Category Archives: Wake

Wake

by | October 12, 2010

Sandra Carrington-Smith. The Book of Obeah. Winchester, UK: O Books, 2010.

Melody Bennet and her grandmother, Giselle, were close, so she wasn’t surprise when her grandmother specified that Melody should be the one to take her ashes back home to Louisiana.  Melody grew up in Johnston County, North Carolina and knows little about her family’s roots in the bayous of Louisiana.  Melody thought it was odd that Giselle talked so little about her mother and her brother and why they left Louisiana. Melody also though it a bit strange that while all the other family members regularly attended the local Catholic church, Giselle, although spiritually inclined, attended mass only on major holy days.

Following Giselle’s request, Melody goes to Louisiana to bring Giselle’s ashes to Marie Devereux for a blessing.  Marie welcomes Melody, knowing that Giselle tapped Melody for this assignment because she saw in her granddaughter the potential to carry on a tradition of power and healing outside the conventions of modern life.  In a story that moves back and forth between Louisiana and North Carolina, Melody comes to understand her family’s legacy and to accept the power within.  She also has to fight off individuals jealous of her power and a religious organization threatened by the knowledge in a book of “magick” that her great-grandmother brought from the bayou.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Carrington-Smith, Sandra, Johnston, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller, Wake

by | September 20, 2010

Matthew Corey. Remember the Rollerdogs. United States: Prince Street Publishing, 2010.

Michael Stanton is having a quarter life crisis. Although he has a good job with the local Triangle television station’s graphics department, Michael misses his college days at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Everything was less complicated before he was responsible for his bills, and he had more time for his hobbies, such as hockey. His relationship with his girlfriend of three years, Alison, was also better. Although they are engaged now, Michael is beginning to wonder if their recent arguments and the tension between them foreshadow what their marriage will be like. Alison has become combative, controlling, and distant. One example of this is her discouragement of his joining the Rollerdogs, a recreational roller hockey team, with his friends. When Michael and Alison decide to end their engagement, he realizes that he needs to make some changes. He allows himself to get closer to his teenage hockey pen pal, Mandy, who lives in Atlanta. Although there is a sizable age difference between the two, Michael sees value in their friendship. He also starts to exercise more and eat healthier, and he finally joins the Rollerdogs. With his new-found self-respect, commitment to Mandy, and support from his hockey teammates, Michael enjoys a new happiness and discovers that not all change is bad.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Corey, Matthew, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Wake

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by | August 23, 2010

Bernice Kelly Harris. Purslane. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939.

This loosely structured novel made a big splash when it was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1939. It was a departure from the academic nonfiction typically published by UNC Press and it was an altogether different book from the sensationalistic novels of the South put out by commercial publishers in the 1930s.

Purslane is set in a small farming community in central North Carolina.  John and Dele Fuller and their extended family are the focus of the novel.  The hard work of farming; daily routines before rural electrification; the decisions, large  and small, that set the course of each person’s life; and the ties that bind individuals to their kin and the community fill the pages of the novel.  Portrayals of the events of the community–church picnics, corn huskings, coon hunts, hog killings–give readers a rich picture of a culture that has slipped away during our parents’ lifetimes.

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

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Filed under 1930-1939, 1939, Harris, Bernice Kelly, Piedmont, Wake

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by | July 12, 2010

Diane Chamberlain. The Lies We Told. Don Mills, Ontario: Mira, 2010.

A marriage can go on for some time, with normal ups-and-downs, until something causes a delicate balance to falter.  Maya and Adam, both physicians, have been married for over a decade.  Both would like to have children, but Maya has been unable to carry a pregnancy to term.  The reason for this is unclear.  When a doctor suggests that scarring from an abortion could be the cause, Maya must tell the doctor and her husband that when she was a teenager, she had  an abortion.  Adam is angry that Maya had not told him that sooner, and a rift develops between them.

Maya is close with her sister Rebecca, who is also a physician.  But while Maya and Adam are in comfortable suburban practices in the Triangle, Rebecca jets to emergency sites around the world as a member of Doctors International Disaster Aid (DIDA).  Rebecca has long tried to persuade Maya and Adam to join her, even for just one trip. Shortly after Maya and Adam’s fateful discussion in the doctor’s office, a Category Four hurricane hits Wilmington.  Maya and Adam agree to join the DIDA team.

As the three work together, Rebecca comes to realize that she envies her sister and the stable life that she leads.  When Maya is on a helicopter that goes down in flood-waters, Rebecca and Adam are drawn together in their fear and grief.  They do not know that Maya is alive, taken in by an odd collection–good and bad–of backwoods people.  As the sisters struggle with these new situations, each reflects on her life, and the great trauma of their youth–the murder of their parents.  Each has a secret related to that awful event.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Chamberlain, Diane, Coast, Piedmont, Wake

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by | June 17, 2010

Kay Salter. Twelfth Summer. Beaufort, NC: SoundSide Publications, Inc., 2008.

Sarah Bowers’ father has just been called to serve in World War II. To give the rest of the family a diversion, her parents decide that Sarah, her mother, and her brother should live with her grandparents in Beaufort, North Carolina for the summer. Although at first Sarah is disappointed to leave the bustle of Raleigh, she learns to love the sight and the smell of the salt marshes as well as the kind coastal natives. Surrounded by her adoring grandparents and new acquaintances, Sarah finds many adventures in Beaufort that she could not experience in Raleigh. For example, she and her friend, Porter, find themselves stranded on Piver’s Island in the middle of a storm – and an air raid drill. As the Bowers cope with the temporary absence of her father and their sacrifices amid the ongoing war, Sarah discovers what is truly important in life: family.

