Tag Archives: Ghosts

Denise Grover Swank. The Curse Breakers. Seattle, WA: 47North, 2014.

thecursebreakersEllie Lancaster has been confronted with the horrible reality of the curse that she spent her whole life denying. At twenty-three, Ellie has always lived in the small town of Manteo, on Roanoke Island. Like many young people she oftentimes felt out of place, like she would never fit in, and she would never find her purpose. That is until she met Collin Dailey and realized the four hundred year old curse that her father kept muttering about is real, and she and Collin are the two Curse Keepers.

Meeting Collin was fate and their loved seemed like fate too, a bond that couldn’t be broken, but then Collin betrayed Ellie. Instead of fighting alongside Ellie to maintain the curse and the keep the spirits locked away so that the world would remain safe, Collin tricked Ellie into breaking the curse. Now all the spirits have been released and they want Ellie’s soul. Even worse, Ellie’s father sacrificed himself to close the gate to the underworld, so Ellie is left on her own to figure out how to save herself and the rest of the world. Her first step in doing so is to find the mark of Ahone so that she can permanently tattoo it upon herself. This will protect her soul from being taken by the malevolent spirits, but will it protect her from death at their hands? And why won’t Ahone reveal his mark to her?

Not only is Ellie facing malevolent spirts, but she is also being hunted by men that she and Collin sold some items to. Thanks to Collin, they believe that Ellie knows something about a stolen artifacts shipment and will stop at nothing to get the information out of her.

The one good thing going for Ellie right now is the fact that she might have found someone who can help her. She tracked down a Native American Studies professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. David Preston, and has convinced him to help her. Then again, the last time she thought a guy was helping her, he was actually using her. Can she trust David or will he turn on her just as Collin did? When Ellie finds herself attracted to David, she must make the choice to take a chance on him or to push him out of her life. Will she be able to take that chance when her soul is entwined with Collin’s? Whether she does or not, there is still evil to be fought and Ellie must prepare to face her destiny.

In this second novel in the Curse Keeper series, Ellie is getting ready to fight the battle of a lifetime while struggling with her own internal wars. If you’re new to the series check out our blog post on the first novel The Curse Keepers.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2014, Coast, Dare, Novels in Series, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Swank, Denise Grover

Auburn Seal. Roanoke Vanishing. United States: CreateSpace, 2013.

vanishing The fate of the English colonists on Roanoke Island has puzzled North Carolinians and scholars for centuries.  Did the colonist die of disease?  Did they starve during a harsh winter?  Were they killed?  Did they migrate inland and become absorbed into a Native American community?

With no conclusive evidence, theories have dominated discussions of the Lost Colony.  Avery Lane, the heroine of Roanoke Vanishing, has long been bothered by the theory that Native Americans killed the colonists.  To Avery, this unproven speculation has been used as a justification for unfair treatment of Native Americans in this state.  Avery, a grad student in history at UNC-Chapel Hill, wants to take a new approach to the topic by focusing on who the colonists were and what their lives were like before they made the long sea voyage from England to the New World.  Could it be that their lives in England hold the key to their eventual fate?

Avery’s thesis adviser, Jonas Allen, is a specialist on the English settlement of America, so Avery expects him to endorse her thesis proposal.  She is stunned when he angrily refuses to do so.  Professor Allen’s outburst is just the first of several unsettling, even dangerous, encounters that Avery has as she pursues her research.  Avery is followed, her house is broken into, and  her best friend is put in peril.  Avery comes to see that she must heed the words of the ghost Elinor (yes, that Elinor) and trust no one as she pursues the truth about the Lost Colony.

Roanoke Vanishing is the first novel in the author’s Vanishing Series.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Coast, Dare, Historical, Mystery, Novels in Series, Orange, Piedmont, Seal, Auburn

Denise Grover Swank. The Curse Keepers. Las Vegas: 47North, 2013.

cursekeepersEllie Lancaster has lived her whole life in the small town of Manteo on Roanoke Island, North Carolina and has mostly resigned herself to a lifetime of feeling out of place, of not knowing where she fits in this world. That is, until she meets Collin Dailey. When she was growing up, Ellie’s father regaled her with tales of the Lost Colony. That colony, on Roanoke Island, vanished over four centuries ago. During the colony’s short existence, two men sought to save it by driving the spirits of a dangerous enemy tribe away. According to Ellie’s father, only the descendants of these two men know the truth about what happened to the Lost Colony. Ellie is one of those descendants–she is a Curse Keeper.

