Category Archives: 2008

2008

by | March 22, 2010 · 11:47 am

Ginny Aiken. Suspicion. New York: Steeple Hill Books, 2008.

Stephanie Scott is proud of what she’s accomplished.  Now in her late twenties, she has overcome her attention deficit disorder to earn a pharmacist degree from UNC.   Stephanie has set up a pharmacy in her hometown of Loganton, North Carolina, where she provides special services like Wednesday senior citizen day and where she employs a local teenager and a friend who’s hit a bad patch.

Stephanie hits a bad patch herself when she is mugged as she is closing her store one night.  The mugging is just the beginning–later her tires are slashed, her car forced off the road, and the pharmacy looted.  This last act sets off an investigation by the state pharmacy board, and Steph’s license is suspending pending the conclusion of the investigation.  Things look bleak, especially since the Loganton police are entertaining the theory that Stephanie has arranged the looting to cover her own misappropriation of drugs.  Thank goodness for Stephanie that the county sheriff, Hal Benson, knows her from school days.  He believes Stephanie and risks his re-election to help clear her name.  Hal’s dogged investigation (and growing love), plus her own faith, save Stephanie from despair and disgrace.

This is the second novel in the author’s Carolina Justice series.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Aiken, Ginny, Mountains, Novels in Series, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship

by | March 19, 2010 · 8:59 am

Ginny Aiken. Danger in a Small Town. New York: Steeple Hill Books, 2008.

Both Tess Graver and Ethan Rogers are trying to leave their pasts behind when they settle in Loganton.  Ethan was a Drug Enforcement Agency officer in Chicago, and he has had his fill of lowlifes and their crimes.  Tess has returned to her hometown to escape the suspicions of her co-workers after she was accused and then cleared of theft at work.  Plus, her elderly uncle needs someone to live with him now that his wife has died. Tess is happy to be back in familiar surroundings and upbeat about the business that she plans to start.

Unfortunately, trouble finds Tess.  While on a run, she comes upon a woman dieing of a drug overdose; someone breaks into Uncle Gordon’s house; Tess receives menacing phone calls, and a van tries to mow her down.  The caller thinks that Tess has something of value–could it be connected to the dead woman and the meth traffic in town?  Ethan Rogers wants to know–for professional reasons and to protect Tess.

This is the first book in the author’s Carolina Justice series.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Aiken, Ginny, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller

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by | March 1, 2010 · 11:02 am

Gina Farago. Luna. Randleman, NC: NeDeo Press, 2008.

Ivy Cole needs a fresh start. Five years ago, she was at the center of a series of violent murders in mountainous Doe Springs, North Carolina. Ivy is a werewolf, and she “feeds” on the bad guys. When the local police department caught on to her, Ivy had to flee. Now making a new life with Luna, her five- year old daughter, in Salty Duck, North Carolina, Ivy begins to feel comfortable, assuring herself that they are safe. Ivy knows that her pup shares her lycanthropic powers, but she soon realizes that Luna is unique. Whereas Ivy can only shape shift during a full moon, Luna is able to transform herself at will. This special quality makes Luna desirable to the Order of Lykanthrop, an organization in Germany that studies and breeds werewolves. In an action-packed recovery effort that involves boats and helicopters, Ivy – and an unusual cast of characters from Doe Springs who have found her seeking justice and answers – protects her daughter from a lab-rat fate. Once again, however, Ivy and Luna must run away and start anew – this time with the former deputy of Doe Springs, Ivy’s old flame and Luna’s father.

Luna is the sequel to Ivy Cole and the Moon.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coast, Farago, Gina, Horror, Novels Set in Fictional Places

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by | February 22, 2010 · 8:53 am

Keith Warren Lloyd. Cape Hatteras: A Novel. New York: iUniverse, 2008.

It’s common to think that the battle for the seas during World War II took place in distant locales like the South Pacific and the North Atlantic, but our own Outer Banks was the site of a dangerous cat-and-mouse game between American merchant and military vessels and German U-boats.  In this novel, the young commander of a U-boat makes it ashore after his boat sinks off Cape Hatteras.

Wolf Krugar is no gun-ho Nazi, but he serves loyally to uphold his class traditions and to protect his wife and daughter.  After his U-boat is destroyed by an American attack, Krugar clings to the debris of a tanker that he had earlier torpedoed.  He drifts on to Hatteras Island.  Harnessing his remaining strength, he walks to a remote cottage, home of Anne MacPherson, a local woman who has returned to the island to heal from the death of her young husband, who died in the Pacific Theater.  It is the classic setup for a tale of unexpected romance, but this novel is more sophisticated than that.  The reader is treated to a story of two damaged individuals who stay true to themselves while recognizing the humanity in the other.  The scenes with Kurt and Anne are interspersed with ones that show the local sheriff and military authorities closing in on Kurt.  These scenes ground the drama between Kurt and Anne in the larger conflict that includes the need to keep supplies flowing to Europe and the possibility of spies and double agents on each side of the conflict.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coast, Dare, Lloyd, Keith Warren

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by | February 20, 2010 · 2:30 pm

Tom Lewis. Sons of Their Fathers. Swansboro, NC: Tease Publishing, 2008.

In this the final volume in the Pea Island Trilogy, it is the late 1970s. Dieter Bach, a concert violinist, has been shot during a mugging.  Dieter’s hands have been so injured that he will not be able to resume his career. His manager, Sy, directs Dieter down a new path–that of conductor.  To prepare for that, Sy sends Dieter to his summer house on Roanoke Island where Dieter can study and practice.  Dieter soon meets the beautiful Susan Everette who is working as a waitress at a restaurant that Dieter frequents.  His attraction to her is instantaneous.

