Category Archives: Mecklenburg

Mecklenburg

by | February 24, 2011 · 4:11 pm

Mike Sanders. Thirsty. East Orange, NJ: Wahida Clark Presents Publishing, 2008.

Hustling in Charlotte, North Carolina, is a dangerous business; Justice Dial knows this. Still, she enjoys the perks – designer clothes and jewelry, a fancy car, a beautifully decorated home, and an endless supply of money – not to mention the thrill she gets from it. Her gorgeous appearance and quick wit make her a successful hustler: wealthy and well-connected men are distracted by her charms long enough for her to get necessary information. Justice then gives the important details to her brother, Monk, so that he and his friends can steal the men’s money and goods.

This time, however, Justice and Monk have gotten caught up with the wrong men. Monk’s new accomplice stole money from Carlos, a powerful drug lord who happens to be Justice’s ex-boyfriend. Carlos’s crew comes after Monk and Justice. The siblings fear for their lives so much that they decide to return to Chicago. Before they leave, Justice discovers that J.T., the handsome man she has been seeing, is not the nice guy she imagined. Justice gets her revenge, but going to war with Carlos’s gang changes her life forever.

This novel contains graphic sexual and violent content.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Mecklenburg, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Sanders, Mike, Suspense/Thriller, Urban Fiction

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by | August 23, 2010 · 10:17 am

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

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by | August 9, 2010 · 4:40 pm

Cheris Fredricka Hodges. Searching for Paradise. San Jose: Writers Club Press, 2001.

Kenya Washington is just starting out as a journalist.  After a stint in Georgia, she is back in North Carolina, working in Greensboro.  She likes being back in the state where she went to college and feels that she is making some progress in her career, but her love life is stalled.  Her good friend, Drew, a DJ on an Atlanta radio station, is in a similar boat. Drew’s radio show is just taking off, but she is still within the orbit of her college boyfriend, Xavier.  Luckily for Drew, a young doctor has moved into the apartment next to hers.  Drew may find love, but what about Kenya?

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2001, Guilford, Hodges, Cheris F., Mecklenburg, Piedmont

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by | July 2, 2010 · 12:21 pm

Cheris Hodges. No Other Lover Will Do. New York: Kensington Publishing, 2010.

Solomon Crawford edged out his older brother to become the manager of his family’s hotel chain. Now Solomon has taken a risk by opening a luxury resort in the North Carolina mountains during a down economy. Solomon is confident that it will succeed because he and his omni-competent assistant, Carmen De La Croix, have seen to every detail.

Just to be sure, Solomon decides to pay a visit to the resort.  Once there, he meets Kandace Davis, a beautiful workaholic whose friends have urged her to take a vacation from the restaurant that they all own in Charlotte. Kandace is looking for just one R–rest--so when Solomon tries to put the moves on her in the spa’s hot tub, she brushes him off in no uncertain terms. Solomon, who is quite the playboy and very confident, is sure that Kandace eventually will succumb to his charms.  As he pursues her, he realizes that Kandace will not be just another conquest and that his life will be richer if they can make a more permanent connection.

Just as Solomon and Kandace connect, Solomon receives a call from New York.  His security chief and friend, Danny, has been murdered.  Danny’s background check on a key employee sets a killer in motion, and Solomon and Kandace are both in danger.  After an attempt on his life, Solomon goes to Charlotte to recuperate.  There he is embraced by Kandace’s circle of friends, but the lovers are still threatened.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Hodges, Cheris F., Mecklenburg, Mountains, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship

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by | June 17, 2010 · 12:24 pm

Gordon Bennett. The Old Man’s Plan. Davidson, NC: Lorimer Press, 2010.

Tiff Wicker works at a social service agency in Charlotte, helping people with troubles connect to the help they need.  But Tiff has her own problems.  She can’t pay her bills. When an acquaintance introduces her to a man who will lend her some money, she quickly finds herself in over her head.

Frank Kakasic is someone Tiff notices at the park near her home.  He’s a bit odd, and not as good with his dog as Tiff is with hers.  When Frank shows up at Tiff’s agency, Tiff sees a lonely old man.  Tiff thinks he needs help and maybe a few friends, but Frank senses that it is Tiff who is in trouble.  When Tiff is unable to get out of the loan shark’s grip, Frank puts together a plan to free her.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Bennett, Gordon, Mecklenburg, Piedmont

by | June 4, 2010 · 9:14 am

Margaret G. Cahill. Five Star Fraud.Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com, 2010.

