Category Archives: 2006

2006

Barry D. Yelton. Scarecrow in Gray. New York: iUniverse, 2006.

Although many of his neighbors and relatives joined the Confederate Army, struggling Rutherford County farmer Francis Melton did not see that he had a personal stake in the conflict. He felt he was doing his patriotic duty buy selling his crops to the Confederacy for less than their worth. Eventually, however, he is convinced that he is duty-bound to serve and he leaves his wife and daughters to enlist. Francis and his conscripted friend, Whit Whitaker, face hunger, violence, danger, as they fight their way through the final year of the Civil War. Scarecrow in Gray is loosely based on the author’s great-grandfather’s service in the Civil War.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Coast, Historical, Mountains, Novels in Series, Rutherford, Yelton, Barry D.

Theodore Taylor. The Weirdo. New York: Harcourt Paperbacks, 2006.

A four-year ban on hunting in the Powhatan Swamp is about to expire and the situation creates tension between local environmentalists and hunters. One of the people spearheading the conservation efforts is teenager Chip Clewt, a boy generally more comfortable with animals than with people. The controversy heats up after the disappearance of a graduate student who was working on tracking the local bears. Originally published in 1992, The Weirdo was that year’s winner of the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Mystery.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Children & Young Adults, Coastal Plain, Mystery, Novels in Series, Taylor, Theodore

William P. Singley. Bragg. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006.

Numerous colorful characters populate this book, set at Fort Bragg in the 1950s.  The main character, Lt. Sy Margolin, left a comfortable assignment with NATO to become a paratrooper.  The rigors of training are just part of what he has to contend with.  Anti-Semitism is not much below the surface on base, off base life is wild and woolly, and at times the Army seems to value tradition above all else.  Secondary characters–diverse, sly, fun-loving, evil–round out the picture of Fort Bragg in the period between the Korean War and the start of the Vietnam Conflict.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Hoke, Singley, William P.

Larry G. Morgan. Ivy: Lilies of the Field. Charlotte, NC: Catawba Publishing Co., 2006.

Ivy: Lilies of the Field is Larry Morgan’s third novel based on the lives of Ivy Rowland, his great-grandfather’s first wife, and her friends and family. While the previous two books–Ivy:Yankee Sweetheart, Rebel Nurse and Ivy: Camp Branch to Groveton–take place during the Civil War, this one is bookended by military conflicts: it starts in the final days of the Civil War and ends with the Spanish-American War. In the three decades between the wars, marriages are celebrated, houses are built, and children are raised. Some of the characters settle near the Nantahala Gorge in western North Carolina, while others make their lives in Georgia or Virginia.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Historical, Macon, Morgan, Larry G., Mountains, Novels in Series, Swain

Joan Medlicott. Two Days after the Wedding. New York: Pocket Books, 2006.

Amelia, Hannah, and Grace have been through a lot of ups and downs in the five previous titles in Medlicott’s Covington series. In this book Hannah agrees to marry her business partner, Max, in order to avoid estate taxes when Max dies. It’s supposed to be strictly business, but Hannah soon realizes that she loves Max. She panics–these strong feelings scare her, she’s not sure what Max feels, and her great good friends, Amelia and Grace, are not available to offer wise counsel. Hannah must consider what she’d loose and what she’d gain by choosing the married life over the one that she has built with Amelia and Grace.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Medlicott, Joan, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places

David Smith Hubbell. Flat Rock Harvest. Chapel Hill, NC: Chapel Hill Press, 2006.

For Doug, a medical student from Durham, finding a summer job during the depression years is a difficult task. He travels west and eventually finds a position at a pharmacy in Hendersonville, where he pours sodas and sells tonics. As he becomes more a part of the town, he also becomes involved in two more controversial, and certainly very illegal, activities: moonshining and abortion. The author Thomas Wolfe makes a brief appearance and there are recurring references to his book Look Homeward, Angel.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Henderson, Historical, Hubbell, David Smith, Mountains

Richard H. Triebe. On a Rising Tide. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2006.

By June 1864, Wilmington was the only open Confederate port on the eastern seaboard.  Cargo brought into the port allowed the Confederacy to fight on.  Blockade running and Sherman’s March to the Sea changed Wilmington, bringing to the city thousands of desperate refugees, wheeler-dealers, and dangerous men.  This novel contains good scenes of the blockade runner Atlantis negotiating the waters at Cape Fear, eluding Union ships, and loading up in Nassau, but the heart of the story is what happens in Wilmington.  It is a book of adventure, war, and romance, with scenes of betrayal and violence.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Brunswick, Coast, Historical, New Hanover, Triebe, Richard H.

Janet Evanovich. Motor Mouth. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.

At the opening of Evanovich’s second Alexandra “Barney” Barnaby thriller, Barney is just finishing up her first season as a mechanic and spotter for her NASCAR-driving ex-boyfriend, Sam Hooker. While watching the season’s last race in Florida, she becomes convinced that one of the teams is cheating. Her suspicions–combined with the bumbling of a desperate friend and co-worker–lead her and Hooker to “borrow” an 18-wheeler carrying two racecars and a shrink-wrapped corpse and starts them on an action-packed adventure that includes stops in Concord, NC. Quirky characters abound, including Beans the drooling St. Bernard. The action in the series’ first book, Metro Girl, takes place mainly in South Florida.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Cabarrus, Evanovich, Janet, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller

Buddy Strickland. Dreamweaver. Indian Trail, N.C.: Dreamweaver Publishing, 2006.

This part-memoir, part-novel alternates the story of Buddy, a southern boy growing up in the 1940s, with a fictional recreation of the lives of Lea and Amos, Buddy’s Cherokee ancestors. Through the two stories readers can learn about the enslavement of Native Americans, mill village life, and mid-twentieth century Southern popular culture.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Cabarrus, Historical, Piedmont, Rowan, Strickland, Buddy

Ian Fletcher. David McGregor’s Diary. Timberlake, NC: Righter Pub. Co., 2006.

When a writer buys a used desk he finds a diary written by David McGregor, a North Carolina man, over a period of several years in the late 1960s. This book is that diary, which did not record the entirety of McGregor’s daily life, but rather one specific part of it: his torrid affair with his wife’s best friend.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Coastal Plain, Edgecombe, Fletcher, Ian, Nash, Romance/Relationship