Category Archives: 2008

2008

by | November 2, 2009 · 9:04 am

James Villas. Dancing in the Lowcountry. New York: Kensington Books, 2008.

Ella Dubose, a 70-something Southern lady, has been a Charlotte resident for almost a half a century, but she left some part of her heart in her hometown of Charleston, South Carolina.  When her younger children start to pester her about her her driving and her health (they thinks she’s getting senile), Ella takes off for a small inn at Myrtle Beach.  There she reflects on her early life in South Carolina, especially her relationship with the man who might be the father of her eldest son.  She summons that son to join her at the inn.  Will she have the courage to tell him about her early life, or will the prospect of a romance with another guest at the inn turn her mind to happier things?

Most of the action in this novel takes place in South Carolina.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Mecklenburg, Piedmont, Villas, James

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by | October 19, 2009 · 9:07 am

Catherine Clark. Picture Perfect. New York: HarperTeen, 2008.

This is Emily’s last family vacation before she heads off to college.  Every two years her father takes the family to meet up with his college buddies and their families.  This year the gathering will be on the Outer Banks where Emily will be reunited with three friends who are children of her dad’s friends.  Emily and Heather think that it’s time that they had a summer fling.  As the girls start to checkout the boys of summer, they are thwarted by Adam and Spencer, sons of their father’s friends who now might be seeing the girls in a new light.  Since Emily narrates the story, readers get inside the head of a teenage girl, learning her interests, her lingo, her fears.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Children & Young Adults, Clark, Catherine, Coast, Dare

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by | September 21, 2009 · 12:09 pm

Theresa Cocolin. The Last Rose of Summer. Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com, 2008.

In this introspective novel we follow the narrator, Mandy, from her early childhood through to middle age.  Initially, her family is poor, but stable, in Depression-era North Carolina.  When her brothers leave the farm and her mother dies, Mandy’s life takes a turn for the worse. One day she kills her drunken, abusive father and then is sent to Dorothea Dix Hospital.  During her years at Dix, she comes to understand herself and other people, and upon release finds her way to love and a more normal life.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Cocolin, Theresa, Piedmont, Wake

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by | September 14, 2009 · 9:17 am

Maddie James. The Cult: The Legend of Blackbeard’s Chalice. Edgewater, FL: Resplendence Publishing, LLC, 2008.

Victoria Porter has a knack for always finding her way into an undesirable situation.  In fact she yearns for them.  Being a maiden at twenty-three in 1746, Victoria has given up on finding a suitable mate and now searches for any man willing to cure her boredom.  During an escapade with a drunken sailor Victoria’s older brother, Jeremiah, dies from a bullet to the back as he tries to prevent Victoria from defiling her honor.  Victoria finds herself alone and suicidal from guilt until Jeremiah’s ghost comes to save her yet again. With Jeremiah’s guidance she begins a quest to find their missing brother. Victoria soon finds herself washed up on a shore after being thrown from a ship during a terrible storm.  Alone and frightened once again, she is rescued by a mysterious man with demons of his own and from a time that is not hers.

Colt MacKenzie is desperate to write another bestselling horror novel in 2007.  He heads to Ocracoke Island in search of his newest topic: The Cult of Teach.  While Colt immerses himself in the legend of The Cult and its obsession over Blackbeard’s Chalice, he comes to the rescue of a strange woman who soon turns his world upside down.

Through the chalice Victoria and Colt discover that their destinies are intertwined and the couple is inevitably thrown into the world of The Cult.  At all costs Victoria and Colt must protect the chalice and reunite it with its rightful owner.  This is the only way to protect themselves and their destinies.

The Cult is the second book in Maddie James’ series The Legend of Blackbeard’s Chalice.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coast, Hyde, James, Maddie, Mystery, Novels in Series, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller

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by | August 27, 2009 · 2:25 pm

Kerry Madden. Jessie’s Mountain. New York: Viking, 2008.

This is the third and final installment of the Maggie Valley trilogy, and many of the Weems family members are facing difficult decisions. Livy Two is still hoping to break into the Nashville music scene. She’s encouraged to reach for her dreams when Grandma Horace gives her Mama’s childhood diary, filled with dreams she never had a chance to follow. The sisters are inspired by the entries in their mother’s diary, and sections of the diary are included throughout the book. While Mama currently struggles with the family’s financial problems and debates moving the family away from their valley home, Livy Two and her younger sister Jitters set out for Nashville and the biggest adventure of their lives. After returning to Maggie Valley the girls, still filled with entrepreneurial spirit, find a way to honor their hardworking Mama and solve the family’s financial problems.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Children & Young Adults, Haywood, Madden, Kerry, Mountains, Novels in Series

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by | August 21, 2009 · 4:59 pm

Terrell T. Garren. The Fifth Skull: A Historical Novel of the Civil War and the American West. Spartanburg, SC: Reprint Co., 2008.

