There is something about a wilderness story that makes everyday problems feel very far away.

No traffic. No overflowing inbox. No neighbor deciding that 7:00 on a Saturday morning is the perfect time to mow the lawn.

Of course, the trade-off may be a blizzard, wildfire, plane crash, murderer, missing supplies or the sudden realization that nobody knows where you are.

Wilderness fiction can go in a lot of directions. Some of these books are straight survival stories where nature is actively trying to kill everyone. Others are about people who deliberately choose remote lives, only to discover that isolation comes with problems of its own.

There are frozen mountains, remote cabins, wild rivers, marshlands, the Australian Outback and more than one trip that sounded like a perfectly reasonable vacation before everything went horribly wrong.

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When Nature Is the Biggest Threat

Sometimes there isn’t a murderer hiding behind a tree.

Sometimes the mountain is enough.

The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin

Ben Payne and Ashley Knox are strangers stranded at the airport by a blizzard when they decide to charter a small plane together.

That decision gets considerably worse when the plane crashes in the Utah wilderness.

Both are injured. They have limited supplies, no real shelter and no easy way to tell anyone where they are.

Days turn into weeks as they try to survive the freezing mountains and somehow find their way back to civilization.

There is a romance woven through this one, but first they have to deal with the much more immediate issue of not dying.

The River by Peter Heller

College friends Wynn and Jack set out to canoe a remote river in northern Canada.

Their original plan involves fishing, reading and enjoying the wilderness.

Then they notice smoke from a wildfire.

And hear a man and woman arguing through the fog.

When a man later appears alone, the trip becomes about considerably more than outrunning a forest fire.

The wilderness is already dangerous enough before you start wondering what the other people out there may have done.

Leave No Trace by Hannah Nyala

Tally Nowata knows how to survive in the mountains. She works in search and rescue.

Unfortunately, the Australian Outback is not her mountain.

When her boyfriend disappears after leaving to pick up his daughter, Tally eventually sets out to find them herself.

What she discovers changes the situation completely: he has been murdered, his daughter has been left to die and whoever did it may now be looking for them.

Tally has survival experience.

She just doesn’t have experience surviving here.

Last of the Breed by Louis L’Amour

U.S. Air Force Major Joe Mack is forced down over Russia and ends up escaping from a Soviet prison camp.

Getting out of the prison is only the beginning.

Now he has to cross the Siberian wilderness and somehow make his way toward the Bering Strait while Alekhin, a highly skilled tracker, hunts him.

It becomes a survival story and a pursuit at the same time, with two men trying to outthink one another across an environment that is perfectly capable of killing either of them first.

If frozen landscapes are your particular brand of misery, I also have a whole list of winter thriller and horror books for cold, dark nights.

Remote Cabins, Hidden Lives & Nowhere to Run

Living miles away from everybody sounds wonderfully peaceful.

Right up until you desperately need somebody.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

In 1974, Ernt Allbright moves his wife Cora and teenage daughter Leni to remote Alaska after returning home from the Vietnam War.

At first, the isolation feels like a chance to start over.

Then winter comes.

The family is poorly prepared for the brutal conditions, daylight disappears for much of the day and Ernt becomes increasingly volatile.

For Leni and Cora, surviving Alaska means dealing with the dangers outside their cabin and the danger living inside it.

This is one of those wilderness books where isolation magnifies everything.

There is nowhere to go when home stops feeling safe.

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant

Cooper and his daughter Finch have spent eight years living off the grid in a remote cabin in the Appalachian woods.

No electricity.

Very little contact with anyone else.

And that is exactly how Cooper wants it.

Only a couple of people even know where they are.

Then the friend who normally brings their yearly supplies doesn’t arrive.

A stranger appears in the woods.

And the careful little world Cooper has built begins coming apart.

This one has that particular kind of isolation where every new person feels like a threat because nobody was supposed to find you in the first place.

The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne

Helena Pelletier grew up in the remote marshlands of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Her father taught her how to track, hunt and survive there.

He was also the man who abducted her mother and held her captive.

Helena has spent years hiding that part of her life.

Then her father escapes from prison.

The police are hunting him, but Helena knows the marsh better than they do.

More importantly, she knows him.

Which means finding him may require using every skill he taught her.

That is one complicated father-daughter inheritance.

The Last One by Will Dean

Caz wakes up aboard a luxury cruise ship and discovers something deeply inconvenient.

Everybody else appears to be gone.

The ship is still floating.

The lights are still on.

But thousands of passengers and crew members have seemingly vanished.

Instead of being lost in the woods, Caz is stranded in the middle of the ocean on a ship that should be full of people.

And the more she searches for answers, the stranger the situation becomes.

If being trapped somewhere with no easy way out is what really gets you, try my list of thriller and horror books set in isolated locations next.

Wilderness Trips That Go Very Wrong

A hiking trip.

A rafting trip.

