About

Please note: Read North Carolina Novels is currently on hiatus. We are not adding new novels to the blog.

In its original form, the Read North Carolina Novels website included only novels set in North Carolina that were readily available in bookstores or libraries.  The site was meant to help readers identify novels set in the state that they could easily obtain for their own reading pleasure.

This blog eventually took on a broader scope.  It included novels by the full range of publishing houses, and even self-published novels as we became aware of those works.  We added information on older novels set in North Carolina so that the blog could function as a source of information on North Carolina novels across the decades.  To do that, we relied on William S. Powell’s North Carolina Fiction, 1734-1957 and Thomas W. Broadfoot’s North Carolina Fiction, 1958-1971.  As time permitted, we linked the bibliographic information on the books in the blog to electronic versions of the novels, so that readers could read their novels online.

This blog owes its existence to Nick Graham and Jill Wagy, who created the website Read North Carolina Novels in 2005.  As Nick and Jill were leaving the North Carolina Collection for new positions, they recommended that the website be converted to a blog.  Jenny McElroy did the work to accomplish that conversion; she is also responsible for many of the entries.  Other bloggers who contributed to to the site are: Bridget Madden, Lucy Peaden, Elizabeth DeBold, and Jency Williams, Kristen Bowen, and Eileen McGrath.

Let us help you find novels set in this great state!  Use the categories and tags to the right to get to the authors and types of novels that you like.  Tags let you zero in on specific topics that interest you and date ranges can help you explore works that were published in earlier times.  All the novels listed on the site are available in the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  For many, but not all, of the titles the North Carolina Collection has copies that can circulate to individuals and other libraries.

We now have information on over 1,200 novels.  We welcome your suggestions of books to add to our list.  Please post your comments to the blog, or contact: John Blythe at blythej at email.unc.edu or 919.962.1172. For the library’s policy on comments click here.

A note about privacy:

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20 Responses to About

  1. Thank you for providing a summary of my novel, Catbird (published by Permanent Press). I have one other book set in North Carolina–Armadillo, winner of the Texas Review Press Prize in the Novella (also known as the Clay Reynolds Prize). Armadillo, set in Eastern N.C., was published in 2003 by Texas Review Press. (My other two books, a novel and a collection of stories, have Southern settings but aren’t clearly set in N.C.

    Best, Stephen

  2. This is a terrific website and library service. I linked to your review of Chris Cavender’s A Slice of Murder and will put your site on our Del.icio.us feed so readers of our blog can bookmark it too.
    Thanks,
    NJ Librarian

  3. Betty J. Vaughn

    My novel, Muddy Waters, just published by Whitmore Publishing, fits the profile of what you are featuring. I was born in Kinston, live now in Raleigh. The novel is set during the Civil War in New Bern and Lenoir Co. It features many peripheral characters that actually lived in the area at the time.

  4. Thank you so much for featuring my novel, The Book of Obeah. 🙂

    I hope your readers will enjoy the story.

    Sandra C-S

  5. Joyce

    I am looking for a book I think is called Destiny’ Children written by an author around the Watha NC area. I do not know their name. Also I did not see Willie Tee’s, Winds of Destiny on your list.

  6. Eileen McGrath

    Thank you for bringing Willie Tee’s The Winds of Destiny to our attention. We will try to get it for our collection and then make a post on it for this blog. Tell me a little bit more about Destiny’s Children (Is it a novel? Where is it set? What was the plot or theme? How recently was it published?) and we’ll try to run it down.

  7. Thank you very much for including my novel, White Seed: The Untold Story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. And I loved the review!

  8. Alison Pratt

    What a surprise to find a book review of my book, A Murder Before Eden. “Head-scratcher”– we’ve been trying to figure out this mystery since 1947. Your review was a great summary; thanks for writing it!

  9. Thank you for including my novel, Through the Heart of the South, in this blog. More than that, thank you for expanding the blog’s scope to include self-published works. The business of traditional book publishing today is shrinking opportunities for new writers even as new self-publishing technology expands them. Without blogs like this one, the opportunities for self-published storytellers to connect with story lovers are limited, and writers and readers both lose.

