Category Archives: Henderson

Henderson

by | May 13, 2011

Ann B. Ross. Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle. New York: Viking, 2011.

Everyone in Miss Julia’s household has been preparing for the birth of Hazel Marie’s twins.  Hazel Marie has moved into the bedroom on the first floor, Etta Mae has agreed to help out when the babies are born, and copious amounts of baby supplies have been bought.  But Mother Nature has her plans too.  In one of the funniest scenes in this series of books, the twins are born in Miss Julia’s living room during a blizzard.  Miss Julia practically passes out from the shock, but Lillian takes charge, and the babies are delivered safely.

J.D., the babies’ father, and Miss Julia’s husband, Sam, miss the excitement, since they are both in Raleigh on business.  They return to a household in turmoil.  The babies are not nursing well, and no one is getting enough sleep. Just when the babies settle down, another problem arises.  A body has been found in a nearby toolshed.  Since the body was found on the property of Lloyd’s teacher, Miss Petty, Miss Julia can’t resist poking around.  She soon wishes she hadn’t.  The dead man is someone Miss Julia had financial dealings with–dealings that Sam did not know about–and this is the last straw for Sam. Suddenly, Miss Julia’s marriage appears to be on the rocks, and this shakes our heroine to her core.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Henderson, Humor, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Ross, Ann B.

Tagged as

by | October 25, 2010

Leanna Sain. Return to Nowhere. Kingsport, TN: Twilight Times Books, 2009.

Twenty-two years have passed since Emma Franklin walked through an iron gate to enter 1827 and to leave 2004 and her “modern-day” life behind forever. In that time, has married Gavin MacKinley, had six children, and never regretted crossing into a new century.

Now her tomboyish eighteen-year old daughter, Charlotte, has become transfixed by the magical gate. Charlotte is at a crossroads in her life. She’s known as “Doc Charlie” to everyone in MacKinley, North Carolina, and becoming a physician has always been her dream. Unfortunately, the Boston medical school where she hoped to go rejects her. Charlie’s parents tell her that she is to marry James MacGregor, the Scottish nephew of Gavin’s best friend, who they have never met. And the MacKinleys’ land is threatened by their aggressive neighbors, the Freemans. Sadly, the Freemans’ extreme measures result in the deaths of two of Charlie’s closest confidants.

Charlie feels the need to escape the pressure and heartache of the last few days. She decides to pass through the gate during the full moon intending to learn medicinal practices of early Cherokees. After spending a few days in 1819 learning about Indian herbal remedies (and warning her new friends of the Trail of Tears), Charlie returns home just as typhoid fever breaks out in MacKinley. She must put her new skills to the test, which means tending to the hated Freemans. When the fear and illness pass, Charlie has a chance to meet MacKinley’s new pastor – Jamie MacGregor! They quickly become devoted to each other, and Charlie is able to enjoy her two loves: medicine and Jamie.

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Henderson, Historical, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Sain, Leanna, Science Fiction/Fantasy

Tagged as

by | August 13, 2010

Leanna Sain. Gate to Nowhere. Kingsport, TN: Twilight Times Books, 2008.

“Before I tell you anything, Gavin, I want to assure you that I’m not crazy. I’m not an escapee from an asylum, and I’m not a witch. I’m just me. My name is Emma Jane Franklin. I’m thirty-four years old; my birthday is April 6… 1970.”

—

Emma Franklin has been in Nowhere, North Carolina, for a few days when she reluctantly begins to tell her host, Gavin MacKinlay, the story of how she arrived. Gavin can hardly believe his ears – how can someone from the twenty-first century be in his apple orchard? He is transfixed by her beauty, charm, and interest in him and his property; this leads him to believe that she is not lying to him. If what she is saying is true, Emma passed through the gate during a full moon in 2004 to arrive on his plantation in 1827.

Although the thought of traveling through time is shocking enough, Emma gives Gavin some very startling news. In a few days time, the community, which has decided to rename their settlement “MacKinlay” out of admiration of his successes, will suddenly turn on him. Because Emma knows the future, she knows that generations of MacKinlay residents have cursed Gavin’s name, but neither she nor Gavin understand why. Equipped with the information Emma does have, they work together to prevent the events that caused this rift and thus change the course of history.

When the month has passed and the moon is full again, Emma is able to walk through the gate to get back to 2004. Once there, she finds neighbors who are genuinely friendly and who are proud to tout their town’s history. However, Emma is torn. She misses Gavin, who she found to be an honest, gentle person. She finds she likes the practices of the nineteenth century and has no desire to stay in this century. Emma must choose which life to live, although this time, if she passed through the gate, there can be no turning back.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Henderson, Historical, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Sain, Leanna, Science Fiction/Fantasy

Tagged as , , ,

by | May 10, 2010

Rose Senehi. The Wind in the Woods. Vilas, NC: Canterbury House Publishing, 2010.

Jack “Tiger” Morrison is an honorable man.  He has balanced the competing demands of family and his strong environmental creed. Together, he and his wife, Susan, created a family and started a successful camp for children in North Carolina’s Green River Valley.  Susan has been dead for some time, the victim of a drunk driver, but his daughter Sammy helps him run the camp.

Tiger’s love of the camp and love of nature is as strong as ever, but lately he can’t help but notice that the property around the camp is being bought by developers. How can he hold on to the camp–should he even try? What does Sammy want?  Tiger has a feeling that this will come to a head soon, but he is unprepared for the other developments of this eventful summer when a serial killer is stalking women in the mountains.  Senehi mixes difficult and horrifying elements–the murders and the threats to Tiger’s way of life–with warm elements such as a young camper’s growth and a pair of romances.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Henderson, Mountains, Senehi, Rose, Suspense/Thriller

Tagged as , ,

by | April 22, 2010

Ann B. Ross. Miss Julia Renews Her Vows. New York: Viking, 2010.

