Category Archives: 2010-2019

2010-2019

by | May 22, 2013

Katrina Thomas. Island Sojourn. Las Vegas, NV: Montlake Romance, 2012.

islandsojournDelaney Sutton used to love her job. A professional firefighter living in Richmond, Virginia, she has been passionately dedicated to saving lives for years. Now, at twenty-six, she’s reached a crossroads. Firefighting has always been her dream, but with the death of her friend and co-worker, Hal, in a fire that also injured her severely, Delaney is unsure and worn out. Her chief decides she needs a forced vacation at the same time that her sisters are planning their annual Sisterhood Sojourn to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Delaney gives in and goes with them.

Her four weeks in Avon on Hatteras Island are supposed to be relaxing. Unfortunately, her three sisters have other ideas about what she needs– well, one idea. A man. Luckily for them, Gareth Collins arrives almost within a day of the four women, and the Sutton sisters waste no time in hounding their youngest about how cute he is. Delaney has to agree, but she just doesn’t know if she wants a relationship right now. She hasn’t been able to sleep properly since Hal’s death, about which she keeps having post-traumatic flashbacks. Gareth realizes something isn’t entirely right with the pretty youngest Sutton sister, so he tries to take it slow, encouraging her to open up to him a little at a time. Is love really the medicine Delaney needs?

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Coast, Dare, Romance/Relationship, Thomas, Katrina

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by | May 22, 2013

Karen Pullen. Cold Feet. Detriot: Five Star, 2013.

cold feetWhen Stella Lavender agreed to accompany her grandmother to a wedding, she didn’t expect to be pulled into a murder investigation.  Stella works for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the undercover work she’s been doing has her interacting with all manner of drug dealers, drug runners, and addicts.  Although Stella hates putting on a dress, she is looking forward to an afternoon of good food, champagne, and polite company at an attractive country inn.  But Stella is not sooner settled in her seat when she notices a bridesmaid talking excitedly to the inn’s owner.  Something is amiss. When Stella goes to investigate she finds the innkeeper and bridesmaid huddled over the bride’s lifeless body.  The young woman clearly died an agonizing death.

Soon the local authorities are on the scene, and the investigation begins.  Stella is happy to aid local detective Anselmo Morales, but she is less than thrilled to be working again with her ex-fiancé, Hogan Leith, who is a fraternity brother of the bridegroom.  Several of the groom’s frat brothers came for the funeral, even one brother whose wife died tragically just months ago.  As Stella and Anselmo investigate the murder they find that the wedding included a passel of unhappy people: an ex-girlfriend of the groom, a couple who object to the bride’s profession, parents who try to impose their values on their adult children, and an innkeeper who believes someone is sabotaging his business. When the coroner’s report adds unexpected information about the dead woman, Anselmo and Stella have yet another avenue to explore.

Between the murder investigation and her ongoing drug squad work, Stella Lavender barely has time to exercise her mutt Merle (who was the subject of a bitter custody dispute with her ex-fiancé). Cold Feet is an action-packed start to a new mystery series.

 

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Mystery, Piedmont, Pullen, Karen

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by | May 17, 2013

Janice Sims. Escape with Me. Toronto: Harlequin Kimani, 2013.

escapeLana Corday has made a good living as a decorator in San Francisco but when her husband is accused of an enormous financial fraud, she is pursued by the media and her business dries up.  Both the media and the police badger Lana because he husband, Jeremy, is nowhere to be found.  Did Jeremy die when his yacht exploded, or did he fake his death so he could start a new life?

The FBI thinks that Jeremy is still alive and that he will come back for his beautiful wife.  Believing that Lana is the bait to catch Jeremy, the FBI enlists Lana’s father’s help. When she hears that her father has a touch of heart trouble, Lana returns to Hatteras Island to be by his side.  The FBI follows, in the person of handsome special agent Tennison Isles.  Jeremy’s deceptions have caused Lana to doubt her ability to judge people, but she can’t help but notice how her father trusts Tenn and enjoys his company.  Could she let herself fall for this upright, handsome, sexy man?

Janice Sims does a nice job of interweaving Lana and Tenn’s romance with the business of catching Jeremy, but what will set this book apart for North Carolina readers is the author’s familiarity with the Outer Banks–its geography, its beauty, its heritage.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Coast, Dare, Romance/Relationship, Sims, Janice

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by | May 17, 2013

C.K. Volnek. Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island. United States: Spark Books, 2011.

ghostdogofroanokeIt feels like fate when Jack Dahlgren’s family inherits his great-aunt Ruth’s home on Roanoke Island in North Carolina. His dad has lost his job, and all the family’s savings are gone. But twelve-year-old Jack doesn’t want to live on Roanoke Island, especially in a house that the kids at school say is haunted. He also feels responsible for his little sister’s accidental fall off of a nearby sea cliff, which put her in a hospital in Raleigh. On top of everything, a hurricane is bearing down on the Outer Banks, howling like a monster.

