Tag Archives: Fishing

Laura S. & William L. B. Wharton. The Mermaid’s Tale. Mt. Airy, NC: Broad Creek Press, 2014.

themermaid'stale“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit” ~ Helen Keller

Jock Avery is back, along with his new friends Lynna and Chip Woodward. During their first summer together, the trio solved the mystery of Monsters Below Longleaf Lake in Moore County, North Carolina. Now there is a new mystery to discover. Seven-year old Chip, from his dock, has spotted a mermaid in the lake while Lynna and Jock are having a sailboat race. Lynna’s boat almost hit her! Although he suspects that they will never believe him, Chip still can’t help but to tell his friends what he’s seen. Jock quickly expresses his disbelief but is silenced by Lynna who defends her brother. This calls for an investigation!

The trio decide to search the lake using a grid pattern just like underwater archeologists. They draw out a grid in order to mark every spot they search and what they find there. The mermaid quest brings up some problems like their inability to dive but so deep. Soon, there is a discussion of deep sea divers and scuba tanks. Lynna and Jock have a contest to see who can hold their breath the longest underwater while Lynna and Chip’s mom times the two. Lynna wins! This leads Jock to want to join the swim team in order to improve his underwater breathing.

The search for the mermaid continues full force when Jock catches a glimpse of her at night–he no longer doubts Chip’s claim. However, will the grownups ever believe? Will the trio be able to find the mermaid in the lake? Jock turns to his favorite adventurer, Sam Justice, and his underwater adventures for inspiration on how to look for the mermaid. While the kids have a mission, the adults are planning an adventure of their own. The parents have been invited to a grand opening event and everyone is going. What surprise could be waiting for Jock, Chip, and Lynna at the event?

Co-authored by novelist Laura S. Wharton and her son William, The Mermaid’s Tale is the second book in the Mystery at the Lake House Series. This chapter book is intended for children aged 9-12; it includes lots of information on swimming, diving, fishing, and the importance of taking care of our water environments. Also included are instructions on how to build an underwater viewer, used by Chip in the book, and two interviews: one with the mermaid and one with William. This book encourages kids to believe in themselves and not be so quick to doubt others.  This is a book that kids will find enjoyable as well as informative.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2014, Children & Young Adults, Moore, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Wharton, Laura S., Wharton, William L. B.

Stephen March. Hatteras Moon. New York: Köehlerbooks, 2013.

hatterasJack Delaney and Virgil Gibson became friends in high school, when star athlete Jack noticed Virgil’s dedication to the football team, even though Virgil would always be just a bench warmer.  Jack and Virgil did some dumb, crazy things together–like jumping off the bridge over Oregon Inlet.  But after high school they went their separate ways: Jack to Vietnam and Virgil to college.  Jack was injured in Vietnam and came back to the Outer Banks to be a fisherman like his dad.

But Jack remained a dare devil, and before long Jack began using the trawler he inherited from his father to smuggle marijuana.  Soon Jack has a large house on the beach, additional property, and a life that suits him, if not the government.  Meanwhile, Virgil has grown dissatisfied with his life.  Teaching undergraduates at a small college has lost its allure, and his marriage has grown stale.  More than a decade after high school, Virgil returns to Hatteras Island for the summer to re-assess his life.

Looking up his old friend Jack is among the first things that Virgil does.  Jack’s life looks attractive, even though Jack has money problems and is being threatened by one of his business associates.  Ever one to take a risk, Jack branches out into a new endeavor, one that brings him in contact with dangerous men with a different agenda.  When a simple shrimping trip turns deadly, Virgil plunges into a dangerous game of revenge.

Hatteras Moon is set in the late 1980s and some readers will be reminded of the Iran-Contra Affair by certain plot elements.  But a knowledge of Reagan-era foreign policy is not necessary to understand this dark tale of greed, loyalty, and revenge.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Coast, Dare, March, Stephen, Mystery

Margaret Maron. Shooting at Loons. New York: Mysterious Press, 1994.

