Regan Landry is a journalist working on a profile of Lester Ray Barnes, who had just been released from death row after it was learned that he was convicted on faulty evidence. Now, long after Landry begins her profile, Barnes disappears at the same time a string of grisly crimes are committed on the Outer Banks. Landry teams up with an FBI officer and they travel to the North Carolina coast to investigate.
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Comments Off on Mariah Stewart. Final Truth. New York: Random House, 2006.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Coast, Novels in Series, Stewart, Mariah, Suspense/Thriller
When a car crash injures actress Cathy Deen, her career in Hollywood is over. She returns to her hometown in the North Carolina mountains where she finds solace in familiar faces and rituals, and in a new addition to the community, a man who has recently moved there to recover from emotional scars of his own.
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Comments Off on Deborah Smith. Crossroads Cafe. New York: BelleBooks, 2006.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Mountains, Romance/Relationship, Smith, Deborah
Flynn “Flint” Clinton returns home to the fictional Piedmont town of North Fork, North Carolina after leaving his music career and fast lifestyle behind in Nashville. Looking to start a new life, he finds himself captivated by Joella Sanderson, a waitress at the restaurant he owns. Joella brings music and love back into Flint’s life, yet he is still not without his share of troubles.
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Comments Off on Patricia Rice. Small Town Girl. New York: Ivy Books, 2006.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont, Rice, Patricia
Blue van Meer has been moving to a new small college town every semester ever since her mom died in a car accident when she was ten years old. Her father is a handsome and charismatic professor of political science with a focus on revolutions and uprisings, and insists that traveling will add to Blue’s education (and save him from settling down with a new woman). This highly intellectual father-daughter duo let go of their wandering ways to put down roots in the fictional mountain town of Stockton, North Carolina, where Blue will spend her senior year of high school at a prestigious private school.
Early on in this coming-of-age tale, Blue is abruptly pulled into the “it” crowd at school, an elite group of smart and attractive students who receive special attention from the school’s mysterious film studies teacher, Hannah Schneider. The plot slowly unfolds as Blue and her friends wade through their strange relationships and salon-like gatherings, and eventually get caught up in a mysterious drowning that occurs at a party Hannah hosts. Blue uses the critical thinking skills and intellect reinforced so strictly by her overbearing father during the last six months of her senior year, only to discover that the mystery hits closer to home than she originally thought.
Special Topics contains cheeky in-text citations of various “great books” and other intellectual sources Blue uses to express observations and metaphors about things that happen in the book. Literary references also appear in the title of the chapters, which are all named after famous works of literature. While teen readers may be drawn to Blue’s persistence as she goes through the changes and trials of senior year, older readers may be more appreciative of the not-so-subtle nuances Pessl is now known for.
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Comments Off on Marisha Pessl. Special Topics in Calamity Physics. New York: Viking, 2006.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Mountains, Mystery, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Pessl, Marisha
The story of Littlejohn McCain continues in this sequel to Owen’s Littlejohn (1992). Georgia, Littlejohn’s granddaughter, returns from New Jersey to her hometown in the fictional town of East Geddie, North Carolina. East Geddie, “where strawberries had grown and no tobacco was ever planted,” located in the sand hills of Scots County (Scotland County), greets Georgia with flashbacks from her past life on the farm, a family murder mystery to solve, and the prospect of true love.
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Comments Off on Howard Owen. Rock of Ages. Sag Harbor, NY: The Premanent Press, 2006.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Owen, Howard, Piedmont, Scotland
When Ezra Pickens is found murdered, there is no shortage of suspects in Salisbury, N.C. The wealthy but unpopular lawyer made a lot of enemies over his long career and it’s left to his son and partner, Jackson, to unravel the mystery.
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This Civil War novel follows the intertwining stories of a young woman from an elite Wilmington family, a runaway slave, and a dirt-farmer’s son turned fugitive-slave-catcher.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library Catalog.
Comments Off on Joanna Catherine Scott. The Road from Chapel Hill. New York: Penguin, 2006.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Historical, Novels to Read Online, Orange, Piedmont, Scott, Joanna Catherine
This first in a series of “Collectible Mysteries” introduces Molly Appleby, a Hillsborough-based pottery expert. When George-Bradley Staunton–described as “North Carolina’s most obnoxious collector”–is murdered, Molly is on the case. Her investigations bring her to potters and collectors around the state, including Asheboro, Hendersonville, and Seagrove. Stanley’s extensive knowledge of folk pottery is evident throughout the text.
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Comments Off on J.B. Stanley. A Killer Collection. New York: Penguin, 2006.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Orange, Piedmont, Stanley, J.B.
Drops of the Night, a North Carolina novel set in 1988, is the story of Nora Lynch, a childless farmer’s wife who faces her husband’s jealous rages and intentions to sell the family farm – a plan that threatens the only lifestyle Nora has known. She also confronts a growing attachment to a stranger who enters her life through her husband’s gambling. Drops of the Night is set in fictional Milton, based on Marion in McDowell County (not to be confused with the real Milton, N.C., which is in Caswell County).
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Comments Off on Julia Nunnally Duncan. Drops of the Night. Boone, N.C.: Parkway Publishers, 2006.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Duncan, Julia Nunnally, McDowell, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places
Past and present are entertwined in this novel when 17-year-old Travis Shelton begins to investigate his ancestors’ role in the 1863 Civil War massacre at Shelton Laurel. Travis has just dropped out of school and spends most of his time hanging out and reading history with a former teacher in Madison County, N.C. The teacher has turned to selling pot to make a living and needs Travis’s help when he gets in over his head with nearby drug dealers.
The World Made Straight won the 2006 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.
