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 novel’s 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

This is a novel about prejudice and opportunism.  The time is immediately prior to World War II.  Luther Perrin is a wealthy man in Somerset (Wilmington).  Perrin’s racist assumptions fit right in with those of his peers, but his active anti-Semitism is a surprise to his family and  friends.  When Perrin decides to develop one of the beaches near Somerset as a private, Christians-only resort, he hires the unscrupulous Cole Rives as an assistant. Rives eggs on Perrin, with disastrous consequences for many people.

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

Posted: September 18th, 2009 under 1940-1949, 1946, Coast, MacDuffie, Laurette, New Hanover, Novels Set in Fictional Places.
Comments: none

Murders involving the medical personnel at Fort Bragg.  No, it’s not the Jeffery MacDonald case.  This is a much more straightforward who-done-it set during World War II.  The plot is standard Crime Club fare, but the atmosphere of the base and the surrounding area are authentically portrayed.

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

Posted: September 10th, 2009 under 1940-1949, 1942, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Hoke, Moore, H. F. S., Mystery.
Comments: none

Money can’t buy you love, but it can buy fancy cars and a whole lot alcohol.  This novel, loosely based on stories about the Duke and Reynolds families, follows the grandchildren of tobacco magnate Andrew Whitfield as each makes a hash out of his or her life.  Grandson Cary is married to the actress Lillith, who truly loves Cary but who has found that she takes second place to Cary’s carousing.  Cary’s sister Ann-Charlotte also lives a fast life; her early start on this contributes to her father’s death.  Only Reece Benton, someone brought into the family circle by Cary and Ann-Charlotte’s mother, seems to have the potential to make sense of his life, but his relationship with the Whitfields almost undoes him.

When it was published the book , a racy melodrama, was recognized as natural movie material.  In 1956, the novel, set now among the oilmen of Texas, was made into a film staring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone.

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

Posted: September 8th, 2009 under 1940-1949, 1946, Wilder, Robert.
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

Paul Shannon, a Marine veteran, returns home to Hartsboro (a fictionalized Charlotte) at the end of World War II.  Paul had always liked to party and run around, but the war has changed him.  Things at home have changed too.  Unbeknown to Paul, his mother has died and his brother Jim has abandoned his young wife and child in the family home.   Paul moves into the house with his sister-in-law and they soon fall in love.  Jim’s return creates a crisis.  The novel has psychological depth; it’s also a window on social mores of the mid-nineteenth century.

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

Posted: August 28th, 2009 under 1940-1949, 1946, Mecklenburg, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Sims, Marian.
Comments: none

Sir Richard Grenville is the hero of this novel about the first attempted settlement of Roanoke Island (1585-1586), while Governor Ralph Lane is portrayed as a weak leader.  Much of the action takes place in England before the expedition sails and after the explorers return.  The reader gets a good sense of Elizabethan politics and the excitement that exploration held for well-born adventurers.  Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, John White, Richard Hakluyt, and Thomas Hariot all have roles in the novel.   The lowly-born Colin provides additional human interest, as he becomes a trusted aide to Grenville and a suitor to one of Grenville’s wards.

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

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

Posted: August 21st, 2009 under 1940-1949, 1948, Coast, Dare, Fletcher, Inglis, Historical, Novels in Series.
Comments: none