Changing jobs and moving to a new city are big steps.  Neil Launders is a cautious man, a scientist, so he didn’t move to Charlotte on a whim.  Gordon Byrnes recruited Neil hard with the offer of a great salary and a vast research-and-development budget.  The flattering words about Neil’s brilliance as a chemist didn’t hurt either.  But almost from the first moments at GB Polymers, Neil feels that something is wrong.  Only one person on his research team has been with the company for more than a year, Gordon is a micro-managing bully, and there is something off about the heir apparent, Gordon’s son, Chadwick.  But as difficult as the Byrnes men are, it’s parts of GB Polymers’ business that are truly scary in this environmentally-themed novel.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Cahill, Margaret G., Mecklenburg, Piedmont

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by | May 17, 2010 · 8:55 am

Tim Downs. Head Game. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007.

Cale Caldwell didn’t plan on being a soldier, but an Army ROTC scholarship helped pay his way through UNC.  Before Cale could begin a job with an advertising firm in Chicago, the first Gulf War interrupted his plans.  Luckily for Cale, he served in the war with his good friend, fellow Tar Heel King Kirby.  The two young men worked with a seasoned veteran, Pug Moseley, in a psychological operations unit.  They were good at their work–creating pamphlets and other propaganda that encouraged the enemy to surrender rather than fight.  They saw some bad things, but nothing that they couldn’t leave behind.

Or so Cale thought. When the book opens, it’s now more than a decade later.  Kirby has just committed suicide, and Cale has come from Charlotte to New York City to help Kirby’s mom sort through his possessions. Cale is having a tough time himself.  His wife has died in a car accident, and his teenage daughter hasn’t been able to come to terms with her mom’s death. Unable to accept the story of Kirby’s suicide, Pug and Cale poke around in the past even as more bad things happen to Cale and his family in Charlotte.  Soon the men know that someone from their past is out to destroy them, and the hunter and hunted reverse roles as the novel moves to a dramatic conclusion.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Downs, Tim, Mecklenburg, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller

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by | May 10, 2010 · 9:11 am

Kim Wright. Love in Mid Air. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2010.

“Kelly is the only one who knew me when we were both young and pretty, when we were impulsive and the world seemed full of men, and we would find ourselves sometimes transported by sex, picked up and carried into situations that, in the muddle of memory, seem a bit like movie scenes. She is the only one who would understand that I am relieved to find a sliver of this girl still inside me.”  So muses Elyse, a 30-something married woman, after a chance encounter on a plane with an amorous investment banker.

That chance encounter makes Elyse rethink her comfortable, but unexciting life.  Should she push for more from her husband? Begin an affair with Gerry? Her circle of women friends–especially Kelly–are are privy to some of  Elyse’s thoughts, but in the end it is Elyse herself who must decide what her life will be.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Mecklenburg, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Wright, Kim

by | March 12, 2010 · 10:36 am

Luther Little. Manse Dwellers. Charlotte: Presbyterian Standard Pub. Co., 1927.

A simple, readable novel of the life of James West, a minister in a large Southern city, Tarrytown (possibly Charlotte).  The account covers Rev. West’s life, including his early years, but focuses chiefly on the challenges that he faces as the pastor of a large church–dissent among the deacons, finances that don’t match programming, demands of the denomination for more support, an assistant who strays from orthodoxy, and jealousy in the hearts of other clergy.  Incidents in the lives of his parishioners form subplots.

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

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Filed under 1920-1929, 1927, Little, Luther, Mecklenburg, Piedmont, Religious/Inspirational

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by | December 7, 2009 · 8:14 am

Marian Sims. Call It Freedom. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1937.

As the harsh realities of the Great Depression decimate Ralph Harvey’s insurance business, his drinking habits cross a line that his wife Martha can’t accept.  When Ralph fails to reform, Martha decides to divorce him. As the novel opens, Martha has returned to Hanover (a fictionalized Charlotte, the author’s hometown) from Reno, Nevada, divorce decree in hand.  Looking at her house, empty for four months, and meeting old friends at the grocery brings home to Martha the import of what she has done.  How will she raise her nine-year old son? How will she spend her time?  The bridge parties, golf outings, and shopping trips of her past no longer have allure. She also finds that navigating her social set as a single woman is far more complicated than she ever knew. In the year covered in this novel, Martha finds her way. Although the setup of the novel is dated, Martha’s journey will be interesting to contemporary readers.

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

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Filed under 1930-1939, 1937, Mecklenburg, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont, Sims, Marian