cable. It’s a suspenseful heist story mixed with the appeal of a beach town full of book lovers.
This novel explores the connected lives of people in Miami’s vibrant Coconut Grove neighborhood. You get a feel for their passions and struggles. It offers a look into the community’s charm, its problems, and its lively nightlife.
Meet Dexter Morgan. He works for the Miami Police as a blood-spatter analyst, but at night, he’s a careful serial killer who only targets other murderers. This chilling book gets inside Dexter’s head as he struggles with his “Dark Passenger” and follows his strict code.
He hunts a new killer in Miami whose methods seem disturbingly familiar. This became the basis for the hit TV show "Dexter" (2006-2013).
Edgar Freemantle moves to the quiet, remote island of Duma Key off Florida’s Gulf coast after a terrible accident. He starts painting and discovers a surprising talent. Soon, his artwork seems connected to sinister forces on the island.
Buried secrets and supernatural dangers begin to surface.
Get ready for a wild ride across Florida with Serge Storms, a history-obsessed maniac, and his always-stoned friend, Coleman. This crime novel is pure chaos, full of crazy situations, stolen drug money, crooked politicians, and bizarre people.
Serge’s unpredictable road trip shows off the state’s quirky side.
Joe LaBrava used to be in the Secret Service; now he takes photos in South Beach, Miami. He meets a former movie star who is caught up in a dangerous con. Leonard’s sharp dialogue shines here.
The story has the heat and tension of South Florida, complete with grifters, mobsters, and stolen cash.
This story unfolds in the Florida Keys. It examines the tension between developing the land and preserving its natural state through the eyes of a developer named Carter. He wrestles with his own ambitions while surrounded by the beauty of Matecumbe Key.
The book paints a vivid picture of the unique islands and the conflict between progress and nature.
Jackie Burke is a flight attendant. She gets busted smuggling cash for Ordell Robbie, an arms dealer. Now she’s trapped between the police and the dangerous Ordell. Jackie has to come up with a smart plan just to stay alive.
This South Florida crime story is full of double-crosses, quick dialogue, and desperate people. Quentin Tarantino adapted this into the 1997 movie "Jackie Brown," starring Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, and Robert Forster.
This epic book dives into the life of E.J. Watson, a real planter in the Florida Everglades who was mysteriously killed by his own neighbors around 1910. Matthiessen uses different viewpoints to explore the rumors and myths about Watson’s violent life.
The wild, haunting landscape of the Ten Thousand Islands is almost a character itself.
Twilly Spree is an environmentalist with unconventional methods. When he sees lobbyist Palmer Stoat throw trash from his car, Twilly decides to teach him a lesson. This sets off a chain reaction of hilarious, eco-focused chaos across Florida.
Expect dognapping, corrupt politicians trying to pave paradise, and bizarre plots in Hiaasen’s typical witty style.
In the Florida Everglades, the Bigtree family runs an alligator-wrestling theme park called Swamplandia! Their world falls apart after the mother, the star performer, dies.
Young Ava sets off on a dreamlike quest through the swamp to find her sister, who has run off with a strange man from the Underworld. Ava meets odd characters and faces unsettling magic along the way.
Twelve-year-old Paul Fisher moves with his family to Tangerine County, Florida. Strange things happen there, like underground muck fires that burn for months and sudden sinkholes. Paul is legally blind but sees more than most people realize.
He deals with middle school, a tense relationship with his football-star older brother, and discovers disturbing truths about his family and the town.
Three former judges are doing time in a minimum-security Florida prison. They cook up an elaborate blackmail scheme that targets wealthy, closeted gay men through personal ads.
Their scam works perfectly until they accidentally hook a very powerful man in Washington with CIA connections. Suddenly, they are players in a dangerous political game.
This is the first book with Travis McGee, the iconic “salvage consultant.” He lives on his houseboat, The Busted Flush, in Fort Lauderdale and helps people recover stolen property for half its value.
In this adventure, he helps Cathy Kerr get back treasure her manipulative ex-boyfriend took from her. McGee finds darkness beneath the sunny Florida surface.
This powerful novel won a Pulitzer Prize. It’s based on the true story of the horrible Dozier School for Boys. Elwood Curtis is a smart Black teenager in 1960s Florida with a bright future, but he is unfairly sent to the Nickel Academy.
Inside, he faces constant abuse and cruelty. Elwood holds onto Martin Luther King Jr.'s ideals and forms a vital friendship with another boy, Turner, as they try to survive.
This sweet children’s story is set in Depression-era Florida. A little girl named Calpurnia hears about a mythical “secret river” full of fish. She bravely goes looking for it with her dog, Buggy-horse, because she hopes to find food and help her poor family.
It’s a story about courage set against Florida’s beautiful natural world.
This beloved classic won a Pulitzer Prize. It tells the story of Jody Baxter, a boy who lives in the tough Florida scrubland in the late 1800s. Jody feels lonely until he adopts an orphaned fawn he names Flag.
Their bond teaches Jody deep lessons about love, loss, responsibility, and the wild nature that shapes his path to growing up.
A landmark novel from the Harlem Renaissance. It follows Janie Crawford as she searches for herself through three different marriages and various life turns in early 20th-century Florida.
The story unfolds partly in Eatonville, one of America’s first incorporated Black towns, and later in the Everglades during a hurricane. It’s a profound story about Black female identity, love, and finding independence.
Set in Key West and Cuba during the Great Depression, this stark book follows Harry Morgan. He owns a fishing boat but is forced into running contraband and people between Cuba and Florida to feed his family.
Hemingway looks hard at the gap between rich and poor, desperation, and the tough choices people make in a harsh world.
This charming middle-grade novel takes place during the Great Depression. Eleven-year-old Turtle is sent from New Jersey to live with her aunt and cousins in Key West, Florida – relatives she doesn’t even know. She finds Key West is nothing like she imagined.
It’s full of barefoot boys known as the “Diaper Gang” (her cousins!), talk of hidden treasure, and the unique atmosphere of the 1930s Florida Keys.