  10. I own and operate a general store in Avon, Hatters Island, NC and sell a selection of local interest books. I would like to sell Paul Clayton book White Seed, The untold story of the lost colony of Roanoke .
    Could you give me the contact information to be able to buy it as a retail store. Thank you.
    Dolores

  11. Elizabeth DeBold

    Hi Ms. Scott,

    Thanks for reading! I believe that White Seed can be purchased on Amazon in paperback at http://www.amazon.com/White-Seed-Untold-Colony-Roanoke/dp/1434851648. It doesn’t seem to be available many other places, unfortunately. The author mentions on the post for this book that it is available through CreateSpace, which is Amazon’s self-publishing company, but I think this just means that it is available through Amazon. I hope this helps!

    Sincerely,
    Elizabeth

  12. Thanks reader for mentioning my memoir, The Winds of Destiny in this blog. I am the author, Willie Tee and my books, including The Keepers of the Secret can be purchased at http://www.authorsden.com/willietee or at amazon.com or through any bookstore via Lightning Source. My book is about my family’s secret and the setting is near Wilmiongton, NC, rural New hanover County.

  13. Samantha Chase novella “The Christmas Cottage” is set in the mountains of North Carolina, Raleigh, and a reference to Biltmore. She is soon to release the sequel Novella “Ever After” in March 2013. The Christmas Cottage is available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Nobles, and also locally in Wake Forest, NC at The Storytellers Book Store, in downtown Wake Forest.

  14. Eileen McGrath

    Thank you for this information. We will look into getting Ms. Chase’s books.

  15. Samantha Chase has Released “Ever After” in the Kindle format on Amazon.com tonight http://www.amazon.com/Ever-After-Christmas-Cottage-ebook/dp/B00BKE7DI2/ref=la_B006CZWRGC_1_3_title_0_main?ie=UTF8&qid=1361745682&sr=1-3 The paperback with be available soon. The Christmas Cottage is also available on Amazon.com (see the link on her author page). Or I can ship them to you, just send me an email with the information.

  16. Thanks for the fine work you do here. I would appreciate it if you could add my novels The New Southern Gentleman (Wexford College Press, 2002), Morte D’Eden or Tom Sawyer Meets the Rolling Stones (Beach House Books, 2003) and Completeness of the Soul: The Life and Opinions of Jay Breeze, Rock Star (Queens Ferry Press, 2012) to your listings. All three books are set in part or in full in NC. Thanks in advance for your assistance.

  17. Eileen McGrath

    Thank you for contacting us, Mr. Booth. We started this blog in 2008 with the idea that we would cover newly published novels–alerting readers to what’s new. Most months we have just about enough manpower to keep up with newly published novels, but as time permits, we add postings for novels that were published earlier. We don’t have your 2012 book, but we will get it, and we’ll definitely add all your books to the list of works we should cover.

  18. Steve Spicer

    An earlier book Sam Mills’ exciting The Money Tree, first published in 1999 it was published as a Kindle book in 2009. Sam is still writing and hopefully publishing again in the next few years.
    http://www.amazon.com/Money-Tree-Sam-Mills-ebook/dp/B002T44I1C

  19. Eileen McGrath

    Thank you for this comment, Mr. Spicer. We did not know about The Money Tree; we’ll try to get a copy for this collection

  20. New Thriller: CHILLY DOGS by Larry Rochelle
    Author Larry Rochelle’s father, Palmer Sheldon Rochelle, was a union steward for the AFL-CIO at the Plaskon chemical factory in Toledo, Ohio. During the 1940s and 1950s, Plaskon and other union shops were fighting for the 40-hr week, for better wages, working conditions and respect for all workers.
    Strikes happened, and when Plaskon was on strike, Palmer Rochelle took his son to walk the picket lines and eat the hot roast beef sandwiches that held the men together. It was common then and now for the owners of those factories to hire anti-union goons and strike-breakers to stop the strikes and intimidate the workers.
    The son remembered his father’s struggles, became a union president when he taught in college, and watches today as corporations try to turn back the gains that unions made over the last eighty years.
    Most of Rochelle’s novels show the underdogs trying to survive against malicious corporations and evil right-wing plots and assassinations. His latest thriller, Chilly Dogs, shows how the ruthless techniques of the right-wing crazies control the options of the working poor through the tactics of fear and intimidation today.

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