The unrest of the Regulators and the fight for American independence are of little interest to many of the residents of River Plantation in Chowan County. The beautiful Angela Ferrier busies herself with romances even as her step-father, who sits on the Governor’s Council, fears for North Carolina and his family.  Only when Angela finds herself torn between a dashing British spy and a handsome American army captain does she realize the perils of her times. Although essentially a romance, the last quarter of the book gives a good account of the fighting in North and South Carolina in the fall of 1780.

This is one of the books in Fletcher’s series of novels about North Carolina in the 17th and 18th centuries.

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

Posted: November 20th, 2009 under 1940-1949, 1946, Chowan, Coast, Fletcher, Inglis, Historical, Novels in Series, Romance/Relationship.
Comments: none

To Make My Bread follows the McClure family during the years 1900-1929.  Initially, they are mountaineers, self-sufficient on their small plot of land.  Most of their neighbors live as they do, except for the Swains, who own the store in their community.  When the family is swindled out of their land by timber speculators, they move to a mill town forty miles away.

Not all family members adjust to the move.  The two younger children, John and Bonnie become the primary breadwinners, and they are radicalized by their experiences. Bonnie also struggles with the conflict between the demands of industrialized work and traditional expectations for women.  She becomes an important figure in the nascent labor movement in the town.

Part family saga, part political novel, To Make My Bread is one of six novels from the 1930s  based on the Gastonia textile strike of 1929.  The book has been the subject of academic study, and it is still in print from the University of Illinois Press.

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

Posted: October 13th, 2009 under 1930-1939, 1932, Gaston, Historical, Lumpkin, Grace, Mountains, Piedmont.
Comments: none

Anyone who has worked in a library or a used bookstore knows that any bag or box of donated books can contain a surprise–a treasure in among the ragged discards of someone’s bookshelves, basement, or attic. When bookstore owner Jo Sharpe agrees to take the odds and ends that once belonged to the late Bridie MacPherson she gets two surprises–a cat she names “Marlowe” and the diary of Cristabel Lamonte. Christabel, the daughter of a plantation owner on the Carolina coast in the early 1700s, lived an unremarkable life until she was kidnapped by the pirate Edward Teach (”Blackbeard”).  Jo becomes obsessed with what happened to Cristabel–and the buried treasure that her diary mentions. As her investigations take her up and down the coast, several murders ensue.

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

Posted: September 25th, 2009 under 2000-, 2004, Coast, Dare, Historical, Hyde, Masek, Linda Lehmann, Mystery.
Comments: none

The Curse is the first book in Maddie James’ series The Legend of Blackbeard’s Chalice.  The story begins in 1718 with Jack Porter in the mist of a mission to retrieve his wife, recently stolen by the pirate Edward Teach (Blackbeard).  Jack successfully fights off Blackbeard and escapes with his wife, Hannah.  His happiness is short-lived; Hannah dies a few days later in Jack’s arms.

Fast forward 300 years to Claire Winslow enjoying a quite, secluded vacation on Ocracoke Island.  When Claire is visited by a mysterious, intoxicating man this vacation quickly turns into an adventure she never expected.  Claire finds herself inexplicably obsessed with her nightly visitor and begins to question whether he is real or fantasy.  Eventually she realizes that her phantom lover is really her husband from a lifetime past, Jack Porter. Thus Claire and Jack embark on a destiny-altering, time-traveling journey to find a chalice constructed of Blackbeard’s skull.  The chalice is their only way of ending the curse leveled by Blackbeard that threatens to keep them apart for eternity.

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

Posted: September 14th, 2009 under 2000-, 2007, Coast, Historical, Hyde, James, Maddie, Mystery, Novels in Series, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

• The Curse. Edgewater, FL: Resplendence Publishing, 2007.
• The Cult. Edgewater, FL: Resplendence Publishing, 2008.

Maddie James builds this series on the fierce history of the pirate Edward Teach (Blackbeard) and the continuing interest in pirate lore.  The novels move back and forth between the 1700s and the present and feature bits of history, mayhem, the supernatural, and star-crossed lovers.