Despite her father’s efforts to teach her what he knows, Ellie has dismissed the legend, and her family’s role in it, as just a yarn spun through the years. The warning that when the two Curse Keepers meet, a supernatural gate will be opened and those banished spirits will come seeking revenge–pure nonsense! Or so Ellie thinks until the day she meets Collin Dailey. That day Ellie is literally struck breathless with the realization that the legacy and the legend passed down by her father are completely true.

Confronted with the authenticity of the prophecy, Ellie and Collin must now team up to combat supernatural beings, while struggling with their mutual dislike for one another versus the irresistible pull brought on by their shared legacy.

The Curse Keepers is the first book in a new series of the same title.

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


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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Coast, Dare, Novels in Series, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Swank, Denise Grover

Sheila Turnage. The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing. New York: Kathy Dawson Books, 2014.

The Ghosts of Tupelo LandingA laugh floated down the stairway, secret and low. My heart jumped. So did Dale. “Steady, Dale,” I said, my voice shaking. “Don’t leap to conclusions. A good detective starts with the obvious and works toward the strange.”

Sixth grade is about to start, and scrappy orphan Mo LoBeau is convinced that the Desperado Detective Agency needs a new case to crack. Since the Agency (comprised of Mo, her friend, Dale Earnhart Johnson III, and his dog, Queen Elizabeth) successfully solved a murder, they’ve only been hired on for two lost pet cases. Mo wants something ground-breaking to rev up business and make a name for Dale and herself as sixth grade sleuths. Luckily, she doesn’t have to wait for long–a new case is right about to fall into her lap.

The novel opens the day of the auction of The Old Tupelo Inn, which creates big buzz around the small town of Tupelo Landing (population now 147, following the past summer’s murder). Just about everyone in the town is at the auction, including Mo, Dale and one of Mo’s caretakers, Miss Lana, the owner of the local diner and Old Hollywood aficionado. Miss Lana has her heart set on an umbrella stand, but after an unfriendly woman from out of town (dubbed “Rat Face,” by Mo) makes a move to buy the Inn, Miss Lana hastily outbids her and by accident becomes the new owner of The Old Tupelo Inn along with the partial contents of the property and some very serious fine print.

According to the fine print, the inn is haunted by a ghost. Mo, and Dale after plenty of coaxing, set out to identify the ghost. Their mission couldn’t have come at a better time. A few days later, Miss Retzyl, their new teacher, tells the class that as part of the 250th anniversary of Tupelo Landing, she wants each student to interview a town elder. Mo’s arch-enemy Anna Celeste Simpson (aka Attila) somewhat unfairly claims Mo’s adoptive grandmother and the richest and nicest old person in town, Miss Lacy Thornton.

But Mo is ready to one-up Attila. She names the unidentified ghost of The Old Tupelo Inn as her interview subject. To Mo, “there ain’t nobody older than dead.” If she and Dale can determine the ghost’s identity, then they’re sure to have the best report and earn themselves a little extra credit in the process. Finding a ghost and convincing it to reveal who it is and why it’s haunting the inn isn’t an open-and-shut case however. Meanwhile, the presence of a new boy called Harm Crenshaw in Mo’s class irks Mo almost as much as living in Tupelo Landing irks Harm. He informs everyone he meets that he is only temporarily staying in Tupelo Landing until his brother Flick (a confirmed, good-for-nothing punk) can collect him to return to Greensboro. And Miss Lacy signs on to bankroll Miss Lana’s staggering bid for the ramshackle Old Tupelo Inn, yet it surfaces that Miss Lacy might not be as rich as everyone believes her to be. Could Miss Lana and Miss Lacy’s ownership of the inn be in jeopardy?

The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing is novelist Shelia Turnage’s second Mo LoBeau mystery. Turnage creates a magical setting in the fictional Tupelo Landing — it’s a wacky, charming small town. Outrageously spunky and spirited Mo has a lively voice and her narration makes the pages turn quickly. Don’t let the young adult packaging stop you from picking up Turnage’s follow-up to Three Times Lucky. With Mo as your guide, Tupelo Landing is quite an entertaining place to pass some time. Click here to read a blog post on the first novel in the series, Three Times Lucky.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2014, Children & Young Adults, Coastal Plain, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Turnage, Sheila

William Conescu. Kara Was Here. Berkeley, CA: Soft Skull Press, 2013.

