Monthly Archives: May 2013

Lucy Arlington. Every Trick in the Book. New York: Berkley, 2013.

everytrickinthebookLila Wilkins has reached her goal of becoming a literary agent at A Novel Idea, a publishing house in small-town Inspiration Valley, North Carolina. The position is a serious step up from her first job at A Novel Idea as an intern, and with her new title comes a salary allowing her to purchase a dream home in the cozy town. Everything seems perfect — her twenty-something son, Trey, is happy living and working at the nearby Red Fox Co-operative farm, and she has an exciting new relationship with handsome local police officer Sean Griffiths. Of course, just when everything is looking up, an element of danger appears.

The trouble starts with an unsettling horror manuscript Lila receives by mistake. As the agent assigned to romance and cozy mysteries, Lila’s usual reading is lighthearted and fun. This manuscript is full of blood and gore, and she passes it off to her colleague, the literary agent assigned to thrillers and horror novels. Unfortunately, the manuscript has no contact information for the author– just an attached note saying that he will be pitching the novel to the agents at their upcoming Book and Author festival. Lila simply dismisses the manuscript as not in her area, but when she is nearly murdered at the book festival, she’s convinced it must be the mysterious author. Then, she finds the body of another editor nearby. Shortly after, a local author is killed, and the two murders appear to Lila to be connected. Will Lila find the murderer in time to prevent her own death? And could clues to his or her identity be written into the grisly manuscript?

Lila Wilkins is determined that she will have the final word.

Check out this second installment in the Novel Idea Mysteries in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

 

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Arlington, Lucy, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places

Perry Comer. Dead Man’s Clothes. United States: CreateSpace, 2012.

In the winter of 1864-65 Wilmington, North Carolina was the last open Confederate port on the Atlantic Coast and as such it was an important lifeline for the Confederacy.  Wilmington was protected by a huge earthwork fort eighteen miles downstream, Fort Fisher.  Every man in the fort knew that it was only a matter of time before the Union launched a coordinated attack on the fort and that the attack would involve the massing war ships of the Union navy and a sizable landing force of veteran fighters.  It isn’t hard to imagine how the men in the fort felt as they anticipated the battle of their lives.  But what would others at the fort–civilians–be thinking?  Dead Man’s Clothes attempts to answer that by imagining how the battle would have been experienced by three boys, Willie, Jeremy, and Tom.  The boys are orphans who have attached themselves to the Confederate encampment at the fort.  By performing personal chores for the soldiers, begging, and scrounging leftover food, clothes, and provisions, the boys attempt to stay alive in that cold winter.  Their survival is as precarious as their loyalty to each other is strong.  Knowing that a great battle is coming, Willie has made  a hideout for himself and his friends.  But how successful can a boy be in anticipating the chaos and horrors of a naval bombardment and a massive invasion?  Dead Man’s Clothes provides readers with an interesting perspective on a well known battle.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Coast, Comer, Perry, Historical, New Hanover

Katrina Thomas. Island Sojourn. Las Vegas, NV: Montlake Romance, 2012.

islandsojournDelaney Sutton used to love her job. A professional firefighter living in Richmond, Virginia, she has been passionately dedicated to saving lives for years. Now, at twenty-six, she’s reached a crossroads. Firefighting has always been her dream, but with the death of her friend and co-worker, Hal, in a fire that also injured her severely, Delaney is unsure and worn out. Her chief decides she needs a forced vacation at the same time that her sisters are planning their annual Sisterhood Sojourn to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Delaney gives in and goes with them.

Her four weeks in Avon on Hatteras Island are supposed to be relaxing. Unfortunately, her three sisters have other ideas about what she needs– well, one idea. A man. Luckily for them, Gareth Collins arrives almost within a day of the four women, and the Sutton sisters waste no time in hounding their youngest about how cute he is. Delaney has to agree, but she just doesn’t know if she wants a relationship right now. She hasn’t been able to sleep properly since Hal’s death, about which she keeps having post-traumatic flashbacks. Gareth realizes something isn’t entirely right with the pretty youngest Sutton sister, so he tries to take it slow, encouraging her to open up to him a little at a time. Is love really the medicine Delaney needs?

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Coast, Dare, Romance/Relationship, Thomas, Katrina

Karen Pullen. Cold Feet. Detriot: Five Star, 2013.

cold feetWhen Stella Lavender agreed to accompany her grandmother to a wedding, she didn’t expect to be pulled into a murder investigation.  Stella works for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the undercover work she’s been doing has her interacting with all manner of drug dealers, drug runners, and addicts.  Although Stella hates putting on a dress, she is looking forward to an afternoon of good food, champagne, and polite company at an attractive country inn.  But Stella is not sooner settled in her seat when she notices a bridesmaid talking excitedly to the inn’s owner.  Something is amiss. When Stella goes to investigate she finds the innkeeper and bridesmaid huddled over the bride’s lifeless body.  The young woman clearly died an agonizing death.

