Category Archives: 2006

2006

by | October 29, 2009 · 9:22 am

Sandra E. Bowen. The Cul-lud Schoo-ool Teach-ur. Long Island City, NY: Seaburn Books, 2006.

Dorothy Borden is the much-loved daughter of Granston’s first African American lawyer. Dorothy went north for her education, but after a failed marriage she comes back home.  If her first marriage was a mistake, her second marriage is a disaster.  Joe Cephus Divine is the town’s first black police officer.  Joe is a proud but angry man.  To improve his status, Joe plans to marry an educated woman, preferably a school teacher.  Dorothy is a college professor, and she soon flees his abuse.  When Joe marries again, the shoe is on the other foot.  Johnnye Jamison, a school teacher from Pennsylvania, may feign interest in the men who pursue her, but for her marriage is just the route to a man’s money.  With drugs supplied by a lover elsewhere, Johnnye kills off her husbands.  Years later when Dorothy returns to Granston, she learns what happened to Joe and she comes to terms with her own choices and the town she grew up in.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Bowen, Sandra E., Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont

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by | September 12, 2009 · 9:22 am

Maggie Bishop. Murder at Blue Falls: The Horse Found the Body. Boone, NC: High Country Publishers, 2006.

Jemma Chase’s parents own a dude ranch near Boone where she works as a trail leader.   The ranch’s dining hall serves as a gathering place for locals as well as guests, with good food and better gossip.  When a rash of strange crimes begin to happen in town, Detective Tucker and his partner investigate all possible suspects, including Jemma.  The crimes become more serious, and then Jemma’s horse finds a dead body near a trail.  Tucker realizes that Jemma isn’t a suspect, she’s a target.  Jemma’s natural curiousity leads her to play CSI and investigate the crimes on her own in order to help Detective Tucker and the police department find out who is behind the crimes.   Detective Tucker is impressed with Jemma’s moxie, leaving readers to wonder if his desire to serve and protect is purely professional.

This is the third novel in Bishop’s Appalachian Adventure series.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Bishop, Maggie, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Romance/Relationship, Watauga

by | April 29, 2009 · 5:10 pm

Hazel Rash Fleming. The Pink Irish Rose. Boone, NC: Parkway Publishers, 2006.

When Ellen Summers was twenty-nine, her parents died in a terrible car accident on the way to their cabin near Asheville. On that same day, Ellen’s marriage ended.  Five years later, Ellen’s parents appear in her dreams, urging her to return to the cabin.  When Ellen responds to the dreams by taking her summer vacation at the cabin, she sets in motion a series of events.  Love seems in offing, but Ellen has not let go of the hurt from her marriage, and the new man on the scene, wonderful though he is, has a connection to her parents’ deaths.  Ellen decides to leave her job in the federal government to run her late father’s mountain business, but she finds trouble and betrayal in this sphere too.  There are many characters and several subplots in this novel, but the love story moves to the satisfying conclusion that readers expect.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Buncombe, Fleming, Hazel Rash, Mountains, Romance/Relationship

by | April 14, 2009 · 10:37 am

Kathleen Ernst. Highland Fling. Chicago: Cricket Books, 2006.

Isn’t moving during high school about the worst thing that can happen to a teenager? For Tanya Zeshonski, it’s adding insult to injury. When Tanya’s parents divorced, her mom moved with her two girls from Wisconsin back to North Carolina. Mrs. Zeshonski (born a MacDonald) supplements her librarian’s salary by doing genealogical research for her kin, and she encourages the girls to embrace their Scottish heritage. Younger sister Nan does that through dance, but when Nan comes to idolize the accomplished local dancer Christina Campbell, Tanya has one more grievance to nurse. Only when her family attends the Cross Creek Highland Games and Tanya’s father comes for a visit, does Tanya learn to accept the past and move on.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Children & Young Adults, Ernst, Kathleen

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by | March 19, 2009 · 9:20 am

Dale Bailey and Jack Slay, Jr. Sleeping Policemen. Urbana, IL: Golden Gryphon Press, 2006.

