It’s 1864, the last year of the Civil War, when a new conscription law establishes the Confederate Junior Reserves, which requires boys to serve in the army after their 17th birthday.  Protagonists Billy Nick Long of Henderson County and John Rattler of the Snowbird Cherokee Community are sent to Camp Vance in Morganton, NC, along with other members of the Junior Reserve. The boys have not yet been trained or provided with weapons when Union soldiers raid the camp and take the boys as prisoners of war.  In order to save their lives, the boys join the Union Army’s Galvanized Regiments and head west towards California and Oregon to fight in the American Indian Wars.  Garren’s novel weaves historical evidence of the crimes and atrocities committed during these two wars with his coming-of-age tale of two North Carolina boys.

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

Posted: August 21st, 2009 under 2008, Burke, Garren, Terrel T., Henderson, Historical, Mountains.
Comments: none

When Sheriff Sharyn Howard leaves Diamond Springs to attend a law enforcement training retreat, her staff must solve a murder and deal with a sniper in town.  Meanwhile, Sharyn has her own problems.  One of her deputies is seriously injured when he falls down an old mine shaft, another man is found dead in the woods, and several others are killed when a car explodes.  Unfortunately, the retreat is in an abandoned mining town on isolated Sweet Potato Mountain, their radio is broken, and a vicious storm begins flooding the area streams.  This is the tenth book in the series of Sharyn Howard mysteries.

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

Posted: May 11th, 2009 under 2000-, 2004, Lavene, Jim and Joyce, Montgomery, Mystery, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Novels in Series, Piedmont.
Comments: none

Ever since he first learned about the New World, eleven-year-old Andrew has dreamed of going there himself and seeking his fortune. When his father decides to send him to London to become a page for Sir Walter Raleigh, Andrew is on his way to the adventure he craves. He faces homesickness, meanness from his fellow pages, and tests concocted by Sir Raleigh to prove his skills and loyalty. He also journeys to France and–finally!–the New World, where he becomes friends with an Algonquin boy named Sky.

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

Posted: March 26th, 2009 under 2000-, 2007, Armstrong, Alan, Children & Young Adults, Coast, Historical.
Comments: none

Gabriel North, a young man employed by Lord Burghley, is known to have a way with women. In an attempt to avoid war with the Native Americans at Roanoke, Burghley sends North there to seduce the Secota princess, Naia.  The English are convinced that the tribe controls gold mines and pearls beds, and they want those resources for themselves. North goes with Ralph Lane’s 1585 expedition, but the results are not what North’s handlers wanted.  In an attempt to make things right, North returns with John White’s colonizing expedition in 1587. The story is narrated by Robert Mowbray, another one of Burghley’s spies, and the action moves back and forth between America and England.  The mixed intentions, misunderstandings, physical deprivations, cruelty, and bad luck that attended the English on Roanoke are well portrayed, along with betrayals on both sides of the Atlantic.

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

Posted: March 6th, 2009 under 2000-, 2009, Coast, Dare, Historical, Lawrence, Margaret.
Comments: none

Prosecutor Mary Crow’s trip to the mountains with her two college friends was supposed to be a celebration; she has just won her sixth murder case in a row. The plan was to stop in her childhood hometown of Jump Off, NC and then hike and camp for two days in the Nantahala National Forest. Their plan quickly goes awry. The women face two very different men who are intent upon hurting or killing them; one is a seasoned serial killer who has stalked victims in the forest for years and one is a man with a personal grudge against Mary. This is the first book in the series of Mary Crow thrillers.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

Posted: January 27th, 2009 under 2000-, 2001, Bissell, Sallie, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Novels in Series, Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

The Uwharrie people no longer exist as an identifiable group in North Carolina but David Fuller Cook has used their name in this novel set on a Indian reservation in an unnamed state, possibly North Carolina.  The novel is narrated by Warren Eubanks, a member of the tribe who has grown up in the care of his grandparents.  Warren, whose Indian name is The Seed, moves back in forth in time, talking about people and events in his childhood, and stories of earlier times, trying to understand Native American culture, the intentions of white people and institutions, and the choices that his relatives and neighbors have made.  Shifting federal government policies, tribal government, mineral rights, Christian mission schools, and the American Indian Movement all appear in the narrative, but the book never feels like a history lesson.   Instead, the reader is taken into the narrator’s world, becoming immersed in the reservation and the lives of its people.

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

Posted: December 10th, 2008 under 2000-, 2007, Cook, David Fuller.
Comments: none

This first novel is a coming of age tale, told in the first person.  Anna is brought up in a strict religious family near the North Carolina coast.  She absorbs most of the lessons of her upbringing, but her family rejects her when she begins dating a Native American student while at UNC-Chapel Hill.  Cut loose from her parents, Anna drifts into drinking and then a disastrous marriage.  Her teaching career provides her with the opportunity to leave this country for Thailand where she finds inner peace through self-acceptance and forgiveness.

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Posted: November 26th, 2008 under 2000-, 2007, Coast, Ferrell, Autumn, Religious/Inspirational.
Comments: none

In this version of the Lost Colony story, most of the English settlers are killed, but Virginia Dare survives. In 1607, she goes north to Powhatan’s country, but the Jamestown settlers never learn of her existence. The remnants of Manteo’s tribe become Christians, and Virgina marries Manteo’s son Iosco.

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

Posted: October 23rd, 2008 under 1890-1899, 1892, Coast, Novels to Read Online, Religious/Inspirational, Shackelford, E. A. B..
Comments: none

This alternative telling of the Lost Colony story adds some new figures, including 16th century bad-boy dramatist Christopher Marlowe and the main character, Captain John Vytal. Spanish invaders, hostile Native Americans, and internal dissent doom the colony. Marlowe returns to England and meets his fate at that tavern in Deptford. White Doe (Virginia Dare), Dark Eyes (Manteo’s son) and Eleanor Dare flee to the forest, along with Vytal who has long pined for Eleanor.

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

Posted: September 26th, 2008 under 1900-1909, 1901, Coast, Dare, Historical, Novels to Read Online, Payson, William Farquhar.
Comments: none

David Simmons and Ruth Swaim were childhood playmates, growing up on adjacent farms by the Yadkin River. Their parents assumed that the young people would some day wed, but when David bungles a sale of Mr. Swaim’s apples, he leaves the area. David’s plan is to earn the money to repay Mr. Swaim. Thus begin a picaresque tale in which David encounters an escaped Union prisoner and an Indian princess. David enjoys his time among the Croatan Indians (Lumbees) and comes to love the Princess Elizabeth. That in itself is a complicated situation, but the plot thickens when the Union soldier turns up where Ruth is staying and tells her about David’s new love. Ruth goes to David, and overhears David confess to Elizabeth his prior relationship with Ruth. Ruth and David recognize that their future is together, but leaving the Croatan settlement proves difficult.

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

Posted: September 15th, 2008 under 1910-1919, 1916, Baily, Waldron, Novels to Read Online, Piedmont.
Comments: none