Soon the local authorities are on the scene, and the investigation begins.  Stella is happy to aid local detective Anselmo Morales, but she is less than thrilled to be working again with her ex-fiancé, Hogan Leith, who is a fraternity brother of the bridegroom.  Several of the groom’s frat brothers came for the funeral, even one brother whose wife died tragically just months ago.  As Stella and Anselmo investigate the murder they find that the wedding included a passel of unhappy people: an ex-girlfriend of the groom, a couple who object to the bride’s profession, parents who try to impose their values on their adult children, and an innkeeper who believes someone is sabotaging his business. When the coroner’s report adds unexpected information about the dead woman, Anselmo and Stella have yet another avenue to explore.

Between the murder investigation and her ongoing drug squad work, Stella Lavender barely has time to exercise her mutt Merle (who was the subject of a bitter custody dispute with her ex-fiancé). Cold Feet is an action-packed start to a new mystery series.

 

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Mystery, Piedmont, Pullen, Karen

Janice Sims. Escape with Me. Toronto: Harlequin Kimani, 2013.

escapeLana Corday has made a good living as a decorator in San Francisco but when her husband is accused of an enormous financial fraud, she is pursued by the media and her business dries up.  Both the media and the police badger Lana because he husband, Jeremy, is nowhere to be found.  Did Jeremy die when his yacht exploded, or did he fake his death so he could start a new life?

The FBI thinks that Jeremy is still alive and that he will come back for his beautiful wife.  Believing that Lana is the bait to catch Jeremy, the FBI enlists Lana’s father’s help. When she hears that her father has a touch of heart trouble, Lana returns to Hatteras Island to be by his side.  The FBI follows, in the person of handsome special agent Tennison Isles.  Jeremy’s deceptions have caused Lana to doubt her ability to judge people, but she can’t help but notice how her father trusts Tenn and enjoys his company.  Could she let herself fall for this upright, handsome, sexy man?

Janice Sims does a nice job of interweaving Lana and Tenn’s romance with the business of catching Jeremy, but what will set this book apart for North Carolina readers is the author’s familiarity with the Outer Banks–its geography, its beauty, its heritage.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Coast, Dare, Romance/Relationship, Sims, Janice

C.K. Volnek. Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island. United States: Spark Books, 2011.

ghostdogofroanokeIt feels like fate when Jack Dahlgren’s family inherits his great-aunt Ruth’s home on Roanoke Island in North Carolina. His dad has lost his job, and all the family’s savings are gone. But twelve-year-old Jack doesn’t want to live on Roanoke Island, especially in a house that the kids at school say is haunted. He also feels responsible for his little sister’s accidental fall off of a nearby sea cliff, which put her in a hospital in Raleigh. On top of everything, a hurricane is bearing down on the Outer Banks, howling like a monster.

…Or is it a hurricane? There’s definitely some stormy weather, but there’s also something dark and scary living in the woods near the Dahlgrens’ new house. When Jack investigates, he finds a mysterious, vanishing mastiff, and something much wilder. Later, Jack meets and befriends their Algonquin neighbor, Manny Braboy, who explains it all– the evil living in Jack’s woods is a Witiku: a demon summoned by the natives of Roanoke Island in the sixteenth century to rid the island of all invaders. Incredibly, Manny tells Jack that he, Jack, must be the one to defeat the Witiku. The twelve-year old is skeptical, but when Manny takes him back to the sixteenth century to observe the events of the Lost Colony unfold, he begins to believe. Will Jack defeat the Wikitu? Will Roanoke Island finally be at peace? Will Jack ever be happy in his new home?

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Children & Young Adults, Coast, Dare, Historical, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Volnek, C. K.

Caleb Wygal. A Murder in Concord. Baltimore: PublishAmerica, 2009.

concordLucas Caine thought that he was lucky to get a job with Fitzgerald, Incorporated in Concord, North Carolina right out of college. The Fitzgeralds–Trent Simon Fitzgerald II, and his father, Trent, Sr.–pay very well and Lucas has been proud to work for such a successful company.  Lucas is the personal assistant to Trent II, who runs the company; he handles his boss’s schedule and media interactions. Lucas thinks he knows his boss well, but everything that Lucas thinks he knows is called into question when he finds his boss shot to death in the company parking lot.

The murderer was someone with access to the very secure Fitzgerald, Inc. corporate compound. The police initially see Lucas as their prime suspect, in part because Lucas was the last person known to see Trent alive but also because Trent and the rest of the Fitzgeralds are such upstanding members of the Concord community.  To clear his name, Lucas looks into the circumstances of his boss’s death–why the security system went out and how someone could enter the parking lot undetected–and conflict within the Fitzgerald family.  What Lucas finds upends his view of his boss and changes his own life.

 

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Cabarrus, Mystery, Piedmont, Wygal, Caleb

Kathleen Thomas. Blackbeard’s Treasure. Greensboro, NC: Tudor Publishing, 2009.

