Monthly Archives: March 2009

by | March 31, 2009 · 1:07 pm

Katy Munger. Money to Burn. New York: Avon Books, 1999.

Sassy P.I. Casey Jones takes a job bodyguarding a tobacco scientist who has been receiving death threats. When he’s killed after only one day on the job, Casey takes it personally. She’s just considering looking into his murder when his fiancé hires her to find out two things: first, was he cheating on her before his death, and second, did her rich tobacco magnate father have him killed. Her complicated investigation takes her into the some very different settings, including Triangle high society and the rural countryside. This is the third book in the Casey Jones mystery series.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1999, Durham, Munger, Katy, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont

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by | March 27, 2009 · 10:15 am

John Hutton. Christmas Maus: Another Small Tale of Sisters House in Salem. Winston-Salem, NC: Salem Academy and College, 2008.

This picture book follows Sister Maus as she decorates the Salem Single Sisters’ House and bakes cookies in preparation for Christmas. The tiny mouse also meets new friends who live in the nearby Brothers’ House. A section of author’s notes in the back of the book provides more information about traditional Moravian Christmases, like those celebrated in Salem.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Children & Young Adults, Forsyth, Historical, Hutton, John, Piedmont

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by | March 26, 2009 · 9:48 am

Alan Armstrong. Raleigh’s Page. New York: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2007.

Ever since he first learned about the New World, eleven-year-old Andrew has dreamed of going there himself and seeking his fortune. When his father decides to send him to London to become a page for Sir Walter Raleigh, Andrew is on his way to the adventure he craves. He faces homesickness, meanness from his fellow pages, and tests concocted by Sir Raleigh to prove his skills and loyalty. He also journeys to France and–finally!–the New World, where he becomes friends with an Algonquin boy named Sky.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Armstrong, Alan, Children & Young Adults, Coast, Historical

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by | March 25, 2009 · 3:31 pm

Karen Salyer McElmurray. The Motel of the Stars. Louisville, KY: Sarabande, 2008.

It has been 10 years since Jason Sanderson’s son Sam was lost at sea. Over the years Jason has moved from North Carolina to Kentucky and remarried, but he never really dealt with his grief and his wife’s New Age attempts to help him do so backfire. Sam’s lover Lory has also spent the last decade with her grief, hiding from the world in her father’s rural hotel. After Jason meets Lory, their stories and memories of Sam are told in a series of flashbacks. Both Jason and Lory head toward Grandfather Mountain and the celebration of the Harmonic Convergence Anniversary Gathering, hoping to find some kind of peace. The Motel of the Stars won the 2003 AWP Award for Creative Nonfiction and was a National Book Critics Circle Notable Book.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Avery, McElmurray, Karen Salyer, Mountains

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by | March 24, 2009 · 10:19 am

Michael Malone. Time’s Witness. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989.

Time’s Witness is narrated by Cuddy Mangum, formerly a homocide detective and now the Chief of Police for the Piedmont town of Hillston. By his own admission Cuddy doesn’t have the best thing one can have in Hillston (class), or even the second best thing (looks). What he does have are brains and he makes use of them in this, the second of the Justin and Cuddy mysteries. With a young African-American man’s execution on the horizon, racial tensions rise in the town and things only get worse when the convict’s brother is murdered. Then a candidate for governor becomes involved and starts receiving death threats. Complicating matters is the fact that the politician’s wife is Cuddy’s first–and perhaps only real–love.

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

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Filed under 1980-1989, 1989, Malone, Michael, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont

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by | March 22, 2009 · 9:11 am

Yvonne Lehman. Coffee Rings. Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing, 2004.

Four college girls go to the beach and cut loose. One of them dies. When the book opens, the remaining three friends are women in their early forties. Each of the friends has built a life, but all are still affected by what happened those many years ago. When the dead girl’s mother discovers she has terminal cancer, she asks her daughter’s friends to accompany her to the scene of the accident. All the women have secrets and guilty feelings; these come out. Religious faith enables the characters to achieve self-acceptance and forgiveness.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2004, Buncombe, Coast, Lehman, Yvonne, Mountains, Religious/Inspirational

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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 | March 17, 2009 · 4:30 pm

Yvonne Lehman. North Carolina Weddings. Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing, 2008.

This volume contains three short novels about love and faith, all set in the North Carolina mountains. In Past the Ps Please, Sara becomes the housekeeper in a local mansion and meets the family’s three appealing sons. At first she thinks it is the perfect job because “anyone can clean a house,” but she quickly sees that it is more difficult than she imagined. On a Clear Day focuses on Ellen Jonsen, a young woman who is searching for a job and solutions to some family drama. She finds both employment and love at a local Christian conference center. By Love Acquitted tells the story of Tyler Corbin, a man who has just been released from prison after serving a two year sentence for a crime he didn’t commit. He is trying to start a new life, but keeping secrets from the woman he loves creates problems.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Lehman, Yvonne, Mountains, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship

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by | March 16, 2009 · 10:59 am

Margaret Maron. Bootlegger’s Daughter. New York: Mysterious Press, 1992.

Lawyer Deborah Knott is a modern southern woman, but as the only daughter of a notorious, retired bootlegger, she still has one foot in the traditions of the old south. After one of the local judges is particularly and unnecessarily harsh on one of her partner’s clients, she decides to run for a seat as district judge in Colleton County. The campaign is a hard one, but Deborah is also distracted by her large family and gets tangled up in trying to resolve the 18-year old unsolved murder of a neighbor. The first in the Deborah Knott series of mysteries, Bootlegger’s Daughter also won four of the major mystery awards: the Edgar, Anthony, Agatha, & Macavity Awards.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1992, Coastal Plain, Maron, Margaret, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places

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by | March 14, 2009 · 2:11 pm

Dixie Browning. Her Man Upstairs. New York: Silhouette Books, 2005.

Bookstore owner Marty Owens thinks of herself as a practical, unemotional person. It makes sense to get her old house in shape, and since she’s too busy to do it herself, hiring someone else to do is the way to go.  What Marty doesn’t consider is how the gossip will fly when the contractor moves in, or how hunky Cole Stevens will get her heart racing.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2005, Browning, Dixie, Coast, Romance/Relationship

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