Kara Was HereLife after college doesn’t always go exactly as planned. Brad Mitchell had rainbow-hued hair and hoped to find serious employment as an actor. He was cast in a few area productions and commercials, but nothing that amounted to a real paycheck. So his part-time gig as a realtor went full-time. His wife’s pregnancy and recent vision problems make Brad feel well into his mid-thirties. Margot Cominsky has shed her racy image as “Cougar Cominsky,” seductress of the football team. Instead, she’s packed on some extra weight, probably a result of her booming muffin business. Her love life is unsteady and her current long-distance relationship is steering through choppy waters. Kara Tinsley, Brad’s college girlfriend and Margot’s college friend, moved to New York City to chase after her dreams of becoming an actress. She abandoned Brad back in North Carolina without much of a second look back. Unfortunately, Kara never managed to make a name for herself on Broadway. And now she’s dead.

Kara’s old college friends and family have gathered to mourn her sudden death. Reportedly, Kara died of an overdose. Not a complete shock since to the very end,  she refused to sacrifice her wild nature. Her friends remember Kara’s untamable, spitfire personality and irreverent sense of humor. At the funeral, Brad and Margot are surprised to see each other so different from their college years. They’re even more surprised to meet Steve, Kara’s secret fiancé. Steve (or “Mullet” as Kara called him) was Kara’s last roommate. Margot recalls that Kara didn’t have a single nice word for Mullet the entire time they lived together. So she doubts that Mullet, a hulky, forty-seven year-old loser, and Kara were ever in a serious relationship.

Brad reaches out to Kara’s younger sister, Gwen, who is eighteen and on the cusp of college, freedom, and young adulthood. He offers her a number to call for a little extra support or advice. Gwen ventures to New York for a special summer arts program. She had planned to spend the summer bonding with Kara. Despite Kara’s absence, Gwen decides to attend. During Kara’s funeral though, things turn slightly strange.  Both Brad and Gwen see an apparition of Kara, who lectures them and teases them with her usual spunk. Just as Gwen enters Kara’s old haunts and associates with her sister’s former paramours, Margot drags Brad into her suspicions that Kara was murdered.

A University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and NC State graduate, William Conescu, writes a psychological portrait of three college friends and their relatives and significant others. Brad’s double vision seems to represent the central aspect of the novel: aging and its effects on identity. Conescu’s characters, Brad and Margot in particular, are split in their identities, stuck between their former teenage and twenty-something self and the passage into their new thirty-something self. Gwen endures a similar entrance into young adulthood. Kara’s death brings Brad and Margot, and even Gwen, into a state of unnerving self-evaluation. But they soon realize that not only was Kara not exactly the person they thought her to be, neither are they.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Conescu, William, Mystery, Orange, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller

Ann Hite. The Storycatcher. New York: Gallery Books, 2013.

The Storycatcher“I heard tell there was a colored woman’s ghost who walked the Ridge. She was what old-timers called a story-catcher. Her job was to set life stories straight, ‘cause the Lord only knew how many were all twisted in a knot.”

Ann Hite’s The Storycatcher is a Southern Gothic that will keep readers awake at night tracing the interconnections between the different families and characters. Hite’s novel is lush, complex and ambitious in style. She splits the tale between location: Black Mountain, North Carolina and Darien, Georgia and time: the action occurs in the 1930s but there are letters and recollections from the late 1800s. Like any true Gothic, Hite incorporates paranormal elements. A few of the primary characters are no longer living. They are known as “haints” to the people of Black Mountain. Essentially, they are ghosts who are waiting for their stories to be finished.

Although the story has several voices, it centers around two young girls named Shelly Parker and Faith Dobbins. Shelly is a servant to the Dobbins family. As a rule, she dislikes the Dobbins clan. Pastor Dobbins, the patriarch of the family, exerts his influence over the town. The mountain people of the area relent before Pastor Dobbins’ divine authority. Although his title gives him power however, the locals doesn’t respect Pastor Dobbins so much as fear him. Pastor Dobbins is a fire and brimstone preacher who speaks of eternal damnation. Regardless of his theological trade, he is an evil man motivated by secrets and violence. But Shelly has greater initial contempt for Pastor Dobbins’ spoiled daughter, Faith, who orders her around on silly tasks. “Miss Prissy” Faith is “the neediest white girl,” who, in Shelly’s eyes, doesn’t lift a finger. What truly agitates Shelly is Faith’s closeness to her mother, Amanda, and her brother, Will.