Many a college student has had this nightmare: you’re out having fun (i.e., drinking with your pals) when inattention, or just bad luck, causes you to harm another person. The dream is so disturbing that most sleepers wake up. This novel follows the nightmare further than anyone wants to go. Three college students, returning to campus from a night of semi-illicit revelry, hit a pedestrian on a deserted mountain road. Nick Laymon, the most upright of the group, makes the driver turn back to confront what has happened. The man who was hit is dead; on his body they find a gun, a bus station locker key, and a roll of large bills. The young men cannot foresee the consequences of their decision to cover up the accident, and soon they are in a world where sexual exploitation, violence, and corruption are the norms. Bodies pile up, and the protagonist, Nick, finds both his strength and his inner darkness. The action moves back and forth between the North Carolina mountains and Knoxville, Tennessee.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Bailey, Dale, Mountains, Suspense/Thriller

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by | March 1, 2009 · 9:45 am

Karen Rose. Don’t Tell. New York: Warner Forever, 2006.

The abuse that Mary Grace Winters suffered at the hands of her husband, an Asheville cop, was so horrific that she faked her death to escape him.  Assuming a new identity, she has built a life for herself and her son in Chicago.  After almost a decade, Mary Grace, now Caroline Stewart, is about to finish college and take a chance on love.  When police in Tennessee find the car that Mary Grace escaped in, it reignites her husband’s fury.  He uses his guile and his professional contacts to track her down, even as his on on-the-job brutality catches up with him.  The action moves back and forth between Asheville and Chicago.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Buncombe, Mountains, Rose, Karen, Suspense/Thriller

by | February 25, 2009 · 4:09 pm

Donna Campbell Smith. An Independent Spirit: The Tale of Betsy Dowdy and Black Bess. Buford, GA: Faithful Publishing, 2006.

An Independent Spirit is based on the Revolutionary War-era story of Betsy Dowdy, who rode to warn a North Carolina general about the approach of British soldiers from Virginia. This book presents the year leading up to her famous ride, with fourteen year-old Betsy living on Currituck Island, riding her wild pony Black Bess, and traveling to Edenton. Betsy’s quiet life is interrupted when Virginia’s Lord Dunmore threatens her community and her beloved wild ponies. Her all-night ride from Currituck to Hertford brings news of troop movements and leads to a patriot victory at the Battle of Great Bridge. This edition of the book includes a bibliography and teacher’s guide.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Children & Young Adults, Chowan, Coast, Currituck, Docufiction, Historical, Smith, Donna Campbell

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by | February 2, 2009 · 9:13 am

Virginia Kantra. Home before Midnight. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2006.

It’s a cliche, but it’s still as true as the day Thomas Wolfe wrote it: You can’t go home again. Or, if you do, watch out!  Paul Ellis is the author of best-selling true crime books.  When he decides to write about a 1987 triple murder in Stokesville, North Carolina, Ellis and his wife move back to her family home in the town. As luck would have it, his research assistant, Bailey Wells, is also a Stokesville girl.  Bailey is reluctant to return to Stokesville, but Ellis is both an employer and a mentor to her, and she may be in love with him. When Mrs. Ellis is murdered, the local police settle on Bailey as the prime suspect.  While the police want to wrap this case up quickly to avoid bad publicity, the lead detective, Steve Burke, is torn between duty and his attraction to Bailey.  As the evidence mounts that Mrs. Ellis’s murder may have some connection to the slayings in 1987, the body count rises.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Kantra, Virginia, Mystery, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont

by | January 30, 2009 · 10:13 am

Joyce and Jim Lavene. Fruit of the Poisoned Tree. New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 2006.

When lawyer Park Lamonte dies after his car plummets off an overpass, the police first suspect that he committed suicide. Then attention shifts to his wife Beth and the accusations against her grow louder after Park’s mother is also killed. Charlotte-based botanist and garden shop owner Peggy Lee doesn’t think Beth is guilty and uses her experience and expertise with plants to try to free the widow from police custody. The story includes winter gardening tips and discussions of environmental topics, and features characters from the previous Peggy Lee stories, including Peggy’s boyfriend Steve, her online chess partner Nightflyer, and her unruly dog Shakespeare.

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

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Filed under 2006, Lavene, Jim and Joyce, Mecklenburg, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont

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by | January 28, 2009 · 1:09 pm

Michael Phillips. The Soldier’s Lady. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2006.

The Soldier’s Lady is the second book in the Carolina Cousins series and, although it continues the stories of Katie and Mayme, it is focused upon Micah Duff. Micah had a hard childhood in Chicago, but grew up to become an educated, thoughtful, and spiritual man. After the end of the Civil War, the former Buffalo soldier finds his way to Rosewood Plantation where he reconnects with old friends, becomes a new and important part of the Rosewood family, and helps them face a threat from a cruel man from Emma’s past.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Historical, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Phillips, Michael, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship

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