Category Archives: 2010-2019

2010-2019

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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by | April 26, 2013

Corrine Jackson. If I Lie. New York: Simon Pulse, 2012.

lieWhen you’re in high school, things can seem very black-or-white. Girl cheats on her boyfriend who is a Marine on duty in Afghanistan, she’s trash. When that boyfriend is MIA after a firefight, the whole town shuns her and calls her ugly names.  Since this girl is the child of a woman who ran off with another man, even her own father treats her with a cold disdain. Like mother, like daughter.

This is Sophie Topper Quinn’s life. Quinn–the name her father insists on–has learned to accept her father’s cold manner. In the years since her mother left, Quinn has wondered what role she might have played in her mother’s departure. She can’t say that her father’s behavior is unreasonable, but she is shocked to find herself so on her own after a photo surfaces on Facebook that shows her kissing someone other than Carey Breen. No one knows that Quinn turned to someone else after Carey told her her that he was gay and asked her help in covering that for him in their small military town.

To keep Quinn out of trouble, her dad arranges for her to volunteer at the Veterans Administration Hospital in nearby Fayetteville.  There she becomes friends with George Wilkins, a retired military photographer.  George recognizes Quinn’s talent and enlists her to work with him on the Veterans History Project. Quinn’s edgy defensiveness does not put off George and as their friendship grows, he helps her navigate additional curve balls–like her mother’s return–that come her way.

Although If I Lie focuses on how Quinn responds the turmoil in her life, readers also get a look into the lives of other characters, particularly George, Quinn’s mother, and Carey’s best friend, Blake.  All have behaved in ways that they regret, without mercy or grace to themselves or those closest to them. By placing this coming-of-age novel in a military town in the Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell Era, Corrine Jackson has produced a book that will engage both young adult and mature readers.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Children & Young Adults, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Jackson, Corrine, Onslow

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by | April 26, 2013

Travis Thrasher. Hurt. Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2013.

hurtIn this fourth and final installment in the Solitary Tales, author Travis Thrasher takes us back once more to the fictional town of Solitary, North Carolina.

Chris Buckley has tried everything when it comes to the evil in Solitary. He’s mocked it, pretended it doesn’t exist, given in for a time, even run away. Nothing has stopped his demon-possessed great-grandfather, Walter Kinner, from giving up his satanic control on the town. Worst of all, Chris is somehow the centerpiece of his upcoming final showdown with the powers of good. Tired, terrified, but most of all determined never to give in to the Devil, Chris takes the only course of action left– fighting back. It’s hard enough being a teenaged boy without having to fight the powers of darkness, but with his belief in the powers of God growing stronger every day, Chris has hope where before he had none.

Unfortunately, his very real demons know exactly how to keep him on their side– by threatening the ones he loves. His mother has been missing for some time, held by Walter’s henchmen. They’re also threatening his latest girlfriend, the sweet and guileless Kelsey. Since his other two girlfriends, Jocelyn and Lily, have both ended up as bloody sacrifices, Chris was reluctant to start dating again. But there’s just something about Kelsey that makes him think everything will be okay. But there is a long fight ahead, and no telling who will emerge triumphant. Will faith, hope, and love keep back the darkness?

Check out this final chapter in the Solitary Tales in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Henderson, Horror, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Religious/Inspirational, Thrasher, Travis

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by | April 23, 2013

Michelle Monkou. Racing Hearts. Toronto: Harlequin Kimani, 2012.

racingheartsDoctor Erin Wilson is intelligent, savvy, and dedicated to her profession. At the young age of twenty-seven, she has already graduated from Harvard Medical School and runs a successful practice in Raleigh, North Carolina. But her life is far from perfect. Her younger sister, Lani, is in and out of both financial troubles and relationships, and Lani expects Erin to pick up the pieces from both. Her mother has passed away and her father is in a nursing home, so it’s up to Erin to support everyone. She doesn’t feel sorry for herself, however– she’s worked hard, and it’s paid off.

Marc Newton has also worked hard. Breaking into the top fifteen drivers in the National Car Racing Federation is no easy task, especially without any connections or money. Of course, Marc has money now. His rise to the top came with certain perks, such as sponsors, and those who wanted to buy into his personal brand. Unfortunately, one crash too many has him seeing spots. A sponsor-mandated visit to a local doctor specializing in orthopedics has him steaming when she issues her orders–rest for two weeks, and no racing! He’s matching wits with none other than Dr. Erin Wilson, who is seemingly immune to his charm. Worst of all, he’s attracted to the brainy, good-looking woman–and she’s not even his type!

Erin hasn’t had a man in her life for years, but is now the time, and is Marc Newton really the one? She finds him arrogant, aggressive, and absolutely attractive. Will they each be able to overcome their own personal demons and find happiness? Or despite their mutual desires, will their problems keep them apart? This steamy romance novel will keep you guessing, and get your heart racing.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Monkou, Michelle, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Wake

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