…Or is it a hurricane? There’s definitely some stormy weather, but there’s also something dark and scary living in the woods near the Dahlgrens’ new house. When Jack investigates, he finds a mysterious, vanishing mastiff, and something much wilder. Later, Jack meets and befriends their Algonquin neighbor, Manny Braboy, who explains it all– the evil living in Jack’s woods is a Witiku: a demon summoned by the natives of Roanoke Island in the sixteenth century to rid the island of all invaders. Incredibly, Manny tells Jack that he, Jack, must be the one to defeat the Witiku. The twelve-year old is skeptical, but when Manny takes him back to the sixteenth century to observe the events of the Lost Colony unfold, he begins to believe. Will Jack defeat the Wikitu? Will Roanoke Island finally be at peace? Will Jack ever be happy in his new home?

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Children & Young Adults, Coast, Dare, Historical, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Volnek, C. K.

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by | May 9, 2013

Emilie Richards. One Mountain Away. Don Mills, Ont: Harlequin, 2012.

onemountainawayCharlotte Hale has lead an outwardly enormously successful life, building her own real-estate company in Asheville, North Carolina from scratch. Her rise from the poor daughter of a drunkard in the tiny mountain town of Trust to a wealthy mogul is the stuff of which American legends are made. Unfortunately, while the financial and business portions of her life have been rich, her personal life has suffered greatly. Her twenty-seven year old daughter, Taylor, cut her mother out of her life when she became pregnant at seventeen, and Charlotte has never met her granddaughter. Similarly, Charlotte has not spoken to her ex-husband, Ethan, since he left their marriage to support their daughter during that time.

Charlotte has never regretted her actions, moving ahead with confidence. Until the day that she is diagnosed with an acute form of leukemia, and realizes that life is too short and precious to waste on anger. She begins to focus on the important parts of life, and to attempt to rebuild many of the relationships she damaged, including those with her ex-husband and daughter. Along the way, she reaches out to a young, pregnant woman named Harmony, who is a complete stranger to her, but who desperately needs help. Since she refused to help Taylor so many years ago, opening her home to Harmony is a way of partially absolving her sins. But it doesn’t help everything–Charlotte still knows that the greatest reconciliation, and the hardest, is with the blood kin whom she betrayed. Will Taylor ever be able to forgive her mother?

Part of the Goddesses Anonymous series from Harlequin, this thoughtful novel encourages the reader to reconsider what’s most important in life before it’s too late.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Buncombe, Madison, Mountains, Religious/Inspirational, Richards, Emilie

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by | May 9, 2013

Jill McCorkle. Life after Life. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2013.

lifeA good family saga weaves together the stories of multiple generations of distinctly different but connected characters.  In Life after Life, the family is not the Forsytes, the Snopes, or the Corleones, but the residents and staff of Pine Haven, a retirement community in Fulton, North Carolina.  Pine Haven is the current home of a number of long-time Fulton residents including Lois Flowers, the local fashion plate; Marge Walker, the hyper-judgmental widow of a local judge; Stanley Stone, a retired attorney; and Sadie Randolph, who was widowed young and went on to become a beloved teacher.  But Pine Haven has attracted some outsiders too, including Toby Tyler, a retired teacher who drifted up from South Carolina and Rachel Silverman, a lawyer from Massachusetts (pronounced MassaTOOsetts by the locals) who choose Pine Haven for a very private reason.  People like Sadie are friendly with everyone, but Marge and Stanley (who is faking dementia) stir up some trouble.  Marge can be quite critical of C.J., the young woman who serves at the beautician for the residents.  C.J. is an easy target, with her piercings, tattoos, and her odd clothing.  And Marge doesn’t even know about how C.J. earned money before she had her baby, Kurt.

Joanna, the hospice worker, knows a bit about C.J’s life, but her heart is open to C.J. and her baby.  Joanna, a local who went away and then came back, has her own past which is a ready topic for Marge and Stanley when no better subject is at hand.  The intervention of a large dog saved her life and the dog’s wise owner helped Joanna find a way past her sadness to a meaningful life.

Joanna tends both the dying and the living–even Abby, a young girl who lives nearby and who is a regular visitor at Pine Haven.  Abby’s father is a childhood friend of Joanna’s and her mother is a mean, shallow person who every reader will root against.  The lives of Abby and her parents intersect with those of the Pine Haven characters in surprising ways.  This is a novel of revelations and unexpected connections.  Life after Life is a book in McCorkle’s characteristic style–there is sadness, humor, and wry acceptance of the muddle that people can make of their lives.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Coastal Plain, McCorkle, Jill

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by | May 3, 2013

Karen Foley. Coming Up for Air. Toronto: Harlequin, 2012.

comingupforairArmy captain Jenna Larson is an ace Black Hawk helicopter pilot on her way from Fort Drum in New York to Kabul Airbase in Afghanistan. Stuck at Fort Bragg in North Carolina for three days before heading out, Jenna finds herself running into the same handsome serviceman over and over. Her nosy Warrant Officer and best friend, Laura Costanza, ID’s him– he’s Chase Rawlins, a soon-to-be-deployed, serious-minded special ops officer. When Jenna next sees him at a local bar, he seems just as attracted to her as she is to him. One thing leads to another. Jenna files the memorable encounter away in her head for later, when she’s running dangerous missions in Afghanistan. She never thinks she’ll see Chase Rawlins again.

