Tag Archives: University of North Carolina

Warren Rochelle. The Called. Urbana, IL: Golden Gryphon Press, 2010.

At the end of Harvest of Changelings, the tetrad of Hazel, Malachi, Jeff, and Russell crossed over into Faerie after defeating the Fomorii.  As this new novel opens, Malachi and Hazel go back to earth, along with two other magicals, Ben and Larissa.  Malachi and Hazel settle in the Triangle, a center of the magical rights movement. Malachi becomes a champion of the magicals, defending them in the media and in his community against the prejudice that is developing against them.  That prejudice is stoked on by undercover members of the Fomorii who are using unsuspecting human allies.

The Fomorii have plans to capture the magicals, and when they kidnap Malachi, Jeff and Russell return to earth to help Hazel find her husband.  But the Fomoriis’ diabolical scheme extends to humans as well, as they foment the overthrow of state governments and the federal government (headed by President Gore).  The action in the novel moves across the state, from Cherokee to Manteo, but some of the most gripping scenes take place on or near the UNC campus, where Malachi is held prisoner beneath Gimghoul Castle.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Coast, Orange, Piedmont, Rochelle, Warren, Science Fiction/Fantasy

Marybeth Whalen. The Mailbox. Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2010.

Nineteen years have passed since Lindsey’s first summer in Sunset Beach, North Carolina, when she was introduced to the mysterious mailbox on a deserted stretch of beach. Her beau at the time, Campbell, described the folklore behind it and encouraged her to write a letter to the Kindred Spirit who guards the mailbox. Over the years, Lindsey has dutifully left an account of the year in the mailbox, often describing her life in Charlotte, crumbling marriage, and sadness over losing Campbell.

Now she is back in Sunset Beach with her children, just days after finalizing her divorce. Although Lindsey has hoped over the past year that her husband would come back to her, she is trying to accept her new beginning. She runs into Campbell, and her emotions from nearly two decades ago return. Even though Lindsey felt betrayed  by the way things ended in 1986, she still feels a connection to him. However, Lindsey discovers that Campbell violated her trust by reading her letters in the mailbox over the years. When she decides that she cannot lose him again, Lindsey realizes she and Campbell have always been each other’s Kindred Spirit.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Brunswick, Coast, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship, Whalen, Marybeth

Michele Young-Stone.The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors. New York: Shaye Areheart Books, 2010.

New York City is a place where young people go to leave their pasts and make their futures. Two of those young people–Becca Burke and Buckley Pitank–have something unusual in common–both are lightning strike survivors. Buckley survived a strike that killed his mother; Becca herself was directly hit.  This novel tells how these two young people moved forward, making sense of both these capricious acts of nature and the man-made cruelties in their lives.

It is Becca’s story that will most interest the readers of this blog. Becca grows up in Chapel Hill, the daughter of a philandering chemist (from the best of families) and a woman who drowns her sorrow in drink. As her parents’ marriage disintegrates, Becca also has to cope with the standard work of childhood and adolescence–making friends, learning how to fit in, navigating the alluring temptations of the high school years. Even after she moves to New York, Becca still has things to learn, but she does, and her relationship with Buckley and the people in his life help with that.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Orange, Piedmont, Young-Stone, Michele

Marilyn Denny Thomas. The Gentile and the Jew. Enumclaw, WA: Pleasant Word, 2005.

The rules of dating dictate that talk of money, politics, and religion is off limits. However, these complex topics must be addressed if a long-term relationship is the goal. For UNC graduate students Mike and Carrie, the significance of these issues, particularly that of religion, becomes apparent when the couple joins each other’s families for Thanksgiving. Mike, who is Jewish, feels uncomfortable during the blessing before the feast. Carrie receives a cold reception from Mike’s family, particularly his mother who believes that her son should not waste his time with a Gentile. This tension results in the two breaking up with each other; however, they are still very much in love and soon reconcile.

Mike’s mother, Rachel, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, has always wanted to go to her parents’ hometown in Romania to find information about her family. Because she knows so little about her relatives, believing most of her kin perished in the Holocaust, Rachel firmly believes that her children should marry Jews to keep the tradition alive. When she goes to Romania, however, she discovers that not only does she have living relatives, but that some of her ancestors were Messianic Jews. As Rachel explores her family’s past, her expectations of a suitable match for Mike change. Although the two families come from very diverse backgrounds, they are able to embrace their differences and acknowledge the deep love that Make and Carrie have for each other.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2005, Duplin, New Hanover, Orange, Romance/Relationship, Thomas, Marilyn Denny

James McConnaughey. Village Chronicle. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1936.