Blackbeard's TreasureMatthew and Lauren Bakker, and their cousins Haley and Luke Bakker, are all set for a fabulous six weeks of summer camp on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Everyone is excited about different parts of the camp, but Matthew is focused on one thing only: Blackbeard. The most infamous pirate to terrorize the coast of the Old North State, Blackbeard supposedly left mountains of treasure behind when his ship Queen Anne’s Revenge sank in 1718. Matthew has been reading a book about the bloodthirsty buccaneer, and it’s not long before his enthusiasm infects his sister and cousins. Incredibly, when the four children arrive at summer camp, they discover that an underwater archaeological expedition is in progress nearby to find and recover Blackbeard’s ship for a local university.

Unfortunately, more than one person is interested in the sunken pirate galley. A private collector thinks he can beat the academics to what could be the discovery of the century. He’ll stop at nothing to steal the priceless wreck from under their noses and sell its treasure on the black market. Yet, the children come to suspect that a modern-day privateer is the least of their worries. Could Blackbeard’s angry spirit be haunting the beaches and coves of the Outer Banks, as well? With the help of the archaeologists, their harried camp counselors, and a crusty local former sailor, the four young troublemakers are determined to protect the treasure and thwart the ghost…by hook or by crook.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Carteret, Children & Young Adults, Coast, Thomas, Kathleen

Emilie Richards. One Mountain Away. Don Mills, Ont: Harlequin, 2012.

onemountainawayCharlotte Hale has lead an outwardly enormously successful life, building her own real-estate company in Asheville, North Carolina from scratch. Her rise from the poor daughter of a drunkard in the tiny mountain town of Trust to a wealthy mogul is the stuff of which American legends are made. Unfortunately, while the financial and business portions of her life have been rich, her personal life has suffered greatly. Her twenty-seven year old daughter, Taylor, cut her mother out of her life when she became pregnant at seventeen, and Charlotte has never met her granddaughter. Similarly, Charlotte has not spoken to her ex-husband, Ethan, since he left their marriage to support their daughter during that time.

Charlotte has never regretted her actions, moving ahead with confidence. Until the day that she is diagnosed with an acute form of leukemia, and realizes that life is too short and precious to waste on anger. She begins to focus on the important parts of life, and to attempt to rebuild many of the relationships she damaged, including those with her ex-husband and daughter. Along the way, she reaches out to a young, pregnant woman named Harmony, who is a complete stranger to her, but who desperately needs help. Since she refused to help Taylor so many years ago, opening her home to Harmony is a way of partially absolving her sins. But it doesn’t help everything–Charlotte still knows that the greatest reconciliation, and the hardest, is with the blood kin whom she betrayed. Will Taylor ever be able to forgive her mother?

Part of the Goddesses Anonymous series from Harlequin, this thoughtful novel encourages the reader to reconsider what’s most important in life before it’s too late.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Buncombe, Madison, Mountains, Novels in Series, Religious/Inspirational, Richards, Emilie

Jill McCorkle. Life after Life. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2013.

lifeA good family saga weaves together the stories of multiple generations of distinctly different but connected characters.  In Life after Life, the family is not the Forsytes, the Snopes, or the Corleones, but the residents and staff of Pine Haven, a retirement community in Fulton, North Carolina.  Pine Haven is the current home of a number of long-time Fulton residents including Lois Flowers, the local fashion plate; Marge Walker, the hyper-judgmental widow of a local judge; Stanley Stone, a retired attorney; and Sadie Randolph, who was widowed young and went on to become a beloved teacher.  But Pine Haven has attracted some outsiders too, including Toby Tyler, a retired teacher who drifted up from South Carolina and Rachel Silverman, a lawyer from Massachusetts (pronounced MassaTOOsetts by the locals) who choose Pine Haven for a very private reason.  People like Sadie are friendly with everyone, but Marge and Stanley (who is faking dementia) stir up some trouble.  Marge can be quite critical of C.J., the young woman who serves at the beautician for the residents.  C.J. is an easy target, with her piercings, tattoos, and her odd clothing.  And Marge doesn’t even know about how C.J. earned money before she had her baby, Kurt.

Joanna, the hospice worker, knows a bit about C.J’s life, but her heart is open to C.J. and her baby.  Joanna, a local who went away and then came back, has her own past which is a ready topic for Marge and Stanley when no better subject is at hand.  The intervention of a large dog saved her life and the dog’s wise owner helped Joanna find a way past her sadness to a meaningful life.

Joanna tends both the dying and the living–even Abby, a young girl who lives nearby and who is a regular visitor at Pine Haven.  Abby’s father is a childhood friend of Joanna’s and her mother is a mean, shallow person who every reader will root against.  The lives of Abby and her parents intersect with those of the Pine Haven characters in surprising ways.  This is a novel of revelations and unexpected connections.  Life after Life is a book in McCorkle’s characteristic style–there is sadness, humor, and wry acceptance of the muddle that people can make of their lives.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Coastal Plain, McCorkle, Jill