Monthly Archives: August 2010

Edith M. Hemingway. Road to Tater Hill. New York: Delacorte Press, 2009.

Although Annie Winters is in her favorite place on earth – visiting her grandparent’s house on Tater Hill – her summer is not going well. Annie’s family is in the midst of a tragedy. Her baby sister, Mary Kate, was born prematurely and died a day after her birth. With her father in Germany with the Air Force, Annie and her grandparents must help her mother through her debilitating grief while dealing with their own sadness. Annie, independent at ten, feels as though no one understands her sorrow. One day, she runs into the woods to escape her feeling of loss and is surprised to find an old woman. Over time she builds the courage to talk to her and discovers the stranger, Miss Eliza, has an unusual past. In spite of this, Annie secretly befriends Miss Eliza, who shares her love of reading. Annie’s unlikely friend helps her address her confusion and sadness at losing her sister and, in a sense, her mother.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Children & Young Adults, Hemingway, Edith M., Mountains, Watauga

Tom Lewis. Zena’s Law. New Bern, NC: McBryde Publishing, 2009.

Zena Carraway has every reason to question her decision to move to the little town of Tryon’s Cove.   The single mother of two, a nurse, moved to this coastal North Carolina town to work for Dr. Jim O’Brien, a general practitioner and town native.  Dr. O’Brien has lived elsewhere, so he brought new ideas with him when he moved back to Tryon’s Cove, but he knows how to gently work those ideas into the mix without upsetting people.  Not so Zena.  Her involvement in the PTA and Little League causes people to resent her and when she rebuffs some of the men in town, she makes a few very dangerous enemies.  Jim tries to protect her, but after she experiences violence and intimidation once too often, Zena takes matters into her own hands.  This novel portrays small town life in an unflattering way that leaves the reader wondering how much the twenty-first century South is like earlier, unhappy times.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Coast, Lewis, Tom, Novels Set in Fictional Places

Lawrence Thackston. The Devil’s Courthouse. Baltimore: PublishAmerica, 2010.

“I’m telling ya, there’s something screwy going on in our little corner of the wild kingdom.”

These words, from forest ranger Lem Astin, are a light-hearted understatement.  In the spring of 1974 several grizzly murders occur in Great Smoky Mountains.  The bodies are so horribly mutilated that police and locals initially believe that bears are responsible for the attacks.  As the body count rises, authorities take ever more extreme measures–killing bears within thirty miles of camp sites, closing the national park, shutting down a section of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and mishandling an attack on Cherokee lands.

Park rangers Nic Turner and Cole Whitman are skeptical of the bear theory.  So too are some older members of the Cherokee community.  Cherokee elders know the story of Tsul-kalu, a ferocious giant who lives in a cave on top of the Devil’s Courthouse, a rock formation in Transylvania County.  Cole’s skepticism is based on something more personal–a family tragedy and the torment he carries within himself.  It will be locals, not outside authorities, who are able to stop the killings.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Jackson, Mitchell, Mountains, Suspense/Thriller, Swain, Thackston, Lawrence, Transylvania

Rob Boisvert. Golgotha. Charlotte, NC: Mint Hill Books, 2010.

This novel follows Hoyle Templeton at a crucial period in his life.  Long divorced, Hoyle lives by himself on his family’s land in the mountains of North Carolina.  Hoyle is a talented carpenter.  When he restores the library in a large Victorian house in Asheville, the house’s new owner, Diane, is ever-present.  Diane is talkative and unsettled after a recent divorce, and she pushes her way into Hoyle’s life.

Hoyle is not looking for a romance.  The woman who concerns him the most is his daughter, Christine.  Christine was brought up by her mother, with little input from Hoyle, and in adolescence Christine began to use drugs.  Midway through the novel Christine leaves her drug-dealing, evil boyfriend and comes to live with Hoyle.  Will Hoyle’s love for his daughter save her, and what sacrifices will he make to secure her future?

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Boisvert, Rob, Buncombe, Mountains

Bernice Kelly Harris. Purslane. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939.

This loosely structured novel made a big splash when it was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1939. It was a departure from the academic nonfiction typically published by UNC Press and it was an altogether different book from the sensationalistic novels of the South put out by commercial publishers in the 1930s.

Purslane is set in a small farming community in central North Carolina.  John and Dele Fuller and their extended family are the focus of the novel.  The hard work of farming; daily routines before rural electrification; the decisions, large  and small, that set the course of each person’s life; and the ties that bind individuals to their kin and the community fill the pages of the novel.  Portrayals of the events of the community–church picnics, corn huskings, coon hunts, hog killings–give readers a rich picture of a culture that has slipped away during our parents’ lifetimes.

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

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Filed under 1930-1939, 1939, Harris, Bernice Kelly, Piedmont, Wake

Tom Mendicino. Probation. New York: Kensington Books, 2010.