However, when shrouded secrets emerge and point toward Pastor Dobbins, the girls investigate. In fact, they are forced together out of necessity. Shelly can see spirits; Faith is haunted by spirits, namely Arleen Brown who died during childbirth five years prior and was buried with her infant boy. Arleen alludes to the fact that she did not become pregnant of her own accord. Arleen occupies Faith’s body and compels the novel forward. What stories will Shelly and Faith find that are left to be told?

The Storycatcher dwells on the theme of retribution. Hite adopts a splintered narrative that features multiple perspectives, specifically six female point-of-view characters. She also braids in mountain superstitions and pieces of folklore, including charm quilts, death quilts, and hoodoo. These traditions, along with the racially-charged environment of the South during the 1800s and 1930s, reiterate the sense of interrelation and the desire for vengeance to adjust past inequities.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Buncombe, Historical, Hite, Ann, Mountains, Suspense/Thriller

Stephen King. Joyland. London: Hard Case Crime, 2013.

JoylandJoyland is an amusement park in the business of selling fun – and that’s by the “seat-of-the-pants” fun not that “scripted” fun that Disney peddles to its customers, according to geriatric park owner, Bradley Easterbrook. Joyland has all the standard amusement park fare: rides, refreshments, a crackpot fortune-teller, a beloved mascot, and a haunted house. Except Joyland’s haunted house really is haunted. Or so twenty-one year-old Devin Jones is told. In the summer of 1969, Linda Gray spent the day at Joyland in the company of an unidentified male masked in sunglasses and a baseball cap with a bird tattoo on his hand. Later in the evening, the pair entered the Horror House together, only Linda never left. Linda’s companion slashed her throat and left her body inside, where it was discovered the next day. Four years later in 1973, the killer still roams free. Since the murder, employees have reported sightings of Linda’s ghost.

When Devin first hears the tale, he is more concerned with relaying it to his disinterested girlfriend Wendy Keegan than focusing on the lurid details. Wendy is the first thing on Devin’s mind and he is the furthest thing from hers. Devin eagerly fantasizes about his life with Wendy following their graduation from the University of New Hampshire. He dreams of a successful literary career and wedded bliss completed with a few kids running underfoot. His unquenched libido and earnest schoolboy devotion blind Devin from the fact that Wendy is slipping, or rather pushing, away from him. Wendy plans to work in Boston with a friend during the summer and she encourages Devin to take a job far away at Joyland in the small, fictional town of Heaven’s Bay, North Carolina. Their break-up is predictable, and Devin spends a good portion of his time ruminating on first love.

Then he becomes absorbed into the world of Joyland. He finds friends, “wears the fur,” learns the park lingo, and juggles a million menial tasks at once.  Howie the Happy Hound is Joyland’s mascot and all the Happy Helpers take turns in wearing the dog costume. During the summer, shifts are restricted to 15 minutes to prevent heatstroke. Devin, though, dons the suit repeatedly. Despite the discomfort, he discovers an unexpected enthusiasm for wearing the costume and exciting children at the park. Reflecting back on his time at Joyland, Devin muses that no job has satisfied him as deeply as dressing as Howie and dancing the Hokey Pokey.

Veteran novelist Stephen King establishes a convincing atmosphere in Joyland with his use of colorful carny slang. The book features a pulpy cover design and is marketed as a hardboiled crime novel, although Devin is an inadvertent sleuth rather than a jaded detective. Joyland is a bildungsroman meets murder mystery. King’s focus is less on the horror and gore and more on Devin’s maturation. Solving Linda Gray’s murder just falls on the laundry list of Devin’s pivotal summer of development. By deemphasizing the mystery aspect of the novel, Joyland becomes a more dimensional story and quite an exhilarating ride of a read.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Coast, King, Stephen, Mystery, Novels Set in Fictional Places

Sallie Bissell. Music of Ghosts. Woodbury, MN: Midnight Ink, 2013.

Music of GhostsSallie Bissell has returned with another Mary Crow thriller. In this installment, Lisa Wilson, the college-aged daughter of a previous North Carolina governor is mutilated and murdered after she and a group of summer interns venture into the woods to spend the night in the fabled Fiddlesticks cabin. The cabin is known throughout Pisgah County for its grisly past. Fiddlesticks murdered his wife and the man he found her with and then played his fiddle over their bodies. Before her death, Lisa is lured by the sound of fiddle music.

