Sometimes what I read is very much tied to the place, and to recall the story is actually to transport myself back in time to the location.
For example:
Mrs. Dalloway takes me back to the time I visited my brother in Japan. There we are in Kyoto. There we are on a train to Nara to see the white castle, and I’m reading about Virginia Woolf’s Clarissa and Septimus.
Jamaica Inn and I’m back at my AirBnB in Mexico City. I can see the spine of Daphne du Maurier’s thriller on the shelf, and as I love her work, I pick it up. From my view, I can see the cars snarled about the roundabout outside, but I’m in Cornwall with Mary, trying to figure out what exact criminal trade her uncle is about.
Dracula brings me back to Japan, too. It’s my first Halloween in a foreign country, and I stay up past midnight to read about Jonathan Harker’s escape from the vampire castle. It was chilling!
Skeletons at the Feast is a WWII novel by Chris Bohjalian from the perspective of Prussian refugees fleeing the Russian army. But it takes me back to my 20s when I was a book editor. Because so much of my brain was taken up with creating words for others, I would get up at 6 am to read creative fiction in peace and quiet. It created an oasis that helped me get through the day.
Any books like that for you?