Judge Deborah Knott leaves her seat in Colleton County and heads to the Outer Banks in this, the third installment in Maron’s popular Deborah Knott series. Filling in for a temporarily incapacitated judge in Carteret County, Deborah is happy to be away from her nosy, trouble-making family and back in Beaufort, NC– home to her cousins, and the site of many happy girlhood summers. However, her nostalgic memories are rudely banished when she finds Andy Bynum, and old family friend, floating murdered in the surf. Deborah isn’t sure who would want to kill the amicable fisherman, but his death hangs like a pall over what was supposed to be her peaceful ocean getaway.

Andy’s death isn’t the only problem. North Carolina’s so-called Crystal Coast is on the brink of war–with increasing levels of tourism, there is continual tension between the High Tiders, who have been fishing the waters for centuries, conservationists, who want to curtail potentially harmful traditional fishing techniques, and developers, who are looking to get the most out of any land they can buy. Andy Bynum, a local and former poacher who unaccountably founded a conservationist organization, was in the center of the conflict. Deborah isn’t sure who killed him, but it’s a fact that many people wanted the stubborn community leader dead. But who pulled the trigger? Knott must carefully navigate a sea of lawyers, judges, greedy developers, tight-lipped locals, and unexpected old friends to find the killer.

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

 

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1994, Carteret, Coast, Maron, Margaret, Mystery, Novels in Series

A. L. Provost. The Trust of Old Men: The Coastal Plain Conspiracy. New York: Xlibris, 2010.

This complicated mystery, set in North Carolina during the Roaring Twenties, begins simply. UNC Hill freshman Alan Barksdale has labored diligently all first semester, with the dream of one day becoming a banker like his esteemed father, Marvin Barksdale. Mr. Barksdale is currently both the trust officer and manager of the enormously wealthy Commerce Bank in Raleigh due to the terrible death of the previous manager. Impatient to be reunited with his family for the winter holidays, young Barksdale hops in his brand-new, 1920 four-door Ford the minute classes end on the evening of December 20th. The snow falls thick and fast, and Alan tragically fails to see the young woman waving her hands in the middle of the road until it is too late. At least that’s what the Good Samaritan who stops to help tells the distraught young man.

Speaking of tragedy, seventeen wealthy, elderly men and women have passed away during 1920 on the Coastal Plain. But these deaths are no mystery: the Lenoir County Medical Examiner has carefully determined that each death was simply the result of age. Heart attacks, a misstep on the stairs, and falling overboard during fishing expeditions are only to be expected when men and women pass their seventies! Unfortunately for the departed, it’s possible that their ends were hastened by a lack of living kin on whom to spend their time and considerable fortunes–kin who might have prevented these accidents.

At first glance, no honest citizen would ever think that these deaths and Alan’s fatal car crash were related. But Norman Bates, a hotshot young reporter from Kinston, smells a rat. Now he’s on the tail of the biggest heist in North Carolina…maybe even America. But will he survive long enough to discover the truth?

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

 

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Historical, Lenoir, Mystery, Provost, A. L., Suspense/Thriller, Wake

Laura S. Wharton. Leaving Lukens. Mt. Airy, NC: Broad Creek Press, 2011.

In June of 1942, Lukens is a small town on the North Carolina coast, and it’s getting smaller. Residents left first in trickles, but now they’re crossing the Neuse in a torrent to places like Oriental, with its modern conveniences and thriving community. Ella Marie Hutchins, seventeen, is dead set against leaving. Everything she loves is in Lukens: her house, her Grandmother, and her handsome boyfriend, soon-to-be naval officer Jarrett Migette. When Jarrett announces he’s leaving earlier than planned, and her mother decides that they’re moving, Ella is distraught. Leaving Lukens might be the safest idea, however, as the war is closer than anyone thinks. Walking alone near the tideline one evening, Ella is threatened by a vicious Nazi scout, and barely escapes unscathed. Luckily, she’s assisted by a young stranger named Griff, who just happens to be passing by. Griff’s story makes sense–he’s a recreational sailor and treasure-hunter, visiting his uncle in Lukens on his prize sailboat Susanna. Soon he and Ella are fast friends, and as they spend more time together sailing, biking, and picnicking throughout the long, hot, Lukens summer, they begin to feel more for one another. But Griff is more than he seems, and the secret mission he is bound to fulfill will push Ella into danger greater than she’s ever faced before.

