Like the other men in his generation of the Beckett clan, Carson Beckett has been avoiding the altar.  His job as a police detective in Charleston, South Carolina has kept him busy–and banged up.  As he recovers from a particularly bad scrape, he begins to think that it’s time to marry his long-time girlfriend Margaret. But before he commits to wedding preparations, Carson decides he should make good on a promise to his late grandfather to clear up a debt owed by the Becketts to a family named Chandler. (A century earlier a Chandler had give a Beckett money to invest.  The investment was a good one, but no one could find Chandler to give him his profits.) Carson needs to find the last Chandler heir, Kit Dixon. Kit is a children’s book author and illustrator who makes a living as a waitress on the Outer Banks.  Unfortunately for both Kit and Carson, Kit came close to witnessing a murder.  When Carson comes around asking questions about Kit, she assumes that he is the murderer. Kit runs down Carson with her distinctive VW Beetle, then when it’s clear he’s not a killer, she takes him in while he heals.  You know where it goes from there.

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

Posted: July 4th, 2009 under 2000-, 2003, Browning, Dixie, Coast, Novels in Series, Romance/Relationship.
Comments: none

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.

Posted: July 2nd, 2009 under 2000-, 2008, Humor, Mecklenburg, Piedmont, Thompson, Wille.
Comments: none

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.

Posted: June 29th, 2009 under 2000-, 2008, Colette, Marcia, Durham, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Science Fiction/Fantasy.
Comments: none

Jemma Chase normally works as a trail leader at her aunt’s ranch just outside Boone. Once winter arrives in the mountains, Jemma tries to get her dream job with the local police and starts making money as an amateur photographer and cabinet-maker.  When one of her clients–the much-disliked president of the local property owners association–has a break-in, Jemma’s CSI-wannabe tendencies start to emerge. Blackmail, arson, and murder soon enter the picture, and Jemma and her boyfriend Detective Tucker are on the case. This is the second book in the Appalachian Adventure Murder series, which feature Jemma and Tucker’s crime-solving talents.

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

Posted: June 23rd, 2009 under 2000-, 2008, Bishop, Maggie, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Watauga.
Comments: none

Although Katie and Mayme are only teenagers, they are trying to run the Rosewood Plantation on their own and convince everyone in the nearby town of Greens Crossing that nothing is amiss. Under their watch, Rosewood becomes a sanctuary for several other young women in trouble, including a girl whose mother died when she and her daughter were fleeing her abusive husband, and an ex-slave who is hiding herself and her new baby from a cruel former master. Throughout the novel the four girls struggle to survive, keep one step ahead of those who would harm them, and find a way to pay the bank loans against the property. A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton is the the second book of the historical, faith-based Shenandoah Sisters series.

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

Posted: June 19th, 2009 under 2000-, 2003, Historical, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Novels in Series, Phillips, Michael, Piedmont, Religious/Inspirational.
Comments: none

Annie Peregrine never knew her mother. On Annie’s seventh birthday, her dad abandoned her. Moments before he left, he gave her a plane–not a toy plane, but a real airplane, a Piper Warrior. Annie is brought up by her aunt and uncle, and she is visiting them on her twenty-sixth birthday when she receives a call from the Miami Police Department.  It seems Annie’s dad has had quite a career as a con man.  The FBI is on his trail because they think he has a stolen Cuban relic.  In short order, Annie’s dad, Jack, calls too.  He wants Annie (now a Navy pilot) to fly that old gift plane to him.  “Meet me in St. Louis” says dad, who also claims to be dying. St. Louis is just a way station, as Annie soon heads to Miami and points south. Her goals are to help her dad and learn the name of her mother. Annie doesn’t get all that she wants, but she does have some great adventures and she finds true love. While Annie takes center stage, the book also contains stories of other members of Annie’s colorful extended family.

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

Posted: June 18th, 2009 under 2000-, 2009, Coastal Plain, Malone, Michael.
Comments: none

Trapeze artist Frankie is the young, orphaned star of the Doub Circus. When Frankie’s parents died they left her in the care of the circus owner and he and the other performers became her family. That Frankie is African American does not matter to them, but since she can pass as white, it is kept a secret in order to avoid controversy. On the circus’s first trip into the South, Frankie’s background is revealed and she is taken from the circus by members of the Granston, NC community. She is placed in an orphanage but after standing up for herself to a cruel authority figure, she is moved to a reform school. Eventually she is adopted, renamed Thomasena, and allowed to finish growing up outside institutions, but it is more than six years before she is free to leave Granston again.

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

Posted: June 17th, 2009 under 2000, 2000-, Bowen, Sandra E., Historical, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont.
Comments: none

A few years ago Blair Mallory divorced her cheating, wanna-be-politician husband and spent her settlement money on opening a classy gym in Western North Carolina. It was a pretty good existence (if a bit bland), but after she witnesses the murder of one of the gym’s clients in the parking lot, things get a lot more interesting. There is a chance that the killer was actually after her, a possibility that is supported by other threats against her life. The cop in charge of the investigation, a man she dated briefly and is still attracted to, spices up the story. While most of the novel takes place in Blair’s unnamed N.C. hometown, it does take a detour to Wrightsville Beach, where Blair tries to escape from the stress of the murder investigation by embracing her inner beach-bunny.

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

Posted: June 17th, 2009 under 2000-, 2005, Coast, Howard, Linda, Mountains, New Hanover, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

When a pair of teenagers found the body of a young woman in the woods on the north side of the Piedmont town of Hillston, there was a tag was affixed to her foot. The tag was addressed to Lt. Justin Saville and asked him to deliver the body to his friend, Chief of Police Cuddy Magnum. It is now several months later and the two policemen have not only failed to find the killer–nicknamed the Guess Who killer by the media–but they have also failed to determine the identity of the woman. Justin and Cuddy face media and community pressure to solve the case, but other complications arise, including the appearance a famous Irish rock star in town, the interference of crooked politicians, and several other murders. This is the third book in the Justin and Cuddy series of mysteries.

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

Posted: June 12th, 2009 under 2000-, 2001, Malone, Michael, Mystery, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Novels in Series, Piedmont.
Comments: none

Chief Warrant Officer Sam Blackman lost a leg in the Iraq War and, after testifying in Congress about the treatment of veterans, was sent where they figured he wouldn’t be able to cause any more trouble: Asheville, NC.  He is almost finished with his rehab when a local woman visits him and offers him a job with her security company.  She promises to visit again, but is murdered before she can do so.  After her death, a diary written by 12 year-old Henderson Youngblood in 1919 is found hidden in her apartment … and Sam’s name is on it.  Sam leaves the VA hospital and begins his civilian life by helping the deceased woman’s sister investigate the modern crime and its connections to a death in the diary.  This is the first book in de Castrique’s series of mysteries featuring the Sam Blackman character.

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

Posted: June 12th, 2009 under 2000-, 2008, Buncombe, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, deCastrique, Mark.
Comments: none