Tag Archives: Ghosts

by | December 30, 2009 · 10:29 am

Kevin Burton McGuire. Fire Gazer: Arson at the Wolfe House. Asheville, NC: Reminiscing Books, 2009.

It’s the summer of 1998 and newspaper reporter Ben Jennings is assigned to interview a man who claims to have seen ghosts on the grounds of the old Highland Hospital in Asheville.  DC is that man.  He’s intelligent and provocative and he has a ragtag following.  DC is also on the scene of an unexplained fire that breaks out in downtown. As Ben accompanies DC to his camp near Riverside Cemetery and then around town, he begins to fall under DC’s spell even as he witnesses DC’s eerie ability to make a fire on any spot. Although as reporter Ben sees clues that point to another fire, he doesn’t suspect that it will be at one of Asheville’s most famous landmarks.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Buncombe, McGuire, Kevin Burton, Mountains

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by | January 8, 2009 · 3:08 pm

Denzil Strickland. Swimmers in the Sea. Lewisville, NC: Press53, 2008.

Strickland’s first novel opens outside of New Orleans with a horrible car crash that kills four people–a newly married couple in one car and two young children in the other. The children’s parents, Don and Gail Ebbets, survive but their marriage does not. Don is convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison. Gail takes their surviving son Cliff to North Carolina, but neither Cliff nor Gail manages to find happiness. Twenty-five years later a nearly-broke Cliff has a daughter and a rocky marriage. When he receives word that his father is dying and that a return to visit in Louisiana will lead to inheritance money, he heads to New Orleans to make peace with both his father and the memories that literally haunted his childhood.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Piedmont, Strickland, Denzil

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by | December 2, 2008 · 4:07 pm

Donna Boyd. The Awakening. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003.

Leo Tolstoy’s observation that “each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”  is once again proven true in this novel.  The sources of the Mason family’s unhappiness are many: unrealized dreams, overwork, spouses who drift apart, infidelity, a traumatized child.  Penny Mason, a surgeon in Chapel Hill, thinks that a summer at the family lake house will provide a healing environment for her and her family.  The lake house used to be her safe place, but something at the house has changed–and not just because her husband Paul has made extensive renovations to the old place.  Penny begins to have vivid, bloody nightmares, and her husband and daughter hear strange things and see a mysterious woman.  This ghost has her own sad and bloody history.  As the Masons research the house, they learn about two earlier families and the connections across the ages that in the end redeem them all.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Boyd, Donna, Piedmont

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by | October 1, 2008 · 4:34 pm

Edith Edwards. The Ghosts of Turtle Nest. New York: iUniverse, 2007.

Connie Edmonds has built a successful real estate business in Southport, but she is haunted by the past.  She didn’t intervene to prevent a sergeant from bullying a fellow WAC into despair and suicide.  The dead girl’s father, a United States senator, holds Connie responsible and has harassed her for decades. Connie’s friend Lucy has wrestled with guilt about the suicide, and Connie’s new love, the local Episcopal priest, has his demons too. When Connie has an opportunity to turn the tables on Senator Roberts, she must decide whether that is the path she should take.  Her Christian faith and a message from a Civil War era ghost figure in her thinking.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Brunswick, Coast, Edwards, Edith, Religious/Inspirational

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by | April 28, 2008 · 12:57 pm

Richard Dansky. Firefly Rain. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2008.

In this supernatural thriller prodigal son Jacob Logan fails to heed Thomas Wolfe’s warning about going home again. When Logan returns to his hometown of Mayfield, North Carolina and moves into the family homeplace years after his parents’ deaths, he is confronted with the ghosts of his past.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Dansky, Richard, Horror, Novels Set in Fictional Places

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by | March 13, 2008 · 9:58 am

Nicholas Sparks. True Believer. New York: Warner, 2005.

When it looks like ghosts are haunting a cemetery in Boone Creek, N.C., science writer Jeremy Marsh comes to town to investigate. Marsh expected to find a plausible explanation for the ghostly visions, but did not plan on falling for a local librarian, who also happens to the granddaughter of the town psychic. Marsh finds himself questioning his own beliefs and must figure out how much he will let the budding romance affect his life and career.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2005, Novels in Series, Sparks, Nicholas, Watauga

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by | · 9:58 am

Scott Nicholson. The Red Church. New York: Kensington, 2002.

The old red church in Whispering Pines, N.C., a fictional town in the Appalachian mountains, has stood empty for twenty years, said to be haunted by the ghost of the preacher who was hung from its rafters by his own angry congregation. Now that the church has been purchased by a minister whose fiery fundamentalism echoes that of his long-ago predecessor, strange things are starting to happen in town. The story is told through the eyes of thirteen-year-old Ronnie Day, who finds life complicated enough without a haunted church, and Sheriff Frank Littlefield, who must figure out what people or forces are terrorizing his town.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2002, Horror, Mountains, Nicholson, Scott

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by | · 9:58 am

B.J. Mountford. Sea-Born Women. Winston-Salem, N.C.: John F. Blair, 2002.

Wanting to start her life anew in a quiet, out-of-the-way place, Roberta (“Bert”) Lenehan takes a job in the coastal town of Portsmouth, N.C. But peace and quiet never come as she is disturbed by mysterious noises in the night. When Bert becomes romantically involved with a younger man, she learns from him about the legend of the “Sea-Born Woman,” whose ghost is supposed to aid sailors but, as many are beginning to fear, may be involved in recent unsolved murders.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2002, Carteret, Coast, Mountford, B. J., Mystery, Novels in Series

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by | · 9:58 am

Randall Kenan. A Visitation of Spirits. New York : Vintage Contemporaries, 2000.

Kenan’s acclaimed first novel is the story of an African American family in the fictional town of Tims Creek in rural eastern North Carolina. Horace Cross, the sixteen-year-old protagonist of the book, is haunted by what may be actual demons, while at the same time trying to come to terms with his homosexuality. He seeks advice and comfort from his older cousin James, a schoolteacher and preacher, who fears that other family members will have a hard time understanding. This richly written novel is told in several shifting voices and styles.

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

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Filed under 1980-1989, 1989, Coastal Plain, Kenan, Randall, Novels Set in Fictional Places

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by | · 9:58 am

Mignon F. Ballard. Angel Whispered Danger: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery. New York: St. Martin’s, 2003.

Kate McBride expected to spend her family reunion in the fictional mountain town of Bishop’s Bridge, N.C. dodging prying questions about her conspicuously absent husband and the state of their marriage. But the family is quickly distracted when the host’s housekeeper falls into a ravine and whispers just before she dies that she was pushed. Kate sets out to find the killer, helped by two unlikely accomplices: the friendly ghost Augusta Goodnight and her trainee angel Penelope. Their investigation leads them into the mysterious past of Kate’s uncle Ernest’s quirky estate, Bramblewood. This is one of a series of mysteries starring Augusta Goodnight, but so far this is the ghost’s first foray into North Carolina.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Ballard, Mignon, Mountains, Mystery, Novels Set in Fictional Places

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