For many of us, Chapel Hill is indeed “the southern part of heaven” but in this novel our little college town has its share of sinners.  Professors preen and jockey for position; their wives gossip while maids do the housework, and students just wanna have fun.  Except for one student, Lyman Caine, who writes a short story about an inter-racial tryst.  Liberal young graduate instructor Joel Adams comes in for a lot of criticism for encouraging Caine, but the consequences for the student are worse. Lyman Caine’s fatigue leads to a diagnosis of sickle-cell anemia.  In an era before student medical records were truly private, this news travels fast. Caine acknowledges his multi-racial heritage; the racial policies of the university at the time call for Caine’s expulsion.

Adams feels some discomfort about his student’s situation, but he is preoccupied by his own concerns–finishing his degree, his father’s death, his relationship with his wife, how much to buck the system in town and at the university.  Joel Adams is the central character of the novel, but his wife, Eleanor, and his father, a local newspaperman, are far more likable characters.  Eleanor’s good influence helps Joel ride out the storm of controversy even as she forgives his personal failings.

Chapel Hill is called “Churchill” in this novel, but most of the campus buildings retain their true names.  Longtime local readers may recognize variations on some early 20th century faculty names, but most reviewers professed not to be able to identify particular characters with real people.

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

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Filed under 1930-1939, 1936, McConnaughey, James, Orange, Piedmont

James Patterson. Kiss the Girls. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.

As an expert in abnormal psychology working for the FBI, Dr. Alex Cross is used to calmly solving gruesome crimes, but in Kiss the Girls the case is personal.  His niece–a law student at Duke–is kidnapped while on campus, and he comes to the Triangle to try to help find her.  The North Carolina police and FBI are dealing with “Cassanova,” a man who is collecting beautiful and talented female victims.  There is also a second predator on the loose, a killer on the west coast with the nickname “The Gentleman Caller.”  A break in the case comes when one of Cassanova’s victims, a UNC med student, fights her way free of her captor.  This is the second book in the Alex Cross thriller series and the only one set in North Carolina.  It inspired a 1997 film of the same name starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1995, Durham, Novels in Series, Orange, Patterson, James, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller

Vicki Lane. Old Wounds. New York: Bantam Dell, 2007.

Ten year-old Maythorn Mullins disappeared on Halloween in 1986. After nineteen years of trying to forget all about the incident, UNC professor Rosemary Goodweather has returned home and is determined to find out what happened to her childhood best friend. Her mother Elizabeth helps with the investigation, worries about her daughter, and tries to figure out her maybe-romance with former detective Phillip Hawkins. Old Wounds is the third of the Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian mysteries.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Lane, Vicki, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places

Andrea Ferrell. Autumn Seclusion. Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing, 2007.

This first novel is a coming of age tale, told in the first person.  Anna is brought up in a strict religious family near the North Carolina coast.  She absorbs most of the lessons of her upbringing, but her family rejects her when she begins dating a Native American student while at UNC-Chapel Hill.  Cut loose from her parents, Anna drifts into drinking and then a disastrous marriage.  Her teaching career provides her with the opportunity to leave this country for Thailand where she finds inner peace through self-acceptance and forgiveness.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Coast, Ferrell, Autumn, Religious/Inspirational

John W. Moore. The Heirs of St. Kilda: A Story of the Southern Past. Raleigh: Edwards, Broughton & Co., 1881.

The large antebellum plantations of the St. Kilda Valley provide the setting for this lush, nostalgic novel of horse racing, fox hunting, and other aristocratic pursuits. The main character, Philip Eustace, lives the good life at home and abroad in Europe. After attending the university, he marries his childhood sweetheart and their extended wedding celebration closes the novel. The setting is thought to be the St. John community in Hertford County. The author intended the novel to be “a faithful picture of our lost civilization.”

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1880-1889, 1881, Coastal Plain, Hertford, Moore, John W., Novels to Read Online

Ellyn Bache. The Activist’s Daughter. Duluth, Minn.: Spinsters Ink, 1997.

In this novel set amidst the Civil Rights protests of the early 1960s, Beryl Rosinsky has graduated from high school and is anxious to get away from her activist mother and her hometown of Washington, D.C. She enrolls at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she finds a different world — conservative, Southern, and with long-standing campus cliques firmly established. Beryl is gradually drawn into local Civil Rights protests, which are may be based on actual demonstrations by UNC students against segregated businesses in Chapel Hill. As a result of her own political awakening, Beryl ends up with a deeper understanding and appreciation of her mother.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1997, Bache, Ellyn, Orange, Piedmont