This is is story of Suzi and Dieter’s love. The couple move from the Outer Banks to Virginia as Dieter learns his new craft.  Dieter is undeterred by Suzi’s mixed race heritage, but when he meets Suzi’s parents he discovers an obstacle to their happiness that forces him to return to Germany, the land of his birth.  Characters from earlier novels in the trilogy–especially Horst von Hellenbach–figure in the plot, and remind the reader that the past is not really so far behind us.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coast, Dare, Lewis, Tom, Novels in Series

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by | January 19, 2010 · 9:13 am

Fern Michaels. Collateral Damage. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2008.

The women of the Sisterhood are at it again. Although this group of vigilante women has done good in ridding the world of evil individuals, their unlawful methods have forced them to go into hiding. Now back at their secret Yancey County retreat on Big Pine Mountain, the fugitives are tempted to get back to work after being promised a presidential pardon. Donor databases of both the Democratic and Republican parties have been hacked, and with the election just a year away, both organizations approach the Sisterhood for their help. The thought of being free again is tantalizing to the women, but they soon realize that the deal is simply a ploy by the unpopular incumbent president to have them arrested. With the FBI hot on their trail, the women must travel to Washington, D.C. to kidnap the president’s chief of staff and an important GOP fundraiser, the two men at the center of the scandal. Once they have the criminals, the Sisterhood transports them to the CIA’s Harvey Point location in Hertford where the women position the crooks right where they belong: dangling twelve inches above a quicksand pond in the Great Dismal Swamp. Once again, the Sisters prove that they can protect themselves and their enterprise.

This is the eleventh novel in Fern Michaels’ Sisterhood Series, but not all of the novels in the series are set in North Carolina.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coastal Plain, Michaels, Fern, Mountains, Novels in Series, Perquimans, Suspense/Thriller, Yancey

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by | January 13, 2010 · 5:33 pm

Bob Terrell. Get Rufus! Alexander, NC: Land of the Sky Books, 2008.

Rufus Raby was an easy-going mountain lad until his friend Sid Hollifield was murdered.  Rufus is a good tracker, helping Sheriff Clure find people missing in the mountains of Jackson County.  (In return, the sheriff overlooks Rufus’s moonshining.)  Seeing Sid’s battered and snake-bitten body changes Rufus.  Finding Sid’s killer becomes his mission, but the search is also a journey for Rufus.  As his heart warms to Sid’s widow, he learns to read and write, control his impulse for revenge, and combine his new knowledge of town ways with his backwoods talents.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Jackson, Mountains, Terrell, Bob

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by | December 21, 2009 · 8:38 am

Marilyn Denny Thomas. Sweet Beulah Land. Longwood, FL: Xulon Press, 2008.

This novel opens with the buzzing activities of Election Day in Beulah, North Carolina. As Marilyn Denny Thomas describes that day in 1900 and the days following, she introduces the reader to a wide cast of characters. There are the members of the Gresham family (Jeb and Sarah Jane and their five daughters) who are well-established in Duplin County. They have formed strong bonds with their friends, such as the Thomases and the Williamses, and relatives (some of whom spell their last name Grisham or Grissom) in this tightly knit community. Residents of Beulah share their many joys, such as marriages, births, and successful tobacco crops as well as many disappointments, such as wayward family members, unfulfilled dreams, and deaths.  Beulah is not unlike other small towns; it has its share of darkness, such as the murder of a former slave, and as well as shared curiosities, such as the total solar eclipse that townspeople witnessed as they collected tobacco from the fields. Thomas exposes the happenings of a small southern town at the turn of the century.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coastal Plain, Duplin, Historical, Novels by County, Thomas, Marilyn Denny, Year of Publication

by | December 4, 2009 · 1:42 pm

Fern Michaels. Fast Track. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2008.

Fern Michael’s Sisterhood, the tight group of women who seek revenge on individuals who dodge justice, is back in the States after banishment to a Spanish villa as a result of their last adventure. Now on a remote mountaintop estate in western North Carolina – Big Pine Mountain in Yancey County, to be exact – the fugitives are faced with undertaking a new high-stakes, extremely dangerous venture. When approached by World Bank board members who are concerned with the misplacement of twenty billion dollars (yes, billion with a “b”), the women accept the challenge to find fairness for the bank’s beneficiaries… and the blank check. The Sisterhood travels to Washington, D.C. to take down the slimy Maxwell Zenowicz, who is serving as World Bank president thanks to his questionable Capitol Hill connections. The money is recovered, the corrupt playboy is punished, and the elusive group succeeds once again.

This is the tenth novel in Fern Michaels’ Sisterhood Series, but not all of the novels in the series are set in North Carolina.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Michaels, Fern, Mountains, Novels in Series, Suspense/Thriller, Yancey

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by | November 10, 2009 · 5:03 pm

T. Lynn Ocean. The Jersey Barnes Series.

Jersey Barnes was a Marine MP and a government anti-terrorism agent.  After leaving government service, she moved back to Wilmington to open up her own security firm.  When even that feels like too much, Jersey decides to retire to the less stressful life of being a pub owner.  Running a pub, marrying her boyfriend, it’s called settling down.  It sounds good, but Jersey is a sociable gal and everyone from her boyfriend to family friends to the federal government wants Jersey to handle just one more case.  These cases involve everything from kidnapping to blackmail to computer crimes to drug dealing–and murder.  Jersey can handle what the bad guys send her way, but family and friends are another story.  Jersey’s pill-trading, poker playing dad, his girlfriend, Fran, a computer-hacker neighbor, and Jersey’s hunky business partner, Ox, complicate her life and add humor and energy to these mysteries.  Wilmington itself is a character in the books, and fans of the city will recognize familiar places.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, 2008, 2009, Coast, Mystery, New Hanover, Novels in Series, Ocean, T. Lynn, Series

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