When Priscilla Oakshaw invites her husband’s old friend, Jill Davenport, to join her and her husband Ben for their summer vacation on the Outer Banks, she has no idea that Jill and Ben were once much more than just friends. Jill and her companion visit the Oakshaws for several weeks of self-reflection, erudite conversation, and betrayal.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.
Comments Off on J.R. Salamanca. That Summer’s Trance. New York: Welcome Rain, 2000.
Filed under 2000, 2000-2009, Coast, Salamanca, J. R.
Jim Glass, introduced to readers in a previous novel, Jim the Boy, has grown into a teenager. He experiences first love, but Chrissie Steppe, the object of his affections, has promised to wait for a boy who has left for service in World War II. Although this is a coming-of-age story, it is not just about Jim, but also about how a distant war ripples through the lives in one small Southern town.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library catalog.
Comments Off on Tony Earley. The Blue Star. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Earley, Tony, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Rutherford
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.
Comments Off on Linda Leigh Hargrove. The Making of Isaac Hunt. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2007.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Coastal Plain, Hargrove, Linda Leigh, Novels Set in Fictional Places
Maggie Delany’s husband Richard is killed when he tries to protect a drugstore clerk during a robbery. It seems that the case will be open-and-shut until a past acquaintance of Maggie’s joins the defense team and speculates that the shooting had more to do with Richard’s past experiences during the Vietnam War than random chance. As Maggie struggles to find the truth and uncovers details of her husband’s involvement with the war, she remembers and reflects on her own participation in the anti-war movement. The novel’s action takes place in the cities of Charlotte, New York, and Boston, as well as the jungles of Southeast Asia. Absolution was the winner of both the 2007 Novello Literary Award and Independent Publisher‘s 2008 Gold Award for Best Fiction in the Southeastern Region.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.
Comments Off on Miriam Herin. Absolution. Charlotte, NC: Novello Festival Press, 2007.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Herin, Miriam, Mecklenburg, Piedmont
Born at the turn of the twentieth century, Selena “Sippy” Wright lives in North Carolina’s Great Smokies, with her parents. After a fire destroys the family’s cabin, they go to live with Sippy’s Grandmother and her youngest three children, and, while life on Utah Mountain is hard, the family struggles and survives together. Sippy’s story is filled with the work, school, and play of mountain children, but also includes details about her father’s work, her mother’s housekeeping, her grandmother’s medicinal herbs, and the events, songs, and games that were important to mountain culture. Based on the journals and recollections of the author’s mother, this novel tells the story of Sippy’s childhood from ages seven to twelve; her story is continued in Scearce’s second novel Cotton Mill Girl, published in 2006.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.
Filed under 1990-1999, 1997, Docufiction, Haywood, Historical, Mountains, Novels in Series, Scearce, Flora Ann
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.
Comments Off on Ian Fletcher. David McGregor’s Diary. Timberlake, NC: Righter Pub. Co., 2006.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Coastal Plain, Edgecombe, Fletcher, Ian, Nash, Romance/Relationship
Former military-investigator Webb Sawyer was recently released from a U.S. Army psychiatric hospital and he returned to the Outer Banks, hoping for a little peace and quiet. After moving into his father’s stilted fishing shack on Blue Heron Marsh, he expects his life to be filled mostly with fishing, with the occasional stop at the local pub. When a local woman is charged with murdering her father, however, her friend needs Webb’s expertise and connections to help prove her innocence. As Webb’s investigation continues, he discovers a series of similar recent murders scattered across North Carolina and a possible connection to a forty year old cover-up. This is the first book in a planned mystery/suspense series written by N.C. resident Douglas Quinn.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.
Comments Off on Douglas Quinn. Blue Heron Marsh. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2007
Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Coast, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Quinn, Douglas, Suspense/Thriller
Richard Baimbridge returns to Wilmington to help his sister Martha recover from an assault she received while researching a story on the sexual assault of a minor. As Martha heals, she pulls Richard into her investigation. This puts them both in danger, and Richard himself becomes a suspect in a series of heinous murders. The siblings must struggle to find the real serial killer, uncovering their own family’s secrets along the way.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Benners, Bill, Coast, Mystery, New Hanover
Judge Deborah Knott is adjusting to married life with her new husband, Dwight Bryant, and his young son Cal. There are signs that Colleton County is not doing as well accepting its newcomers–immigrant agricultural workers. When body parts begin to turn up around the county it’s clear that a murder has taken place. Who was the victim? Who is the murderer? The answers to these questions make this a timely book about race, class, and the vulnerability of immigrant laborers.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.
Comments Off on Margaret Maron. Hard Row. New York: Warner Books, 2007.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Coastal Plain, Maron, Margaret, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places