Once news of the murder spreads, Sheriff Jerry Cochran puts his plans to propose to his girlfriend, reporter Ginger Malloy, on hold. Cochran tries to keep the sordid details hushed, yet predictably photos are leaked. The media, including his girlfriend Ginger, places Cochran in a difficult position. If that isn’t enough, the victim’s father, former Governor Wilson journeys to Pisgah County to bully Cochran personally into hunting down the killer–and fast.

Fingers point quickly to Nick Stratton, Lisa Wilson’s boss. He asks Mary to take his case, despite all the incriminating evidence against him. But Mary is torn. Since her boyfriend Jonathan Walkingstick’s daughter Lily has returned from a court-ordered visit with her maternal grandparents, she has seemed distrustful and confused. Then Jonathan receives notice that Lily’s maternal grandparents intend to fight him for custody. Amidst the murder, the media frenzy, and a custody battle about to gear up, Mary is overwhelmed. Although Jonathan has requested that Mary not take on any criminal cases, she wants to help Stratton.

Will she take the case? Is Stratton guilty, or is there still a killer roaming free in the forest? Bissell has crafted a story full of surprise twists and plenty of tension that will leave readers on baited breath.  Given the plot, readers will not be surprised that the novel contains scenes of violence and gore, and crude language.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Bissell, Sallie, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Suspense/Thriller

Travis Thrasher. Hurt. Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2013.

hurtIn this fourth and final installment in the Solitary Tales, author Travis Thrasher takes us back once more to the fictional town of Solitary, North Carolina.

Chris Buckley has tried everything when it comes to the evil in Solitary. He’s mocked it, pretended it doesn’t exist, given in for a time, even run away. Nothing has stopped his demon-possessed great-grandfather, Walter Kinner, from giving up his satanic control on the town. Worst of all, Chris is somehow the centerpiece of his upcoming final showdown with the powers of good. Tired, terrified, but most of all determined never to give in to the Devil, Chris takes the only course of action left– fighting back. It’s hard enough being a teenaged boy without having to fight the powers of darkness, but with his belief in the powers of God growing stronger every day, Chris has hope where before he had none.

Unfortunately, his very real demons know exactly how to keep him on their side– by threatening the ones he loves. His mother has been missing for some time, held by Walter’s henchmen. They’re also threatening his latest girlfriend, the sweet and guileless Kelsey. Since his other two girlfriends, Jocelyn and Lily, have both ended up as bloody sacrifices, Chris was reluctant to start dating again. But there’s just something about Kelsey that makes him think everything will be okay. But there is a long fight ahead, and no telling who will emerge triumphant. Will faith, hope, and love keep back the darkness?

Check out this final chapter in the Solitary Tales in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Henderson, Horror, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Religious/Inspirational, Thrasher, Travis

Brenda Tetreault. Prophecies and Destinies. Baltimore: PublishAmerica, 2012.

propheciesanddestiniesIn this, the concluding installment in the Bounty Cove Chronicles, all the couples we have come to know in the previous five novels must work together to defeat the evil that has been feeding on their kind for aeons.

At fifteen years old, Lily Sullivan is nothing but trouble. The feisty red-headed teenager’s obsession with her good-for-nothing boyfriend Trevor finally causes her father to take action–he sends her to live with her Aunt Tess in the small town of Bounty Cove, North Carolina. Within a year, Lily has forgotten Trevor and fallen in love with Colby, a quiet local boy who doesn’t push or pressure her. But then Colby moves away. He promises he’ll be back for her, and Lily believes him, but it still breaks her heart. Twenty years later, a man collapses on her doorstep– it’s Colby, finally able to return to the one woman he never stopped thinking about. Now that they’re back together, nothing can stand in the way of their love.

Or so they think. A dangerous evil that has been haunting Bounty Cove for ages is rising, and Colby is its target. Bounty Cove has always been a strange crossroads between what regular humans believe in and what actually exists. Until now, no one has been able to explain why; those affected have simply had to accept the strangeness of their abilities, or those of their significant other, and move on. Now, everything is going to become horrifyingly clear and it’s not only Colby and Lily who are in danger, but all of Bounty Cove. Will Colby, Lily, Devil, Angeline, Natali, Britt, and the others be able to stop the malevolent force seeking to destroy their lives after they have worked so hard for peace?

Check out the final reckoning in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Coast, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Romance/Relationship, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Tetreault, Brenda