-
Season 1 of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” Vs. the Book
This post contains spoilers for both the second season of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and the books the show is based on. I’ll admit it. I got sucked into watching “The Summer I Turned Pretty” on Amazon Prime when I saw multiple online discussions about it. I kept seeing references to the love triangle between Isabel “Belly” Conklin and brothers Jeremiah and Conrad Fisher reminding people of the ones on “The Vampire Diaries” and “Twilight” so of course I was intrigued. Fortunately for me, by the time I watched it, Season 2 had already been released so I could binge to my heart’s content. But wait! The series was based on a…
-
Book Review: I Chose You by Carmen Leal
Book Summary For every pet parent who knows there’s no such thing as ‘just a dog,’ this collection of uplifting glimpses into the lives of ordinary-turned-extraordinary dogs and the people who love them is a tail-wagging good read. Thanks to the rescue dog who saved her life after a traumatic brain injury, Carmen Leal went from saying she’d never have a dog to becoming an advocate for man’s best friend. Carmen volunteered at the local rescue shelter by writing bios and social media posts, applying for grants, and helping to save and re-home over 6,500 dogs from a high-kill shelter. This endearing anthology includes stories that celebrate the bond between canines and humans…
-
What Happened to Angela Hamby of Wilkesboro, N.C.?
What happened to a young woman named Angela Hamby, who went missing from Wilkesboro, North Carolina on October 29, 1982, remains a mystery. By all accounts, Angela was a homebody. She had graduated from West Wilkes High School in 1980, and was living at home with her parents and working at a job in data processing at the local NCNB Bank. She was also enrolled at Wilkes Community College, with the hopes of eventually transferring to Appalachian State University. On the day she went missing, Angela had errands planned for the morning, and then she and her mother and sister were going to drive to nearby Elkin to do some shopping. She left…
-
A Purposeful Life
This editor’s letter appears in the March 2022 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. In early January, the community of Lake Norman learned of the passing of Tom Clark, a Davidson College professor who eventually found his life’s calling working in sculpture. While planning an article on his work, we put a call out on our social media pages asking if anyone had a collection of the miniature gnomes he grew so famous for creating. We were overwhelmed by the responses of so many people, not only of those who still have his gnome sculptures in their homes but also those who had a personal connection to Clark or a memory of what his…
-
Book Review: Such a Quiet Place
Synopsis: Welcome to Hollow’s Edge, where you can find secrets, scandal, and a suspected killer—all on one street. Hollow’s Edge use to be a quiet place. A private and idyllic neighborhood where neighbors dropped in on neighbors, celebrated graduation and holiday parties together, and looked out for one another. But then came the murder of Brandon and Fiona Truett. A year and a half later, Hollow’s Edge is simmering. The residents are trapped, unable to sell their homes, confronted daily by the empty Truett house, and suffocated by their trial testimonies that implicated one of their own. Ruby Fletcher. And now, Ruby’s back.With her conviction overturned, Ruby waltzes right back to Hollow’s Edge,…
-
The Murder of Sherry Hart in North Carolina
This case was featured on “Unsolved Mysteries” on December 1, 1995. Hart was a recently divorced 24-year-old young mother who had moved back to live with her parents in West Jefferson, N.C. when she went missing after an evening out in January of 1984. For months her family wondered what had happened to her, and then her body was found on December 10, 1984, at the base of a cliff near an area called Jumpinoff Rock. Investigators received some tips about Hart’s murder after a $5,000 reward was publicized. They discovered two local men named Richard Bare and Jeffrey Burgess had met up with Hart the night she went missing, and talked her…
-
What Happened to Jamie Fraley?
Jamie Fraley was a young 22-year-old from Gastonia who had lived most of her life with bipolar disorder and anxiety, but according to friends and family, she was on a medication that was working for her and excited about the future. She was taking classes at Gaston Community College and living in a nearby apartment. She was also engaged at the time to a young man named Ricky Simonds Junior. They had been living together until he was arrested and charged with theft. Despite his arrest, Fraley was supportive of Ricky Junior and stood by him while he served out his sentence. She was living alone at the apartment, but Ricky’s father, Ricky…
-
Celebrate the Joy of Reading with Library Card Sign-Up Month
If you enjoy reading, there’s no doubt you probably have a library card. From the time both my kids could walk, we spent many hours each week at the library, especially in the summers. One summer my daughter even volunteered as a library intern and loved it. We are fortunate to belong to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library, which allows us access to books and other resources at 21 area libraries. Another summer, we challenged ourselves to visit as many libraries as we could and planned excursions around the visits. A few months ago, I interviewed an intelligent young lady in our community who is on track to read 200 books this year–and she’s only…
-
The N.C. Murders of Viktor Gunnarsson and Catherine Miller
North Carolina isn’t exactly the place where one would expect to find a man suspected of being involved with the assassination of the Prime Minister of Sweden hiding out. Nor would they expect the man would be murdered as the result of a love triangle and not his troubles abroad. But that’s what happened to Viktor Gunnarsson in December 1993. On Feb. 28, 1986, Prime Minister Olof Palme was exiting a movie theater on a busy street in Stockholm when he was shot and killed. His wife, Lisbet, sustained injuries during the attack but survived. Because Gunnarsson, known to be a staunch right-wing extremist at the time, was spouting off hate speech about…
-
The Murder of Foy Dixon Cooper
Author David Aaron Moore shared the story of Foy Dixon Cooper in his book Charlotte: Murder, Mystery and Mayhem. At around 5 p.m. on Sunday, September 20, 1959, a group of young boys gathered in the Elmwood Cemetery in Charlotte to play and chase squirrels and chipmunks like they often did. Playing in a cemetery could involve quite a bit of creative role playing for energetic children, so when one boy, Dale Jackson, dared Ronnie McCauley to enter a nearby crypt so he could meet Dracula, the youngster didn’t back down. McCauley stuck his hand and then his head into the opening of the crypt, screaming, “Hey, there’s a real dead woman in…