Tag Archives: College students

by | May 6, 2009 · 2:32 pm

James Patterson. Kiss the Girls. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.

As an expert in abnormal psychology working for the FBI, Dr. Alex Cross is used to calmly solving gruesome crimes, but in Kiss the Girls the case is personal.  His niece–a law student at Duke–is kidnapped while on campus, and he comes to the Triangle to try to help find her.  The North Carolina police and FBI are dealing with “Cassanova,” a man who is collecting beautiful and talented female victims.  There is also a second predator on the loose, a killer on the west coast with the nickname “The Gentleman Caller.”  A break in the case comes when one of Cassanova’s victims, a UNC med student, fights her way free of her captor.  This is the second book in the Alex Cross thriller series and the only one set in North Carolina.  It inspired a 1997 film of the same name starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1995, Durham, Novels in Series, Orange, Patterson, James, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller

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by | March 19, 2009 · 9:20 am

Dale Bailey and Jack Slay, Jr. Sleeping Policemen. Urbana, IL: Golden Gryphon Press, 2006.

Many a college student has had this nightmare: you’re out having fun (i.e., drinking with your pals) when inattention, or just bad luck, causes you to harm another person. The dream is so disturbing that most sleepers wake up. This novel follows the nightmare further than anyone wants to go. Three college students, returning to campus from a night of semi-illicit revelry, hit a pedestrian on a deserted mountain road. Nick Laymon, the most upright of the group, makes the driver turn back to confront what has happened. The man who was hit is dead; on his body they find a gun, a bus station locker key, and a roll of large bills. The young men cannot foresee the consequences of their decision to cover up the accident, and soon they are in a world where sexual exploitation, violence, and corruption are the norms. Bodies pile up, and the protagonist, Nick, finds both his strength and his inner darkness. The action moves back and forth between the North Carolina mountains and Knoxville, Tennessee.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Bailey, Dale, Mountains, Suspense/Thriller

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by | November 26, 2008 · 3:48 pm

Andrea Ferrell. Autumn Seclusion. Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing, 2007.

This first novel is a coming of age tale, told in the first person.  Anna is brought up in a strict religious family near the North Carolina coast.  She absorbs most of the lessons of her upbringing, but her family rejects her when she begins dating a Native American student while at UNC-Chapel Hill.  Cut loose from her parents, Anna drifts into drinking and then a disastrous marriage.  Her teaching career provides her with the opportunity to leave this country for Thailand where she finds inner peace through self-acceptance and forgiveness.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Coast, Ferrell, Autumn, Religious/Inspirational

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by | November 14, 2008 · 3:21 pm

J. G. Clinkscales. How Zach Came to College. Spartanburg, SC: W. F. Barnes, 1903.

Zach Whetsone, a lad from Rutherford County, happens to be selling his produce in Spartanburg, South Carolina one spring day when the commencement exercises at Wofford College are taking place. Zach is inspired by the event and later returns to Wofford as a student. As a poor mountaineer, Zach has to overcome many obstacles to complete his degree. When he finally does, he returns home to marry his true love, preach, teach, and start a high school. Zach is presented as an admirable figure: working hard, caring for his widowed mom, staying true to his love, and speaking out for national reconciliation, but his racial attitudes (or, those of the author) will offend many readers.

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1900-1909, 1903, Clinkscales, J. G., Mountains, Novels to Read Online, Rutherford

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by | November 5, 2008 · 3:47 pm

Michael Phillips. Miss Katie’s Rosewood. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2007.

In Miss Katie’s Rosewood, the fourth and final book in the Carolina Cousins series, it is 1870 and the main characters Katie and Mayme are now young women. At the urging of the older generation of the Daniels family, the cousins and best friends agree to travel to Philadelphia to visit a women’s college and explore the possibilities of higher education. They also hope to visit with their respective beaus, who have both traveled to Pennsylvania. On the train ride north, however, the cars are segregated by race, the girls are separated, and Mayme is kidnapped. Meanwhile, back in fictional Shenandoah County, Rosewood is threatened by the Ku Klux Klan. The girls weather their troubles with the help of family, friends, and their Christian faith.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Historical, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Phillips, Michael, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship

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by | August 5, 2008 · 2:42 pm

Clarence Monroe Wallin. Gena of the Appalachians. New York: Cochrane Publishing, 1910.

Gena Filson’s life is hard after her parents die and her brothers move west. She becomes the hired girl in the household of Jase Dillenburger were she works from sunup to sundown. When old Jase is arrested for moonshining, Gena’s life improves. She gains land, goes to college, and marries a good, church-going man.

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1910, 1910-1919, Children & Young Adults, Mountains, Novels to Read Online, Wallin, Clarence Monroe

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by | July 17, 2008 · 3:35 pm

John W. Moore. The Heirs of St. Kilda: A Story of the Southern Past. Raleigh: Edwards, Broughton & Co., 1881.

The large antebellum plantations of the St. Kilda Valley provide the setting for this lush, nostalgic novel of horse racing, fox hunting, and other aristocratic pursuits. The main character, Philip Eustace, lives the good life at home and abroad in Europe. After attending the university, he marries his childhood sweetheart and their extended wedding celebration closes the novel. The setting is thought to be the St. John community in Hertford County. The author intended the novel to be “a faithful picture of our lost civilization.”

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1880-1889, 1881, Coastal Plain, Hertford, Moore, John W., Novels to Read Online

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by | May 29, 2008 · 3:04 pm

Linda Leigh Hargrove. The Making of Isaac Hunt. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2007.

This book tackles some big topics–adoption, racial stereotypes, family dynamics, and small-town secrets. Young NCSU student Isaac Hunt confronts them all after his dying grandfather tells him is not the child of the well-to-do and politically connected Chloe Hunt, but instead the son of Betty Douglas of Pettigrew, North Carolina.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Coastal Plain, Hargrove, Linda Leigh, Novels Set in Fictional Places

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by | March 13, 2008 · 9:58 am

Kurt Corriher. Someone to Kill. New York: St. Martin’s, 2002.

When John Pavlak’s wife is murdered, he isn’t satisfied to just sit back and let somebody else handle the investigation. Especially when he becomes a suspect himself. Pavlak is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam conflict, and the athletic director at a small college that sounds a lot like Davidson. He races to keep just ahead of the police, following the investigation to Berlin when it looks like his wife’s work as an investigative journalist may have led to the discovery of sensitive Cold War secrets. In the end, the trail leads him right back to North Carolina.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2002, Corriher, Kurt, Davidson, Mecklenburg, Mystery, Piedmont

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by | · 9:58 am

Ellyn Bache. The Activist’s Daughter. Duluth, Minn.: Spinsters Ink, 1997.

In this novel set amidst the Civil Rights protests of the early 1960s, Beryl Rosinsky has graduated from high school and is anxious to get away from her activist mother and her hometown of Washington, D.C. She enrolls at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she finds a different world — conservative, Southern, and with long-standing campus cliques firmly established. Beryl is gradually drawn into local Civil Rights protests, which are may be based on actual demonstrations by UNC students against segregated businesses in Chapel Hill. As a result of her own political awakening, Beryl ends up with a deeper understanding and appreciation of her mother.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1997, Bache, Ellyn, Orange, Piedmont

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