A wilderness course.

All perfectly normal recreational activities.

Probably.

The Hike by Lucy Clarke

Maggie, Liz, Helena and Joni head into the Norwegian wilderness for a hiking trip together.

They have years of friendship behind them, along with the usual collection of memories and secrets.

Then a body is discovered at the bottom of a ravine.

Now the beautiful mountains and forests are no longer just scenery.

Somewhere on the trail is someone who knows exactly why that woman died.

And the group still has to get back out.

Suddenly a cozy cabin would be nice.

The River at Night by Erica Ferencik

Four longtime friends head into the remote Maine wilderness for a whitewater rafting trip.

The kind of trip that is supposed to make everyone feel adventurous and alive.

Instead, things go badly wrong.

Far from help and dealing with an increasingly dangerous environment, the women are forced into a fight for survival that becomes much bigger than navigating the river.

This is the kind of vacation that makes sitting beside the hotel pool look severely underrated.

Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

A year after her divorce, Helen Carpenter signs up for a three-week wilderness survival course.

She is hoping for something transformative.

She gets mosquitoes, a summer blizzard, difficult people and her younger brother’s irritating best friend.

So, transformation. Just not necessarily the peaceful kind.

Helen may not have a murderer chasing her through the woods, but mosquitoes, a summer blizzard and three weeks of wilderness survival are plenty.

Sometimes surviving the wilderness means discovering you are capable of considerably more than you thought.

Force of Nature by Jane Harper

Five women head into the Australian bush for a corporate retreat.

Only four come back.

The missing woman had secrets of her own, and investigators Aaron Falk and Carmen Cooper have to figure out what happened during the trip.

Remote wilderness.

Coworkers who may not particularly like one another.

No easy way to leave.

I cannot imagine why this team-building exercise failed.

Life at the Edge of Civilization

Not every wilderness book begins with someone getting lost.

Sometimes people choose to live far away from everything.

Which comes with its own set of complications.

The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker

Calla Fletcher grew up in Toronto after her mother left Alaska when Calla was very young.

When she learns that her father is seriously ill, she returns to the remote place where she was born.

Alaska is not exactly thrilled to meet her.

The isolation, wildlife, strange daylight hours and extremely rural lifestyle are about as far from Calla’s normal life as she can get.

Then there is Jonah, the stubborn Alaskan pilot who is convinced she won’t last.

Naturally, Calla would now like to prove him wrong.

Preferably while still having indoor plumbing.

Mrs. Mike by Benedict Freedman and Nancy Freedman

Katherine Mary O’Fallon leaves Boston and heads to Canada as a teenager, eventually building a life with Mike Flannigan of the Canadian Mounted Police.

Their life together is shaped by a place where distance, weather and isolation can turn an ordinary problem into something much bigger.

Building a life there asks a lot from both of them.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Buck begins his life as a comfortable California house dog.

Then he is stolen and sold into the brutal world of the Klondike Gold Rush.

Suddenly survival depends on strength, instinct and learning very quickly how this new world works.

As Buck changes owners and encounters both cruelty and kindness, the wilderness gradually pulls him farther from the domesticated life he once knew.

Perhaps the only book here where becoming more feral is arguably character development.

A Few Extras for Reading About the Wilderness From Somewhere Safe

After fifteen books involving blizzards, wild rivers, remote cabins and people who really should have reconsidered their travel plans, I am perfectly happy experiencing the wilderness through a book.

Preferably with snacks.

Books Coffee Tumbler

A 20-ounce bookish tumbler works for coffee at home, road trips or pretending you’re outdoorsy while reading about people doing considerably more strenuous things.

The important thing is that your drink stays nearby while everybody in the book struggles for survival.

Priorities.

Green Leaf Pattern Waterproof Book Sleeve

A waterproof book sleeve feels especially appropriate for a reading list full of rivers, storms, hiking trails and people making questionable decisions in the wilderness.

The leafy pattern fits the theme, and the zipper pouch helps protect a paperback when you’re carrying it around in a tote, backpack or travel bag.

Foldable Wooden Triangle Book Holder with Cup Holder

This foldable wooden book holder has space for your book and your drink, which feels like the civilized answer to wilderness reading.

Set everything down, get comfortable and enjoy the outdoors from the side of the story where nobody has to build an emergency shelter.

Final Thoughts

Wilderness fiction works because isolation changes the rules.

A problem that would be manageable in town becomes much bigger when the nearest help is miles away. Weather matters. Supplies matter. Other people matter.

And sometimes the most dangerous thing in the wilderness isn’t the wilderness at all.

Whether you want a brutal survival story, a remote mystery or something quieter about building a life far from civilization, these books all offer one thing I appreciate very much:

They let me experience the wild without actually having to sleep on the ground.

And if your preferred version of danger comes with sunscreen instead of snow boots, head over to my thriller beach reads for beach and cruise vacations next.

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