Posted: September 14th, 2009 under Coast, Historical, James, Maddie, Novels in Series, Romance/Relationship, Series.
Comments: 1

This three-in-one collection tells the love stories of three women living in three very different times across the state.  Lauralee Bliss’ novella, Journey to Love, begins in London, where Beth Colman has just buried her father.   With nothing left for her in Britain, she sets out for America in 1650 with Judith, her sister, and Mark, Judith’s husband.  The trio is trying to solve the mystery of their ancestors who were some of the original settlers of the lost colony of Roanoke, but Beth is looking for more.  Guided by her strong faith, and the hardy John Harris who knows the country well, she just might find love during the journey.

In Lynn A. Coleman’s Corduroy Road to Love, Ida Mae McAuley is strong, single woman with a brilliant mind for business living in 1830s Charlotte.  She’s caught between the affection of two men, both of whom are hiding something.  Ida Mae must use her keen sense to figure out who she’ll trust with her heart.

Tamela Hancock Murray tells the story of a Drusie, a small town singer in the 1930s in her novella The Music of Home.  Drusie is happy and successful in Sunshine Holler – she’s engaged to the love of her life, Gladdie Gordon, and sings at Church on Sunday with her sister.  When Drusie is given the chance to risk it all and enter showbiz, will Drusie leave her mountain home and loved ones behind?

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

Posted: September 4th, 2009 under 2000-, 2007, Bliss, Lauralee, Coast, Coleman, Lynn A., Dare, Historical, Mecklenburg, Mountains, Murray, Tamela Hancock, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship.
Comments: none

Zack Harper, a young scout for the Continental Army, plays a key role in providing the patriots with information prior to the battle for King’s Mountain.  Much of the story is told through dialogue, making this an easy read for young adults.

This is the second of four novels about Harper’s adventures in the Revolutionary War.

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

Posted: September 1st, 2009 under 1960-1969, 1962, Children & Young Adults, Historical, Mountains, Wellman, Manly Wade.
Comments: none

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.

Posted: August 31st, 2009 under 1940-1949, 1944, Brunswick, Coast, Fletcher, Inglis, Historical, Novels in Series.
Comments: none

In Hillsboro’town a private battle wages between the spirited Royalist Joscelyn Cheshire and the equally strong-willed Patriot Richard Clevering.  Richard leaves to join the Continental Line, and he is captured by the British and consigned to a prison ship.  He escapes and makes his way back to the Piedmont where Joscelyn, her loyalty divided, hides him.  As the tide of war turns in the Patriots’ favor, Joscelyn is reviled by her neighbors.  Richard, knowing her bravery, defends her.  In her gratitude, Joscelyn comes to see that Richard is the man for her.

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

Posted: August 27th, 2009 under 1900-1909, 1902, Historical, Kennedy, Sara Beaumont, Novels to Read Online, Orange, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship.
Comments: none

Both Royal Governor William Tryon and the Regulator insurrection are well known to students of North Carolina history.  In this novel, Inglis Fletcher retells these familiar stories through the actions of Hillary Caswell.  Caswell is a Marylander by birth, new to North Carolina, but wealthy and well connected (his cousin Richard is the speaker of the North Carolina Assembly).  As the novel opens, Caswell is making plans to go to New Bern where he will join Governor Tryon’s administration.  Although the complaints of his kinsmen and the allure of Cecelia Chapman should have kept him in Tyrrell County, Caswell goes on to New Bern and from there into the fray of late colonial unrest and the fateful Battle of Alamance.  As with most of Fletcher’s novels, historical figures like Tryon, Harmon Husband, and Edmund Fanning are integral to the story.

This is the ninth novel in Fletcher’s Carolina Series.

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

Posted: August 26th, 2009 under 1950-1959, 1957, Coast, Fletcher, Inglis, Historical, Novels in Series, Piedmont.
Comments: none