Books like Once upon a river by Bonnie Jo Campbell

The beloved classic of American literature, Little Women, narrates the adventures of four March sisters as they grow up during the Civil War era.

Tsukuru Tazaki, a quiet railway engineer, embarks on a lonely journey to reunite with high‑school friends, seeking answers for his sudden ostracism and the shadowed past that still haunts him.

Sixteen‑year‑old Ree Dolly of rural Missouri must track her fugitive father through the harsh Ozark landscape before his missing‑court‑date threatens the family’s home.

When a child's body reanimates upon arrival at an ancient Thames inn, three families vie to claim her, setting off a perilous mystery of death, secrecy, and survival.

Seventeenth‑year‑old Novalee Nation, seven months pregnant, is stranded in a Walmart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, with barely $7.77. A quirky, caring community—including Sister Thelma Husband and librarian Forney Hull—offers her unexpected support and a chance for hope.

Turtle Alveston, a fourteen‑year‑old survivor of a painful home life, finds hope when she meets Jacob, a wholesome high‑school boy who invites her into a world beyond the wilderness and her abusive father.

In the remote Allagash Wilderness of Maine, four friends are stranded after a white‑water rafting accident. With nightfall, a mysterious camp beckons, and hidden secrets test their bonds as they fight to survive.

A compelling tale of resilience, imagination, and the power of storytelling through the eyes of a young orphan from a war-torn island and his new found love of reading, as he discovers the magic of adventure and the strength of the human spirit.

After World War I, Inspector John Madden investigates a brutal murder in a quiet village, using the emerging science of criminal psychology to unravel a serial killer’s plans.

In Idaho’s Salmon River Canyon, Hattie Clark mourns her husband's death while caring for runaway Toby. Together with her neighbor Afton McCabe, they confront nature’s dangers to protect the boy and seek hope for a new future.

A London waterman sentenced to New South Wales faces the ultimate decision when he is transported as a convict, forcing him to confront themes of love, identity and belonging in the harsh early colonial landscape.

After decades living as her dead twin, Celeste must confront her hidden past and protect her daughter when her controlling mother remarries, unleashing new threats that demand her survival.

TORMENTING PASSION Trudging through a raging snowstorm with a foundling child in his arms, Daniel LeClerc thought the lights twinkling in the distance must be a mirage. But when he reached the ramshackle cabin, the door was opened by a beautiful, blonde angel -- surrounded by her own passel of orphaned children! While he knew that the "second sight" which plagued him made him unfit for any woman, Daniel couldn't resist taking Elizabeth Spurlin up on her offer of shelter within her simple home. Yet each moment Daniel spent there was an agony of temptation and torment, for the lovely Elizabeth attracted him as no one ever had -- and he longed only to make her his own... IRRESISTIBLE DESIRE Unwanted and unloved, Elizabeth had long ago vowed to give other children the warmth and care she'd never known. And though the living conditions outside the Hawthorne, Indiana were primitive at best, she couldn't bear to turn away the red-haired, snow-covered giant of a man who'd just arrived with one more child. Elizabeth never meant to open her heart to him, for she feared the enigmatic wanderer would soon be on his way. Yet she couldn't resist Daniel's tender embrace and, with his first stirring kiss, found herself swept away on rising tides of a a tempestuous passion she could not deny!

In 1819 Arkansas, Amy Deverell follows Rain Tallman onto the frontier, where love and survival intertwine amid the American wilderness.

Marlena follows two fifteen‑year‑old Michigan girls whose friendship spirals into addiction and loss, leaving one dead and the other haunted for decades.