Andy Nocera seems to have it all: an adoring wife, a successful career, a beautiful house in High Point, and a doting mother. He is content, but he is not satisfied. Andy has long been attracted to men, and he feeds this desire one night in the bathroom stall of an Interstate 85 rest stop. Although in the past these trysts have been discrete, the police catch Andy this time, and he is arrested. Andy’s wife, at the insistence of her father (who is Andy’s boss), kicks him out, and he moves in with his mother. At his hearing, the judge offers Andy probation and an expunged record after a year if he if he goes to counseling. He is reluctant, considering his sessions with Reverend Matthew J. McGinley, S.J., M.D., to be a waste of his time. However, Father McGinley is persistent in helping Andy explore his past, even when that past is difficult. After a period of depression, alcohol and drug abuse, dangerous flings, and the death of his mother, Andy is able to make peace with himself and with his loved ones, including his former wife. In getting Andy to discuss his life, Father McGinley helps him to understand and accept where he is in the present as a gay man.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Gaston, Guilford, Mecklenburg, Mendicino, Tom, Piedmont, Watauga

Michael Cogdill. She-Rain. New York: Morgan James Publishing, 2010.

Young Frank Locke grew up in a bad situation.  His father, a World War I veteran, was an angry, violent man with a taste for both alcohol and opiates.  Work in the mill and jealousy of his sister only further embittered Frank Senior.  Young Frank’s mother and grandparents loved him, but their love, wisdom, and generosity could not change the basic conditions of his life.  But the Lockes weren’t the only poor people in and around their mountain town.  Mary Lizbeth Hunter grew up nearby, a  wild child, left to roam the woods.  She and Frank met in school where Frank’s kindness to her bound them to each other.  Frank and Mary Lizbeth’s story carries through the book, enmeshed in a rich tale of faith and loyalty, but also violence and secrets.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Cogdill, Michael, Mountains

E. M. Schorb. Fortune Island. Williamsburg, VA: Cherokee McGhee, 2009.

Jessie Judas is certainly the most famous person from Fortune Island, a small part of the Outer Banks.  At sixty, Jessie is an internationally known marine biologist whose books have reached a broad audience and shaped public debate about the environment.  Fortune Island was barely inhabited when Jessie was growing up, but those few people–good and evil–shaped her life.  A loving but sick mother, the midwife who brought her into the world, and Ruth, an educated woman who came from Boston to study the folklore of the area, nurtured her and sought to protect her. But as Jessie reached her teens, she misunderstood the adults around her, precipitating a crisis that deprived Ruth of the man she loved and haunts Jessie the rest of her life.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Coast, Schorb, E. M.

Lynn Boyd. The Awakened Heart.Mustang,OK:Tate Publishing, 2009.

This brief, moving novel recounts the early adult years of a Halifax County man.  Told in the form of a memoir, seventy-five year old Vernon Lee (Buddy) Young reflects on working on his family’s farm, serving in the Korean War, and meeting and marrying the love of his life, Emma Jean.  Buddy’s life was hard. His family was poor and his father was cruel.  Meeting Emma Jean changed Buddy–he found acceptance and love, and through Emma Jean’s influence he came to believe in a loving God.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Boyd, Lynn, Coastal Plain, Halifax, Religious/Inspirational

Leanna Sain. Gate to Nowhere. Kingsport, TN: Twilight Times Books, 2008.

“Before I tell you anything, Gavin, I want to assure you that I’m not crazy. I’m not an escapee from an asylum, and I’m not a witch. I’m just me. My name is Emma Jane Franklin. I’m thirty-four years old; my birthday is April 6… 1970.”

Emma Franklin has been in Nowhere, North Carolina, for a few days when she reluctantly begins to tell her host, Gavin MacKinlay, the story of how she arrived. Gavin can hardly believe his ears – how can someone from the twenty-first century be in his apple orchard? He is transfixed by her beauty, charm, and interest in him and his property; this leads him to believe that she is not lying to him. If what she is saying is true, Emma passed through the gate during a full moon in 2004 to arrive on his plantation in 1827.

Although the thought of traveling through time is shocking enough, Emma gives Gavin some very startling news. In a few days time, the community, which has decided to rename their settlement “MacKinlay” out of admiration of his successes, will suddenly turn on him. Because Emma knows the future, she knows that generations of MacKinlay residents have cursed Gavin’s name, but neither she nor Gavin understand why. Equipped with the information Emma does have, they work together to prevent the events that caused this rift and thus change the course of history.

When the month has passed and the moon is full again, Emma is able to walk through the gate to get back to 2004. Once there, she finds neighbors who are genuinely friendly and who are proud to tout their town’s history. However, Emma is torn. She misses Gavin, who she found to be an honest, gentle person. She finds she likes the practices of the nineteenth century and has no desire to stay in this century. Emma must choose which life to live, although this time, if she passed through the gate, there can be no turning back.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Henderson, Historical, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Sain, Leanna, Science Fiction/Fantasy