In fact, she’d be surprised to learn that she has never met Chase Rawlins to begin with. Her tryst was not with him, but with his identical twin brother Chance– a hot-headed, devilish Apache helicopter pilot. When Jenna’s path crosses that of the real Chase in Afghanistan, she’s surprised and disappointed but stoic about his blank response to her presence…until she runs into Chance the same day. Chance hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Jenna, and when he finally sets her case of mistaken identity to rights, she isn’t pleased. Jenna has rules about sleeping with other pilots. Will Chance get a second chance with Jenna? And is their budding romance able to withstand both Afghanistan and the United States Army’s strict regulations?

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Foley, Karen, Harnett, Hoke, Moore, Romance/Relationship

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by | May 3, 2013

Mary Flinn. A Forever Man. New York: Aviva Publishing, 2012.

foreverReaders met Chelsea Davenport and Kyle Davis as teenagers in Mary Flinn’s first book, The One.  The young couple married in Three Gifts and they are well settled in their marriage and their careers as A Forever Man opens.  As readers of the previous books know, Chelsea and Kyle are surrounded by family and friends, and the pair and those in their circle have faced a number of challenges and disappointments.

When the interior design expert in Kyle’s building company retires, Kyle and his partner Frank are delighted to hire Elise Masters, a talented twenty-something who was recently let go by a large Charlotte firm.  Since Kyle’s firm is so small, he and Elise often work together–meeting clients, assessing sites, and working nearby each other in the office.  Elise has a past that she is not eager to talk about, and a child who has special needs.  Kyle feels protective of Elise and her daughter, Lydia, but he feels something more too. Kyle’s feeling may be hidden, but friends and business associates can see that Elise is smitten with Kyle–Kyle is the “forever man” that Elise has been looking for.

Chelsea can sense that this new colleague poses a temptation for Kyle, and the situation is complicated by friends’ gossip, family crises, and the revelation that Lydia’s father is nearby.  Seeing how Kyle and Chelsea navigate this difficult situation will remind readers that “happily ever after”  is really “happy if we continue to work at it”–growing together, drawing strength from what has been, and keeping that passionate spark alive.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Flinn, Mary, Mountains, Romance/Relationship, Watauga

by | April 30, 2013

Shannon Greenland. The Summer My Life Began. New York: Speak, 2012.

summerElizabeth Margaret (“Em”) has her whole life in front of her–and every step of it has been mapped out by her high-achieving, status-seeking parents and maternal grandmother.   Advanced placement classes in high school, admission to Harvard, summer internships at dad’s law firm, a career in law or medicine.  Em and her sister Gwenny laugh at their parents’ pretensions but neither girl dares to jump off the path that their parents have charted for them.  But they do dream about it.

Em sees a chance to step off the treadmill for at least a few weeks when she receives an invitation to spend the summer with her Aunt Tilly on the Outer Banks.  The invitation unsettles Em’s mother and grandmother.   Aunt Tilly has never been mentioned by either woman.  After phone calls back and forth between Boston and the Outer Banks, a compromise is reached: Em can go south for a month, but she must come back to Boston to spend the second half of her summer vacation at the law firm.

Em doesn’t know what to expect, but she’s up for whatever it is. Or maybe not.  Aunt Tilly is as fun loving as her parents are uptight; the staff at the B&B that Aunt Tilly owns are like a family; Em gets a chance to practice her culinary skills; and there are not one but two handsome boys to hangout with.  But as Em spends time with her aunt and the B&B staff she learns how each got to this place, and not all the stories are happy ones.  Parents die, children are separated from their families, and not everyone who has a child is ready to be a parent.  This summer on the Outer Banks will change Em’s life forever.

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

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Filed under 2012, Children & Young Adults, Coast, Greenland, Shannon

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by | April 30, 2013

H. Leigh Aubrey. Never Say Never United States: H. Leigh Aubrey, 2011.

never

The most important man in Brian Marano’s life has always been his father.  Brian’s parents divorced when he was young and since then his father’s visits have been precious and few.  In high school Brian hopes that his athletic achievements will get his father’s attention.  They do get the attention of faculty, administrators, and other students at his Charlotte, North Carolina high school. Because he is a good athlete and a good kid, a teacher finds Brian a peer tutor to help him with the subjects that he struggles with.

That tutor is Jason Ratcliffe, a student from a well-to-do, socially prominent family.  Jason is a bit of a nerd, but well dressed and not unattractive.  Brian is uncomfortable being tutored in the opulent home in which Jason lives.  Jason is uncomfortable too, but for a different reason–he’s attracted to Brian and before long Brian is the most important man in his life.

Never Say Never follows Brian and Jason from high school, to college at UNC, to the early years of their careers.  Their friendship grows as they share the challenges of young adult life and as they come to terms, at different times and in different ways, with their love for each other.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Aubrey, H. Leigh, Mecklenburg, Orange, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship

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