A New York businessman forms close ties of friendship with several families in Jones and Craven counties.  They assist each other in solving personal and financial problems even though they have different points of view on slavery and other issues.  Slavery receives a lot of attention; corrupt masters, violent overseers, and miscegenation figure in the plot.  The tragedies in the book are based on episodes that the author knew of from his experiences as a director of a cotton trading and shipping company prior to the Civil War.

Edmund Kirke is a pseudonym of James R. Gilmore.

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

Posted: February 12th, 2009 under 1860-1869, 1863, Coastal Plain, Craven, Jones, Kirke, Edmund, Novels to Read Online.
Comments: 1

In this novel, the Civil War is far from over in December of 1864.  Confederate naval fighters in the waters off North Carolina defeat the Union navy’s blockade.  Wilmington and eastern North Carolina are still threatened, even though Sherman’s march through Georgia has destroyed his army, not Georgia.  This book tells a tale of fierce fighting along the Carolina coastal plain during the early months of 1865.  Historical figures appear, along with fictional characters whose presence adds romantic interest to the narrative and gives the reader a vivid sense of the war’s cost to civilians.

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Posted: December 10th, 2008 under 2000-, 2008, Craven, Hester, Robert W., Historical, New Hanover.
Comments: 5

Quinn Winslow is happy to retire and move back to the North Carolina coast where she grew up.  She’s had a good career, but a bit of a disappointing life.  She hopes that being back among friends will help her forget an abusive marriage and renew her body and soul.  Once settled in, Quinn adopts a pleasing, healthy lifestyle, and begins to attract the interests of Danny, a friend from childhood, and Charles, a neighbor.  However, the town itself is having problems.  A number of older people have died under questionable circumstances.  When the killer targets members of Quinn’s investment club, she enlists her best friend in her search for the killer, imperiling them both.

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

Posted: October 2nd, 2008 under 2000-, 2008, Carteret, Coast, Craven, Dodd, Karen, Mystery.
Comments: none

South Carolinian Annabelle Murphy is able to come to terms with her husband’s unexpected death in a plane crash in a remote area of Colorado. That is, until the wreckage of the plane is found to contain two bodies. In her quest to find the identity of her husband’s traveling companion, Annabelle comes to Newboro (New Bern) North Carolina where she learns how her life intersects with that of Sophie Milstead and Sophie’s late mother, an art gallery owner on the run from her past.

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Posted: July 21st, 2008 under 2000-, 2008, Coast, Craven, Henry, Patti Callahan.
Comments: none

John Cantwell puts up a good front, but he is not the honest man the people of New Bern think he is. Despite his high social standing, his business dealings are shady and his personal life dishonorable. His schemes affect the lives of many people in the New Bern area in the decades leading up to the American Revolution.

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Posted: July 17th, 2008 under 1900-1909, 1902, Coast, Craven, Hargrave, Will Loftin, Novels to Read Online.
Comments: none

This novel covers the sweep of eighteenth-century North Carolina history. Set chiefly around New Bern, it presents the European settlement of the area and conflicts between the settlers and Native Americans. Colonel Colmey emerges as the hero of the book for his brilliance and bravery as an officer in the Continental army in the early days of the American Revolution. (Ronleigh de Conval is the pseudonym of John Alfred Pollock.)

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Posted: July 16th, 2008 under 1920, 1920-1929, Coastal Plain, Craven, Historical, Novels to Read Online, de Conval, Ronleigh.
Comments: none

Colonel Andrews, a major North Carolina cotton planter, persuades Huntley Robertson, a hired hand on a farm in New York, to start out on his own near New Bern in 1900. With little money but lots of determination, Robertson becomes a successful planter.

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Posted: July 15th, 2008 under 1900-1909, 1901, Coastal Plain, Craven, Drysdale, William, Novels to Read Online.
Comments: none

Regina Pearson never really felt at home in Hawaii, especially after her father passed away and she had no family left in the islands. When she learns about relatives in New Bern, N.C., she heads off to find them, excited about meeting the extended family she’s never known. Although she meets many colorful characters, Regina finds a group of people with troubles of their own, hardly the warm embrace she’d expected. It isn’t until she gets to know a retired soldier named Justin Duval that she decides she might have a reason for staying.

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Posted: March 13th, 2008 under 2000-, 2004, Coastal Plain, Craven, Forster, Gwynne, Romance/Relationship.
Comments: none