Category Archives: Catawba

Catawba

by | November 13, 2009 · 3:03 pm

Joyce Moyer Hostetter. Comfort. Honesdale, PA: Calkins Creek, 2009.

The year is 1945 in this sequel to Hostetter’s earlier novel, Blue.  Ann Fay has returned from treatment in a polio hospital and her beloved father is back from the war.  Ann Fay thinks that she understands the changes that occurred at home during the war–the deprivation, the polio epidemic that killed her younger brother and disabled her–but she has no understanding of what her father went through.  Her father suffers from what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder.  Ann Fay and her father are both in search of healing and peace of mind–“comfort”.   Ann Fay is helped on her path by caring neighbors and treatment at the Warm Springs, Georgia polio treatment center.  Her father’s healing path is lonelier and the outcome uncertain.

Comfort touches on themes of family, community, racial prejudice, and social class, but the novel never bogs down in any way.  Ann Fay’s voice rings true in this beautiful coming-of-age story.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Catawba, Children & Young Adults, Hostetter, Joyce Moyer, Piedmont

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by | July 24, 2009 · 2:38 pm

Tamela Hancock Murray. Love Finds You in Maiden, North Carolina. Bloomington, MN: Summerside Press, 2009.

The two cousins who come to stay with their aunt in Maiden, North Carolina couldn’t be more different. Selene is a beautiful, but shallow, flapper.  After his wife died, Selene’s wealthy father gallivanted around the world, leaving Selene in the care of governesses and other hired help.  When Selene finds herself pregnant, she is sent to live with her Aunt Louisa until the baby is born.  Selene’s country-mouse cousin, Hestia, is already in Maiden, caring for Aunt Louisa after the older woman breaks her hip.  The two cousin clash–about styles, leisure time pursuits, values, and the handsome Booth Barrington.  Selene sees Booth as the solution to her awkward situation.  Given how wickedly he tormented her when they were children, Hestia is surprised to see what a fine man Booth has become.  She’s now drawn to him because of his good looks and Christian values, but she feels she is no match for Selene.  As the fall turns into winter, the main characters learn from Aunt Louisa, her friends, and other good people in the little town.  When spring arrives both Selene and Hestia have made peace with the past and found love.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Catawba, Murray, Tamela Hancock, Piedmont, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship

by | April 4, 2009 · 9:30 am

Toni L.P. Kelner. Dead Ringer. New York: Kensington Pub., 1994.

In the second book in the Laura Fleming mystery series, Laura and her husband Richard return to the small town of Byerly for her family reunion. Her calm vacation is quickly livened up with amateur sleuthing when a stranger is shot to death at the town’s mill and she discovers that her aunt is being blackmailed.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1994, Catawba, Kelner, Toni L. P., Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont

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by | November 7, 2008 · 9:20 am

Jeanie Sullivan. Nora’s Dream. Hickory, NC: Hickory Landmarks Society, 2008.

In this picture book, readers learn about Nora Shuford’s life growing up in Hickory in the late 1800s and about her dream of higher education. The story recounts the founding of Hickory’s Claremont College and the main character is based on the real Nora Shuford, whose family home–Maple Grove–is now a historical landmark and museum. The book is designed so the story can be read in either English or Spanish.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Catawba, Children & Young Adults, Docufiction, Piedmont, Sullivan, Jeanie

by | July 31, 2008 · 8:19 am

Toni L.P. Kelner. Wed and Buried. New York: Kensington Books, 2003.

Computer programmer and amateur sleuth Laura Fleming is once again visiting the fictional town of Byerly, and this time she not only has her actor-husband with her, but also her seven-month-old baby daughter. The initial reason for their visit is the recent marriage of Laura’s Aunt Maggie to Big Bill Walters, the wealthiest man in town, but after their arrival Maggie reveals that she married Bill to protect him from whoever has been trying to kill him. While wedding celebrations commence and her relatives babysit little Alice, Laura begins snooping around town and tries to determine the identity of the would-be killer.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Catawba, Kelner, Toni L. P., Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places

by | April 14, 2008 · 10:59 am

Joyce Moyer Hostetter. Blue. Honesdale, Penn.: Boyds Mills Press, 2006.

In this book for younger readers, thirteen year old narrator Ann Fay Honeycutt describes life in Hickory during World War II. When Ann Fay’s father goes to fight in the war, he leaves her in charge of the family. She trades in playing and climbing trees for the grown-up responsibilities of tending the vegetable garden and taking charge of her younger siblings. When a polio epidemic hits her town and she is stricken with the disease, Honeycutt is hospitalized and becomes close friends with another patient, an African American girl her age. The novel is based on the true story of a hospital for polio patients in Hickory in the 1940s.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Catawba, Children & Young Adults, Historical, Hostetter, Joyce Moyer, Piedmont

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by | March 13, 2008 · 9:58 am

Toni L.P. Kelner. The Laura Fleming Mysteries.

Laura Fleming is a computer programmer living in Boston with her husband, a Shakespeare professor at a local college. In nearly all of these novels (with the exception of Country Comes to Town) Laura travels to her hometown of Byerly, N.C., a fictional town in the western part of the state, and when she does, trouble breaks out. Time after time Laura’s amateur detective skills are called into play as she gets to the bottom of a murder. In between chasing criminals, Laura introduces her husband to the South. Kelner describes Byerly as “based on my memories and knowledge of Southern mill towns like Granite Falls, Conover, and Dudley Shoals. If it were real, it would be near Hickory, NC, with its own exit off Highway 321.”

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Filed under Catawba, Kelner, Toni L. P., Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Series

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