Filled with sailing lore, secrecy, Nazis, and romance, Leaving Lukens is an exciting new adventure from the author of The Pirate’s Bastard.

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

 

 

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Carteret, Coast, Craven, Historical, Pamlico, Suspense/Thriller, Wharton, Laura S.

Shelby Adams Lloyd. Grains of Sand. New York: Xlibris, 2007.

Jean Rein is frightened–her husband Mark was murdered, and now she’s getting threatening phone calls.  Reeling from shock and pain, she decides to leave her home and her career in Washington, DC.  Jean is fortunate in that her husband was a successful broker, so she is able to buy a beautiful Victorian house and adjoining property in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.  There she begins to make a new life for herself, finding work, making friends, and reconnecting with family.  She even finds a new love, but there is no escaping the many horrible things that will happen to her.  The phone calls continue, and Jean begins to believe that she is being followed.  She hires a bodyguard, and when he is murdered, Jean fears that she will never escape the terror.  Finally she is kidnapped and brutally assaulted.  Only by pretending to go along with the madman who has stalked her is she able to break free.

This book contains graphic scenes of sex and violence.

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

 

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Coast, Lloyd, Shelby Adams, New Hanover, Suspense/Thriller

Mary Alice Monroe. Time Is a River. New York: Pocket Books, 2008.

If your friend was recovering from breast cancer and sexual betrayal, would you offer her quiet time in a cabin where a murder might have taken place? What was Belle Carson thinking?!? She clearly wasn’t expecting her friend Mia to get interested in that old murder, the one that had caused so much pain to Belle’s family. But once Mia finds the diary of Belle’s grandmother, the accused murderer, she begins to ask questions and poke around in the library and in town, trying to uncover the truth about the accusations against Kate Watkins. Kate was not a murderer, but a proud, confident journalist and fly-fisher. Drawing strength from Kate’s life, Mia puts hers back together.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Buncombe, Coast, Monroe, Mary Alice, Mountains, Novels in Series, Romance/Relationship

Douglas Quinn. Blue Heron Marsh. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2007

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.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Coast, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Quinn, Douglas, Suspense/Thriller

David Payne. Gravesend Light. New York: Doubleday, 2000.

Joe Madden is a professor at Duke who has come to the Outer Banks to study the inhabitants of a small fishing village. Joe moves into his family’s home on the fictional island of Little Roanoke, and soon after begins an affair with Day Shaughnessy, a doctor at the local hospital. The narrative alternates between Joe’s voice and Day’s, describing the evolution of their relationship, and Joe’s research. The citizens of Little Roanoke play a prominent role in the novel as Joe tries to understand the unique way of life on the Outer Banks.

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

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Filed under 2000, 2000-2009, Coast, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Payne, David, Romance/Relationship

Bill Morris. Saltwater Cowboys. Wilmington: Coastal Carolina Press, 2004.

The residents of a small maritime community in Down East Carteret County are surprised when sea turtles began showing up in places as odd as a hotel jacuzzi and the mayor’s truck. Dodge Lawson, who operates a sort of marine salvage service when he’s not fishing, has the job of hauling the turtles back out to sea. Dodge becomes embroiled in the turtle mystery, which seems to be the work of environmental activists. Much of this funny novel is given to the story of the honest and genuine Down Easters who are simply trying to save their community from an onslaught of aggressive developers and inconsiderate recreational fishermen, while being harassed by a documentary filmmaker who pokes his nose into everything, and the never-ending parade of university researchers studying the local dialect.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2004, Carteret, Coast, Morris, Bill