Nov. 26, 2025

I’m thrilled and humbled at the honor from QCNerve, Charlotte’s estimable alternative newspaper, in their Best in the Nest year-end edition. Here’s what they wrote:

BEST FICTION WRITER: Nancy Stancill

In Nancy Stancill’s more than 30-year career as an investigative reporter, she’s exposed wealthy men delaying divorces to punish their ex-wives, unveiled credit card companies luring consumers into crippling debt, and profiled a strip club owner who later bribed former Charlotte mayor Patrick Cannon.

The fiction the retired journalist and former Charlotte Observer staffer writes in her second career as a crime novelist is just as scandalous and intriguing.

In Deadly Secrets, reporter/sleuth Annie Price solves a string of murders involving a charismatic pastor who has established a right-wing Christian state in western North Carolina.

“I wanted a heroine who was 6 feet tall like me,” Stancill told Queen City Nerve in January, following the book’s December 2024 release, “but who was cuter, had better clothes, and a more exciting love life.”

Deadly Secrets draws from Stancill’s knowledge of newsrooms as well as her love of western NC’s mountains.

In the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene on the region, Stancill devoted half her proceeds from Deadly Secrets to Asheville-based charity Hearts with Hands.

Nov. 19, 2026

Updating an earlier post, I’m pleased to note that Deadly Secrets has had 10,733 free downloads from Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited. My publisher, Black Rose Writing, uses these figures to assess how the book is doing. I also am paid royalties from this category.

Of course, Amazon and other online customers also have bought non-unlimited Kindle books, audio and print copies. I’ve personally sold many copies locally and regionally, thanks to generous friends and readers.

I’m honored to participate in a Goodreads giveaway with three talented Black Rose Writing women writers.

Please enter my giveaway for a free ebook of “Deadly Secrets” through September.

Winners will be randomly drawn from those who register.

The winners will be notified at the end of September.

Aug. 24, 2025

My suspense novel, Deadly Secrets, has raised several thousand dollars for two Western North Carolina disaster funds. Half the full-price proceeds went to Hearts with Hands; the other half went to The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina. The organizations are assisting hard-hit Hurricane Helene victims, many in Buncombe and Swannanoa counties.

I spent a lot of time in the mountains as a child, and it seemed appropriate to use this book to help an area that’s so dear to me.

I hope I will be able to send these two organizations more money.

The mystery is set in the mountains and in Charlotte and Texas. Deadly Secrets is the third of my Annie Price, investigative reporter, series, and the first set in North Carolina. Most of the action takes place in Charlotte and Blowing Rock.

The new novel centers on a powerful evangelical minister who wants to take over Western North Carolina. He persuades the N.C. legislature and Congress to split North Carolina into two states, adding two more senators and several new Congress members to the conservative ranks.

The minister becomes governor of Westcarolina and begins changing it to reflect his beliefs and line his pockets. Annie, reporting for the newspaper, investigates murder, corruption and the erosion of personal freedom in the new state.

I worked for 15 years for the Charlotte Observer as an investigative reporter and assigning editor. Before that, I worked for 15 years for the Houston Chronicle. The life of the newsroom is prominent in all three novels and many of the plot points come from my real-life experiences.

The book was released by Black Rose Writing in late December 2024 and it’s for sale at Park Road Books in Charlotte and most online sources.