Books like Down in New Orleans by Heather Graham

Alice Walker's 1982 novel, The Color Purple, won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, exploring the lives of black women in the South and their experiences of abuse and struggle for independence.

After a May 1981 shooting in Savannah, John Berendt chronicles the city’s eccentric society, a murder trial, and the undercurrents of Southern culture in a nonfiction narrative that reads like a taut novel.

Richard, Duke of Cleybourne, returns to his country estate to deal with the tragic loss he had suffered four years earlier. But the arrival of Miss Jessica Maitland and Gabriella, his new ward, throws a wrench into his plans. The governess, feisty and flame-haired, reveals that the girl is in danger, and the mysterious events escalate into a murder mystery at Cleybourne Castle.

Eloise "Weezie" Foley, a spunky antiques picker in Savannah, faces a spate of murder, unexpected romance and a budding love affair with a local chef while navigating her divorce and a crafty new fiancé.

Fiona Burkenhalter, a rising corporate executive, is thrust into the Florida Everglades for a fishing trip with a wealthy client, where a murder suspect status and a rugged guide ignite danger, romance, and intrigue.

A television anchorwoman's glamorous career leads her to a Napa Valley winery, where secrets, ambition, and a deadly battle over a wine dynasty threaten her peace and passion.

NEW ORLEANS... the cotton kingdom's capital of splendor and sensuality on the eve of the Civil War, where great families ruled, beautiful women were revered, fortunes were made on the turn of a card, and lives were ended with the thrust of a dueling sword. NEW ORLEANS... where handsome, rugged Rafferty O'Brien came to snake his fortune with his raw strength and iron will...where elegant aristocrat Lazare Galliard reveled in the power of his birth and the passions of the flesh...and where exquisite, blue-blooded heiress Chantal Thierrie had to choose between a man who offered her everything she had ever wanted and a man who led her to ecstasy beyond her wildest dreams. NEW ORLEANS... the stormy, spellbinding saga set in the most romantic city in America, at a time when drama and passion set the world on tire.

A Victorian-era mystery novel set against the backdrop of World War I, where the arrival of a new servant triggers a series of events leading to murder and the discovery of historical letters.