This is the first novel in the Sarah Bowers Series.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Carteret, Children & Young Adults, Coast, Historical, Novels in Series, Salter, Kay, Wake

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by | January 2, 2010

Katy Munger. Bad Moon on the Rise. Jackson, WY: Thalia Press, 2009.

Casey Jones is at it again.  As an unlicensed private investigator (she cannot get her license because of a Florida prison stint), Casey is not half bad; she’s already solved a few murders in the Triangle.  When Corndog Sally, a Raleigh fixture, comes to Casey for help finding her daughter and grandson, Casey is more than happy to help.  As Casey sets off to find Tonya, Sally’s daughter (and a recovering addict), and Trey, Tonya’s fifteen year-old son, she finds out that the case will be more challenging than she’d expected: Casey finds Tonya, but she is dead, and Trey is nowhere to be found.

As Casey searches for Trey and for answers, she stumbles upon an illegal police operation in which guards at the Silver Top Detention Center (a fictional women’s prison in the mountains of western North Carolina where Tonya served time for drug-related charges) force paroled women to sell drugs.  Casey learns that Tonya refused to help the criminals in this enterprise and was murdered as a result.  With the help of a friend, Casey discovers the operation’s secluded location as well as Trey, a bright and athletic boy whom the renegade guards would like to groom for the business.  Casey must risk the safety of Trey, her friend, and herself in order to help Trey escape.  At last, Trey is returned to his family, and Casey is able to put an end to the manipulation of women such as Tonya.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Chatham, Durham, Mountains, Munger, Katy, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller, Wake

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by | December 30, 2009

Tim Downs. Ends of the Earth. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2009.

A call from the sheriff’s department in Sampson County gives North Carolina State University professor Nick Polchak a chance to escape the beginning-of-the-school- year receptions that he abhors.  Professor Polchack is known as “the Bug Man” and he assumes that Sampson County authorities know his reputation and requested his services.  But they didn’t.  It’s the dead man’s wife who asked for Nick.  Kathryn Guilford made her first series appearance in Shoofly Pie, but in the intervening years a lot has happened, including her marriage to a bi-polar man who is the murder victim.

The authorities think that the killing is drug-related but early on readers learn that the victim was connected to a new NCSU graduate student with ties to a sinister, wealthy Russian.  What takes Nick time to discover is that the grad student’s interest in Nick’s work may be his way to keep track of the investigation.  Nick can be forgiven for being a little slow on the uptake.  His feelings for Kathryn re-emerge as they eat meals together and he sees how she mothers her autistic daughter.  Alena Savard, the dog trainer from series novel Less than Dead, has also come to the farm to aid in the investigation. She’s clear on her feelings for Nick and she knows that Kathryn and her daughter are rivals for Nick’s heart.  Bioterrorism, entomology, and matters of the heart vie for center stage in this book.  Rest easy, the terrorism threat is resolved; romantic matters will be settled later.

This is the fifth  novel in the Bug Man series. Not all of the books in the series are set in North Carolina.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Coastal Plain, Downs, Tim, Novels in Series, Sampson, Suspense/Thriller, Wake

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by | December 4, 2009

Bryan Gilmer. Felonious Jazz. United States: Laurel Bluff Books, 2009.

Leonard Noblac’s career as a musician peaked in the early 1980s, but he hoped that his music would again be appreciated if he just kept at it.  Leaving New York City was not the best career move, but when his wife wanted to relocate to Raleigh he came with her.  Once the marriage broke up, Leonard became unhinged.  As this novel opens, Leonard is robbing a house in a tony Raleigh suburb, starting on a string of crimes that Leonard thinks of as “a perfect jazz albums of burglaries.”  To Leonard, the McMansions of Rocky Falls represent all that is wrong with America in the 21st century–sprawl, over-consumption, soulless materialism.  Jeff Davis Swaine isn’t crazy about the Rocky Falls lifestyle, but he knows who pays his bills–the clients of the Raleigh law firm that has him on staff as their chief investigator.  Once Swaine is called to the scene of that first robbery (called because the homeowners would prefer that the case be handled privately), he is on the trail.  Noblac knows that Swaine and the police have a line on him, but he’s a performer who has always craved the spotlight.  Soon bodies–of people and pets–start to pile up.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Gilmer, Bryan, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller, Wake

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by | November 20, 2009

Price, Reynolds. Blue Calhoun. New York: Atheneum, 1992.

Blue Calhoun narrates the story of his adult years in Raleigh during the 1950s from the distance of old age.  He begins his story in his mid-thirties, when he is working at a store that sells sheet music and instruments.  One day at work, an old friend from school stops by the store with her daughter Luna, who is not much older than Blue’s daughter Madelyn.  At 16, Luna is a talented young musician, and her dark hair, good looks, and confidence catch Blue’s interest.  As the story unfolds, Blue has to grapple with his feelings for Luna and wanting to protect his wife and daughter.  Second and third chances can’t prevent how the reverberations of how Blue’s unfaithful actions will affect his family, including his granddaughter, for whom the story is narrated.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1992, Piedmont, Price, Reynolds, Wake

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by | September 21, 2009

Theresa Cocolin. The Last Rose of Summer. Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com, 2008.

In this introspective novel we follow the narrator, Mandy, from her early childhood through to middle age.  Initially, her family is poor, but stable, in Depression-era North Carolina.  When her brothers leave the farm and her mother dies, Mandy’s life takes a turn for the worse. One day she kills her drunken, abusive father and then is sent to Dorothea Dix Hospital.  During her years at Dix, she comes to understand herself and other people, and upon release finds her way to love and a more normal life.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Cocolin, Theresa, Piedmont, Wake

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