LCLCPL - Fiction of Old Florida

F Arg
Canaveral Light by Don Argo. A novel about the struggle of early Florida pioneers to live in harmony with the land and its native people [1837-1873].

F Bla
Red Grass River: A Legend by James Blake. A powerful historical saga of family loyalties and frontier spirit set against the infamous development and despoilation of the Everglades and the Chicago mob's invasion of the rich bootleg liquor market. Family loyalties, feral mysticism and the inexorable erosion of a way of life are grandly imagined in this vivid saga of a freewheeling past.

F Dou
Nine Florida Stories by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas [Additional Copies]. The nine stories in this first collection are satisfyingly diverse in plot and theme and take place in a scattering of South Florida settings -- Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, the Tamiami Trail, the Keys, Hillsboro Inlet, the Everglades. In among the drama of hurricanes and plane crashes, of kidnappers, escaped convicts, and smugglers, Douglas plants flags that mark the stories as her own: plume hunters who threaten Florida's ibises, irrational schemes to drain the Everglades, what happens when human beings collide with nature in the form of water, weather, or wildlife. A River in Flood provides more stories of Florida and its colorful characters.

F Gea
People of the Lightning by Kathleen Gear. An epic romance about the Windover people who lived in Florida 8000 years ago.

F Gol
In Florida’s Dawn by P. D. Gold. The first Huguenots to leave France seeking freedom from persecution had done so under the leadership of Jean Ribault in 1562. The group ended up establishing the small colony of Fort Caroline in 1564, on the banks of the St. Johns River, in what is today Jacksonville, Florida. The colony was the first attempt at any permanent European settlement in the present-day continental United States, but the group survived only a short time. In September 1565, an attack against the new Spanish colony at St. Augustine backfired, and the Spanish wiped out the Fort Caroline garrison.

PB F Gra
Triumph cover art

An historical family saga of the McKenzie clan set around the Civil War ...by Heather Graham.

F Gra
Lee Gramling introduced Cracker Westerns...with cracklin action; authentic historical details; real bad guys and tough, upright good guys. Trail from St. Augusting cover art

F Hal
The Great Tide by Rubylea Hall. The story of a boom-town Gulf port, and plantation life in the 1830’s.

F Hud
The Apalachee by Joyce Hudson. The early 18th century, in which the story is set, shows the Apalachee have been greatly reduced by disease and other dislocations brought by the Spanish invaders. Besides sicknesses against which the Indians had no natural defenses, the Europeans also brought another influence, Christianity. The new religion has had devastating effects upon the tribe, undermining traditional culture and dividing family members against each other.
Cold Before Morning cover art

F Jon
Cold Before Morning : a Heart-Warming Novel About a Florida Pioneer Family by John Paul Jones. This story of the struggles of pioneers through wars and epidemics is based on the author’s ancestors.

F Mar
Freedom Land by Marcus Martin. The story of the only Indian war the federal government ever lost: the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), in which the Seminoles and runaway slaves (called Maroons) united to preserve their freedom in the Florida Everglades. Marcus's fictional hero is Billy Powell, the son of a British officer and a Creek Indian who's been wrongly accused of murder. He flees to Freedom Land, a Florida sanctuary for runaway slaves on Seminole territory. Powell gets involved in the battles, which are led by Osceola, the chief of the Seminoles, and Abraham, leader of the Maroons, a freed slave who inspires the troops with his vision of slavery's end.

F Mat
Shadow Country : a New Rendering of the Watson Legend by Peter Matthiessen. Set in the Ten Thousand Islands, this was originally an Everglades trilogy. Three novels, combined to re-imagine the legendary life of one man, Edgar J. Watson, a rancorous, real-life sugar-cane planter. But Mr. Watson's story told the larger truth about the ruthless men who came to Florida at the onset of the 20th century and set off an orgy of wanton destruction in the pursuit of commerce. The new version is considered very well done, but each novel is still available separately...

F May
Miami: a Saga by Evelyn Mayerson. A lively drama about the founding and evolution of Miami. Spanning the years between 1886 and the arrival of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the novel chronicles the fortunes of five generations of five families peopled with an assortment of spirited characters.

F Nor
Moonshine Express by Rod Norville. A moonshine ring increases the dangers of the Florida swamp.

F Pra
Theodore Pratt starts with the first mailman who walked along the beach, this trilogy goes on to tell the story of Henry M. Flagler and the famous hotel, Royal Poincian. The Barefoot Mailman [Fiftieth Anniversary Edition], [War Edition], [LT]; The Flame Tree, and The Big Bubble. Also includes, a collection of short stories, Florida Roundabout.

F Pri
Eugenia Price set this Florida trilogy in 1700’s St. Augustine. Maria [LT] The spirited story of Mary Evans, an extraordinary woman from colonial Charles Town who finds a place for herself in St. Augustine after Spain relinquishes Florida. Don Juan McQueen [LT] is the second book in the Florida Trilogy and finds a bold woman waiting for her only love by the light of the Georgia moon... and Margaret’s Story [LT], features young and headstrong Margaret Seton, who vows to win the heart of grieving widower Lewis Fleming. Their resulting love story plays out against dangerous and tumultuous times and spans almost half a century.

F Raw
The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's American classic and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is the story of young Jody Baxter's coming of age in the big scrub country which is now the Ocala National Forest.

F Rud
Potluck by Jack Rudloe. It's a good yarn of adventure on the high seas, dodging pirates, the Colombian Navy, the U. S. Coast Guard, and the Florida Marine Patrol. The guy who runs Posey's in St. Marks told Rudloe, "I know all the characters in this book-- including the ones you invented."

F Smi
Patrick Smith has become Florida's writer and historian. Here are a few of his wonderful stories of Florida. A Land Remembered is a rich, rugged story of the American pioneer spirit involving three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family battling the hardships of the frontier. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias and Emma MacIvey arrive in the Florida wilderness with their son, Zech, to start a new life, and ends in 1968 with Forever Island and Allapatta cover art

Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that his wealth has not been worth the cost to the land. Available on [CD-BOOK], [AudioCassette], and a two part Student edition. We also have this book in a Traveling Book Club Kit. Forever Island tells the story of Charlie Jumper, an old Seminole Indian who clings to the ancient ways and teaches them to his grandson. When their simple swamp existence is threatened by a development corporation, Charlie decides to fight back. Allapatah is the story of a young Seminole in despair in the white man's world. "Allapattah" means crocodile, a creature that becomes Toby Tiger's obsession and that he must wrestle to set himself free.

F Tho
Homestead by Betsy Bishop Thomas. an intimate look at the struggles and triumphs of people living in rural Northwest Florida in the late 1800s. With no conveniences at their rustic, hand-bui Guns of the Palmetto Plains cover art

lt homes, and with outside communication only by horse riders or the firing of a gun to indicate an emergency, people turned inward - relying on their families almost entirely.

F Ton
Guns of the palmetto plains by Rick Tonya. Cattle from Florida are needed to save the South from starvation. Men like Tree Hooker, tough as alligator hide and quick with gun, knife, or whip, reckon with Union forces and renegades when they take on the job of driving the herds.