Now what woman wouldn’t be a bit upset if her husband of just a few years tells her that he thinks they need to attend “marriage enrichment” classes–and those classes are led by someone she knows to be a shady character?  Leading the “Stoking the Embers” classes is Dr. Fred Fowler, a man who once tried to make the case that Julia was too mentally incompetent to manage her first husband’s estate.  Miss Julia and Dr. Fred have a little personal history too, the memory of which fills Miss Julia with shame.

Rev. Ledbetter, Miss Julia’s nemesis, is behind this, but Julia has an ally in Rev. Ledbetter’s wife, Emma Sue, who also wants out of the classes. Both women feign illness, but hiding out in the bedroom all day just doesn’t work for Miss Julia.  Young Lloyd is staying with her while his mother is on her honeymoon and Julia is preparing for the newlyweds to live with her and Sam until their twins are born.  Julia also is busy trying to clear a friend of an assault charge, and Julia would like to send the newly returned, much-married Fran Delacorte back to Florida before she gets her hooks into Sam.

It’s almost too much for Miss Julia, but readers know that she will come through as she has done in the previous ten books in this series.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Henderson, Humor, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Ross, Ann B.

Tagged as ,

by | February 15, 2010

Kenneth Butcher. The Middle of the Air. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, Publisher, 2009.

The Colebrook family is not your typical four-generation span of Hendersonville, NC residents. The patriarch, Pipo, is a talented but controversial painter. His son, Philip, has an active business account with a nuclear weapons facility, and Phillip’s wife Lilly heads an ecological watch group while running the local chocolate shop. Their three sons, Xavier, Charles, and Leon have built prototype unmanned spy planes, developed government satellites, and made breakthrough archaeological discoveries, while Leon’s 6-year-old daughter has a precocious knack for drawing and detecting ancient artifacts.

One day a truck full of nuclear fuel goes missing. The theft occurred suspiciously close to where Leon finds a downed unmarked surveillance plane on the Appalachian Trail. After he brings the fuselage of the plane to Xavier’s workshop, all of the Colebrook men fall under investigation by the FBI. It turns out that the higher-ups in Washington are trying to protect a government nuclear power project that doesn’t officially exist. As the FBI discovers, there is more to the entire Colebrook family than meets the eye in this novel of hiking, chocolate, politics and government intrigue.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Butcher, Kenneth, Henderson, Mountains

Tagged as , , ,

by | August 21, 2009

Terrell T. Garren. The Fifth Skull: A Historical Novel of the Civil War and the American West. Spartanburg, SC: Reprint Co., 2008.

It’s 1864, the last year of the Civil War, when a new conscription law establishes the Confederate Junior Reserves, which requires boys to serve in the army after their 17th birthday.  Protagonists Billy Nick Long of Henderson County and John Rattler of the Snowbird Cherokee Community are sent to Camp Vance in Morganton, NC, along with other members of the Junior Reserve.The boys have not yet been trained or provided with weapons when Union soldiers raid the camp and take the boys as prisoners of war.  In order to save their lives, the boys join the Union Army’s Galvanized Regiments and head west towards California and Oregon to fight in the American Indian Wars.  Garren’s novel weaves historical evidence of the crimes and atrocities committed during these two wars with his coming-of-age tale of two North Carolina boys.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2008, Burke, Garren, Terrell T., Henderson, Historical, Mountains

Tagged as , ,

by | May 28, 2009

Ann B. Ross. Miss Julia Delivers the Goods. New York: Viking, 2009.

That Hazel Marie! Miss Julia has become fond of her late husband’s mistress and the couple’s son, but Hazel Marie hasn’t always made it easy.  Miss Julia was scandalized when Hazel moved in with a new boyfriend, private detective J.D. Pickens.  Hazel and J.D. are each on the stormy side, and when J.D. has had enough, he leaves town.  Now Hazel finds herself expecting twins, and Miss Julia decides she must get the couple back together.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Henderson, Humor, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Ross, Ann B.

Tagged as

by | May 22, 2009

Ann B. Ross. Miss Julia Hits the Road. New York: Viking, 2003.

Miss Julia can’t figure out what is wrong with her friend Sam. He is too old for a mid-life crisis and too young for senility, but he inexplicably shows up in her driveway one day wearing a leather jacket and riding a Harley. Although she can’t seem to wrap her mind around it, he also begins courting her in earnest: flowers, bad poetry, and calling “just to talk.” However, the real problem in this book is that Miss Julia’s housekeeper Lillian and all her neighbors are in danger of being evicted by their shady landlord. Miss Julia comes to the rescue by organizing a Poker Run motorcycle fundraiser, but must also dodge the unwanted attentions of the event’s biggest benefactor. This is the fourth book about the proper widow’s adventures in the fictional town of Abbotsville.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Henderson, Humor, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Ross, Ann B.

Tagged as , ,

by | February 23, 2009

Ann B. Ross. Miss Julia Throws a Wedding. New York: Viking, 2002.

When Hazel Marie decides to move out of Miss Julia’s house–and in with her boyfriend, J.D.–the proper widow isn’t sure what to do. Luckily, there are people in town who are more in the marrying mood and Julia throws herself into planning a proper wedding for a local couple. But nothing is ever easy in Abbotsville; there are bridal wedding jitters, uninvited guests, and a local thief for Julia to contend with. This is the third novel about Miss Julia’s exploits in the fictional town of Abbotsville.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2000-2009, 2002, Henderson, Humor, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Ross, Ann B.

Tagged as ,