It’s 1864, the last year of the Civil War, when a new conscription law establishes the Confederate Junior Reserves, which requires boys to serve in the army after their 17th birthday.  Protagonists Billy Nick Long of Henderson County and John Rattler of the Snowbird Cherokee Community are sent to Camp Vance in Morganton, NC, along with other members of the Junior Reserve.The boys have not yet been trained or provided with weapons when Union soldiers raid the camp and take the boys as prisoners of war.  In order to save their lives, the boys join the Union Army’s Galvanized Regiments and head west towards California and Oregon to fight in the American Indian Wars.  Garren’s novel weaves historical evidence of the crimes and atrocities committed during these two wars with his coming-of-age tale of two North Carolina boys.

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

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Filed under 2008, Burke, Garren, Terrell T., Henderson, Historical, Mountains

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by | August 20, 2009 · 4:29 pm

Joyce and Jim Lavene. The Telltale Turtle. Woodbury, MN: Midnight Ink, 2008.

Mary Catherine Roberts is a pet psychic with her own syndicated radio show. Even without such a distinctive vocation, Mary Catherine would never be just a face in the crowd.  She’s a showy dresser, someone who speaks up for herself, and she runs a clinic for injured and abandoned animals right in the heart of downtown Wilmington.  One day on her way home from the radio station, Mary Catherine hears the voice of an injured, frightened animal.  She follows the voice to a house in Wilmington’s historic district.  The front door opens at her touch, and in the parlor Mary Catherine finds the body of a middle-aged woman and a bleeding turtle.  The dead woman was the aunt of the radio station manager, Colin Jamison.  The police suspect him of the murder, but Mary Catherine knows he’s not capable of it and Tommy, the turtle, assures her that Colin is not the killer.  Mary Catherine tries to work with the police (who give no credence to her insights) even as her life is complicated by the attentions of two men who show interest in becoming Mary Catherine’s husband #5.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coast, Lavene, Jim and Joyce, Mystery, New Hanover

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by | August 4, 2009 · 10:24 am

P. M. Terrell. Exit 22. Clinton, MS: Drake Valley Press, 2008.

Lots of people drive down I-95 on their way to Florida and for most it’s an uneventful trip.  Not for Chris Sandige, a political operative from Washington, D.C.  Chris swerves to avoid a dog, looses control of his car, and finds himself marooned in Lumberton for a weekend.  It could have been a quiet weekend, but Chris makes the mistake of inviting a pretty and mysterious woman to join him at dinner. While Chris is enjoying dinner, the sheriff’s department is investigating the murder of a local banker and his wife.  The two threads of the story come together in the person of the lady, as Chris is drawn into a web of oil profiteering, money laundering, and political corruption.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coastal Plain, Robeson, Suspense/Thriller, Terrell, P. M.

by | July 2, 2009 · 8:44 am

Wille Thompson. Scratch Golfer. Hickory, NC: Mainland Press, 2008.

Webster (Web) Daniels’ life is a little down in the dumps lately; everything, from his advertising job to his golf game is a bit off. When the newest hire at Hay/Biggs/Pender Advertising, Richards Thomas III, is about to land the huge $20 million account of Ichi-ban Golf, Web finds himself employing the help of a new found ‘friend’ and his special golf balls. Aristotle Mann recently joined Web’s country club as the new golf pro. Aristotle brings with him some unique teaching tools, most of all golf balls that assure the player a par for the course. Once the rivalry between Web and Richards inevitably boils over, everything is left to the outcome of a winner-takes-all game of golf. Web requests the assistance of Aristotle and his magic golf balls to tip the odds in his favor. Of course this type of golf ball does not come at a small price: Web soon learns just how much his win will cost. It seems this time the Devil stopped off in Charlotte on his way down to Georgia.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Humor, Mecklenburg, Piedmont, Thompson, Wille

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by | June 29, 2009 · 12:51 pm

Marcia Colette. Unstable Environment. Mira Loma, CA: Parker Publishing, 2008.

The Charlotte and Triangle Coalitions of were-cheetahs do not get along. When the Charlotte group sabotages an amusement park ride, an innocent human woman and her three year-old niece are injured. In order to save the little girl, Triangle-based were-cheetah healer Rio Velasquez bites her and turns her into a shape-shifter.  The aunt, Sinclair, was already fighting for custody of the little girl, but now she finds herself caught in the middle of the were-cheetahs’ war and falling for the hunky Rio.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Colette, Marcia, Durham, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Science Fiction/Fantasy

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