Although Katie and Mayme are only teenagers, they are trying to run the Rosewood Plantation on their own and convince everyone in the nearby town of Greens Crossing that nothing is amiss. Under their watch, Rosewood becomes a sanctuary for several other young women in trouble, including a girl whose mother died when she and her daughter were fleeing her abusive husband, and an ex-slave who is hiding herself and her new baby from a cruel former master. Throughout the novel the four girls struggle to survive, keep one step ahead of those who would harm them, and find a way to pay the bank loans against the property. A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton is the the second book of the historical, faith-based Shenandoah Sisters series.

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

Posted: June 19th, 2009 under 2000-, 2003, Historical, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Novels in Series, Phillips, Michael, Piedmont, Religious/Inspirational.
Comments: none

Katie Clairborne and Mary Ann (Mayme) Jukes were born in the same county less than a year apart, but they did not meet until the Civil War brought tragedy to both their lives. Mayme, a slave on a plantation outside the fictional Greens Crossing, is the lone survivor of an attack by marauding Confederate deserters. She flees and eventually finds herself at Rosewood, the plantation owned by the Clairbornes. Unfortunately, the same gang attacked Rosewood and everyone is dead except Katie. The girls decide to run the plantation and keep the deaths a secret to protect Katie’s claim on the land. They form a strong bond and, through toil and faith, they survive together. This is the first book in the Shenandoah Sisters series of historical, faith-based novels.

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

Posted: March 10th, 2009 under 2000-, 2003, Historical, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Novels in Series, Phillips, Michael, Religious/Inspirational.
Comments: none

A New York businessman forms close ties of friendship with several families in Jones and Craven counties.  They assist each other in solving personal and financial problems even though they have different points of view on slavery and other issues.  Slavery receives a lot of attention; corrupt masters, violent overseers, and miscegenation figure in the plot.  The tragedies in the book are based on episodes that the author knew of from his experiences as a director of a cotton trading and shipping company prior to the Civil War.

Edmund Kirke is a pseudonym of James R. Gilmore.

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

Posted: February 12th, 2009 under 1860-1869, 1863, Coastal Plain, Craven, Jones, Kirke, Edmund, Novels to Read Online.
Comments: 1

The third book in the Carolina Cousins series, Never Too Late follows the story of Josepha (Seffie). A slave in her childhood years, Seffie weathers significant personal hardship, beginning when she is sold away from her family as a punishment at seven years old. She plans her escape from slavery for years and eventually tries–and fails–to get to the North through the underground railroad. The story continues into the post-Civil War years, explaining how she comes to live and work at Rosewood, the home of the Carolina Cousins (and Shenandoah Sisters) series’ overall main characters Katie and Mayme. Like other books in the series, the main themes of Never Too Late are the characters’ faith, friendship, and dependence upon each other.

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

Posted: November 4th, 2008 under 2000-, 2007, Historical, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Novels in Series, Phillips, Michael, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship.
Comments: none

Although this novel is set in the mountains of western North Carolina, plantation slavery is presented is part of the local heritage and figures in the plot. The shoe is on the other foot when John Marshall returns to his hometown near Asheville in the 1870s. Northerners have come to this part of the South and they are making their presence felt through land purchases and business deals. His family home has been sold and is now a boarding house run by the optimistic and energetic Portia Van Ostade. Old racial and social attitudes are still alive, but the younger characters find romance across the sectional divide. The happiness of one young couple is threatened by a secret from the past.

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

Posted: October 23rd, 2008 under 1900-1909, 1901, Buncombe, Erskine, Payne, Mountains, Novels to Read Online.
Comments: none

The subtitle is a giveaway of the author’s intentions. This novel is a strong defense of slavery and the antebellum social structure of North Carolina. It is loosely based on the Theophilus Hunter Jr. family of Raleigh, and fictionalized versions of several North Carolina political figures appear in novel. Eugene Hall is the pseudonym of Emma Eugene Hall Baker.

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

Posted: October 9th, 2008 under 1910-1919, 1913, Hall, Eugene, Historical, Novels to Read Online, Piedmont, Wake.
Comments: none

This part-memoir, part-novel alternates the story of Buddy, a southern boy growing up in the 1940s, with a fictional recreation of the lives of Lea and Amos, Buddy’s Cherokee ancestors. Through the two stories readers can learn about the enslavement of Native Americans, mill village life, and mid-twentieth century Southern popular culture.

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

Posted: May 29th, 2008 under 2000-, 2006, Cabarrus, Historical, Piedmont, Rowan, Strickland, Buddy.
Comments: none

It’s 1860 and Coleman Blue is a reporter for the Wilmington Standard. He’s comfortable in his hometown and doesn’t give much thought to the slave trade that is responsible for a significant part of its prosperity. That changes when he’s questioned by Ira Spears, an agent from Philadelphia who’s come to town to investigate the deaths of slaves insured by his company. Since those slaves were owned by two men whom Blue has long suspected of corruption, the newspaperman leaps into an investigation that upends his worldview and imperils his life.

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

Posted: May 12th, 2008 under 2000-, 2007, Beshears, John, Coast, Historical, Mystery, New Hanover, Zeller, Bob.
Comments: none

This Civil War novel follows the intertwining stories of a young woman from an elite Wilmington family, a runaway slave, and a dirt-farmer’s son turned fugitive-slave-catcher.

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Posted: April 15th, 2008 under 2000-, 2006, Historical, Novels to Read Online, Orange, Piedmont, Scott, Joanna Catherine.
Comments: none

Set in the violent, lawless days just after the Civil War, this novel explores the deeply complicated questions about how the South would recover and adjust to new ideas about race and class. Daniel McFee, a former slave who had fought for the Union, has returned home to western North Carolina to become a sharecropper on land owned by his old master, Madison Curtis. Despite good intentions, both Curtis and McFee have trouble adjusting to this new relationship. It’s especially hard to make any meaningful progress when the whole region is overrun with violent vigilantes all too willing to take matters into their own hands. The novel is based in part on the author’s family history. Freedom’s Altar won the 1999 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for the best novel by a North Carolinian.

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

Posted: March 13th, 2008 under 1990-1999, 1999, Historical, Mountains, Price, Charles.
Comments: none