Category Archives: Brunswick

Brunswick

by | September 28, 2010

Joyce M. Jacobs. Trailer Park Brats. Risingmeadow Books,2009.

Robin has heard the mean things that have been said about trailer parks. She has seen the “snotty expressions” people have when they find out that she lives in one. But the tweenager is very happy in her trailer park, Mobile Acres. She appreciates the sense of community that she and her mother share with her neighbors, and she loves living so close to her best friend, Tawana. When Gloria, an “Army brat” moves to their Shallotte, North Carolina, trailer park, the three quickly become pals, calling themselves the Trailer Park Brats. Over the course of the summer, Robin and Tawana introduce Gloria to the neighborhood and enjoy a few adventures, including alerting a friend to a fire at his trailer, spying on a loner neighbor who they are convinced is a vampire, and witnessing a drug dealer trying to sell marijuana to a friend. Through their fun and their trials, the Trailer Park Brats learn life lessons and form a deep bond. By the time school is about to start, the three decide that their summer at Mobile Acres has been their best yet.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Brunswick, Children & Young Adults, Coast, Jacobs, Joyce M.

by | February 1, 2010

Edith Edwards. From Hallowed Ground. April Publishing Company, 2009.

The death of a loved one results in grief, and the length and magnitude of this response varies for every person. Deep depression sets in for Lucy James after the death of her husband, and her friends become very concerned about her well-being. After a few months of mourning, they suggest that she get out of the house and confront what her life will be like without Charlie. Spending more time with, Dottie, her English Setter, seashell collecting, committees, after-school tutoring, and running for the school board are some of the projects that Lucy undertakes to appease her friends’ concern. As she involves herself in more community activities, Lucy finds that she is able to live without the constant cloud of sorrow hanging over her. In fact, she identifies signs – the sound of his voice or the presence of a red rose – that Charlie is still with her. She needs the comfort of his spirit when the ugliness of the election and opposition to her work with a slave reburial site is compounded by her violent rape and the sexual abuse of one of her tutoring students. As Lucy faces her future without Charlie, she finds her purpose in opening her heart and in serving others.

Edwards’ first book, The Ghosts of Turtle Nest, introduced readers to Lucy James.

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

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

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by | January 29, 2010

Don Glander. Beyond Borders: Murder and High Crime on the Waterway. United States: American Imaging, 2006.

Matt and Lindy are two retirees living a quiet life on the coast in Brunswick County.  Matt is happy to catch and cook blue crabs, listen to jazz, and shoot the breeze with the neighbors. Lindy prefers a more active life, and she is in town most days working as a volunteer translator at the health clinic and other county offices.  Their quiet life is changed when Matt discovers the body of a Mexican immigrant in the water near his crab pots.  The young man has been murdered in what appears to be a professional hit.  Another murder follows.  Although the murders appear to have been done by a local policeman, the police chief thinks that they were the work of someone else, possibly an outsider.  Matt and Lindy find confirmation of that hunch when a desperate immigrant that Lindy knows through her translating work takes refuge with Matt and Lindy.  Soon they are all in the gun sight of the local boss of a Mexican crime syndicate in this novel that wraps the subject of illegal immigration into a fast-paced thriller.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Brunswick, Coast, Glander, Don, Suspense/Thriller

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by | August 31, 2009

Inglis Fletcher. Lusty Wind for Carolina. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1944

The fledgling settlement at the mouth of the Cape Fear is menaced by pirates in this novel set in the early 1700s.  Blackbeard, working out of his base on Ocracoke Island, hinders the overseas trade that Huguenot refugee Robert Fontaine hopes will bring prosperity to Carolina coast.  Fontaine’s daughter’s courtship and marriage to the enterprising David Moray add a romantic element to the novel.  The action moves back and forth between Europe and points in the New World.

This is the third novel in the author’s Carolina Series.

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

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Filed under 1940-1949, 1944, Brunswick, Coast, Fletcher, Inglis, Historical, Novels in Series

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by | July 14, 2009

Cathy Holton. Beach Trip. New York: Ballantine Books, 2009.

On a resort island off the coast of Wilmington, four friends gather to renew the ties they had as college students twenty years earlier. Mel, Sara, Annie, and Lola plan to sunbathe, laugh, and party, but their conversations develop a darker tone.  Each woman has made her share of mistakes, and each lives with some sorrow.  Annie and Mel unload secrets that have burden them since college, but it is Lola who finds a more dramatic way to turn her life around.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Brunswick, Coast, Holton, Cathy, New Hanover

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by | October 20, 2008

Richard H. Triebe. On a Rising Tide. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2006.

By June 1864, Wilmington was the only open Confederate port on the eastern seaboard.  Cargo brought into the port allowed the Confederacy to fight on.  Blockade running and Sherman’s March to the Sea changed Wilmington, bringing to the city thousands of desperate refugees, wheeler-dealers, and dangerous men.  This novel contains good scenes of the blockade runner Atlantis negotiating the waters at Cape Fear, eluding Union ships, and loading up in Nassau, but the heart of the story is what happens in Wilmington.  It is a book of adventure, war, and romance, with scenes of betrayal and violence.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Brunswick, Coast, Historical, New Hanover, Triebe, Richard H.

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by | October 1, 2008

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 | March 13, 2008

Robert Inman. Captain Saturday. Boston: Little, Brown, 2002.

Captain Saturday is the story of Will Baggett, a popular television weatherman in Raleigh, whose life begins to crumble when in a short span of time he loses his job, his wife leaves him, and he’s arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. Baggett escapes from his sophisticated life in the Triangle to visit family in rural Brunswick County where he begins his recovery by delving into his past. The book provides an excellent portrait of life in contemporary Raleigh, commenting on the city’s struggles with development and the often contentious relationship between new arrivals and the denizens of “old Raleigh.”

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2002, Brunswick, Inman, Robert, Wake

by | March 13, 2008

Doris Betts. The River to Pickle Beach. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

In the turbulent summer of 1968, Jack and Bebe Sellars take over the management of Pickerel Beach on the North Carolina coast. Hoping for a peaceful, easy summer, their plans are disrupted by the arrival of several difficult people, including a violent, racist former Army buddy of Jack’s. The story, though written in third-person, is told from the alternating viewpoints of Bebe and Jack, with the events of the summer triggering memories of their past together. Throughout the novel, the racial violence and volatile national political struggles never seem far from the surface.

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

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Filed under 1970-1979, 1972, Betts, Dorris, Brunswick, Coast

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