By Nancy Stancill

When I first heard of the terrible devastation in the North Carolina mountains, I was shocked and sad.

Like many North Carolinians, I had a long and emotional relationship with that beautiful region.

Much of my latest book, Deadly Secrets, is set in those mountains. In the mystery, North Carolina is split in two in a legal secession to benefit an evangelical mega-church minister. He names the mountainous counties Westcarolina and becomes its governor. He and a ruthless lieutenant government start changing it to suit their beliefs and bring in more money.

Annie Price, my investigative reporter protagonist, moves from Texas to Charlotte to cover Westcarolina. The new governor lives in a 12-bedroom mansion in Blowing Rock. She lived in nearby East Tennessee growing up and hasn’t seen the mountains in years. Here’s a description of her first look as an adult:

“She knew she was looking at the Blue Ridge Mountains. Their blue haze, a reflection of the blue-green fir and balsam forests that grew there, was distinctive. Leisurely drivers flocked to the gorgeous Blue Ridge Parkway in autumn to see red, yellow and orange fall colors. In the spring and summer, tourists could look forward to the healthy foliage sprinkled with wildflowers. Annie thought the mountains were equally beautiful when covered by snow, with just the tops of some trees sticking out…She sighed with pleasure—how she’d missed this.”

The tourists that flocked to the mountains won’t be there this fall—or possibly for a long time. Roads are badly damaged, and many hotels and restaurants won’t be open, likely for many months. How will the region’s fragile economy recover without tourism?

When I was a young girl, we’d travel through the mountains to see relatives and back again to our home in East Tennessee. Many of those return trips would be late at night, in the fog on winding roads. I’d hold my breath sometimes, wondering if our car would plunge off the mountains. Sometimes I’d be carsick, an ailment made worse by my dad’s intermittent smoking. In those days, the dangers of second-hand smoke weren’t known. I just knew that I felt sick when he smoked. But in the mornings, the mountains seemed glorious to me.

I moved to Charlotte in 1993, close enough to my longtime UNC-Chapel Hill friends to plan at least one mountain weekend a year. Our favorite places for renting a large cottage for the eight of us were West Jefferson and Black Mountain. The major requirement was a back porch with a mountain view. We’d hike, walk around the towns, eat at interesting restaurants, and just sit on the porch and talk. Last year, three of my siblings and husbands rented a place near Boone in the fall.

The most traumatic time I had in the mountains was when my father died. His funeral was in Suffolk, Va. where they lived. Then the family began a pilgrimage to Elizabethton, Tennessee where he’d be buried. It was a long, terrible trip. He died in 1995, a few days before Christmas and it was snowing, cold and dark. When we reached Happy Valley cemetery (a misnomer if I ever heard one) a tent was set up and the minister gave some last words. I didn’t want to leave him there, even though he was in a plot next to my grandmother, grandfather, great-grandmother and great-great grandmother.

I asked my mother gently if she’d go back with us for Christmas, and she said, “I don’t know what I want, Nancy.” She went across the mountains with the three of us to Charlotte, where we had an empty holiday. Some neighbors on our cul-de-sac left food, so we didn’t have to cook. Our 14-year-old son had cried for a long time when we told him about his beloved grandfather, so I remember trying to be cheerful for him.

The mountains, especially around Boone, Blowing Rock and Asheville hold happy memories for me and the one that was indescribably sad.

I’m happy that my Westcarolina book is newly published, but the timing seems off. I write for the love of good stories and to pay homage to the places that formed me. I never expect to make much money.

Because I love the mountains and they mean so much to me, I’m donating half my proceeds from Deadly Secrets to one of the fine organizations helping its people. I could do no less.

Aug,. 4, 2024

My newest book will come out this fall. It’s the third in the Annie Price, investigative reporter, series.

The Bottom Line: Crackling with immediacy and suspense, Deadly Secrets is an unforgettable political thriller about murder, corruption and personal freedom in the divided states of America.

Welcome to Westcarolina, the newest American state. Encompassing a conservative region of what was once western North Carolina, the new government is sponsored and backed by Kingston Avery, the state’s minister-governor. The move follows a pattern happening elsewhere. Secessionists in Texas are planning more violence enroute to becoming a true nation, and similar movements are also underway in Alaska and California.

As Deadly Secrets opens, a radicalized anti-abortion activist and his wife are about to become domestic terrorists. Specifically, they bomb a local chemical plant that makes a key ingredient of the abortion pill. The act appears to have the full backing of God’s Gift leadership, of which they are insiders.

Enter 42-year-old Pulitzer-prize winning report Annie Price. After accepting a new job offer, she travels to Westcarolina to cover the new state. Little does she know that one of Avery’s top officials, Rob Ryland, is responsible for murdering her best friend back in Texas.

Annie quickly sets about interviewing residents, community leaders and politicians. Among her findings are that God’s Gift has significant business investments, including residential real estate, retail shopping centers, as well as budding media and marijuana empires. She also learns that competing churches are being forced to pay taxes for the privilege of operating in Westcarolina. But as Annie continues to dig into what appears to be an unconstitutional theocracy in the making, a series of troubling “accidents” begin to claim the lives of Avery’s rivals–and even some of his allies.

Author Nancy Stancill devotes much of the narrative to Annie’s point of view, but also offers significant glimpses into Avery’s inner circle. Given how much access we have to Avery and Rob’s insidious plans, readers often know about major plot twists long before Annie does. Nevertheless, Stancill’s approach begins paying off when certain extremists realize that even they are horrified at what lines may be crossed if the new state’s current trajectory goes unchecked. As the book reaches its conclusion and inevitable power struggles emerge, Stancill proves that no character is truly safe.

As a veteran reporter, Annie’s resilience is expected. But Stancill has also done wonders with Annie’s backstory. Her complicated personal life–she…can’t choose between two lovers—is all the more fascinating in the context of Westcarolina, where the ability to make personal choices appears to be disappearing fast. The book can be read as pure entertainment but given how closely the book parallels real political divisions, it’s equally effective as a warning.

– BestThrillers.com

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Bookwatch: Deadly Secrets is the third Annie Price mystery in Nancy Stancill’s series, but newcomers will find it as attractive as prior fans. Here, Annie faces new conundrums when North Carolina splits into two states and she follows her reporter’s investigative nose into trouble.

The story opens with a literal bang as a “godly mission” achieves its explosive goal. The self-appointed justice duo who call themselves The Westcarolina Righteous Action Committee comes from a mega-church whose secretive mandate for change challenges both individuals and social and political systems with proactive, sometimes violent responses.

Issues of pro-life beliefs and politics coalesce as opening chapters swirl around the church’s clandestine plan to rid America of medical abortions. The evangelical church’s setup of Westcarolina and its fostering of a new era of both terrorism and active pro-life beliefs translate to a sticky situation that investigator Annie finds immersive and dangerous.

Stancill takes her time to fully portray this futuristic community in the first two chapters before introducing Annie, a Houston Times reporter newly back on the job after a medical hiatus. During her recovery from her last assignment, her newspaper has vastly changed its scope and audience. At age 42, she’s in the uncomfortable position of contemplating new work and starting over.

As she reviews news of the explosion and considers the ongoing impact the secession of Westcarolina has had on America, she finds her expertise on the subject applied in different ways as she’s drawn to move to Charlotte during the course of her latest inquiry.
There, she uncovers not only political subterfuge, but mounting murders, and fraud cases that test her ability to quietly report the truth.

Stancill excels at juxtaposing the divergent perspectives of church with a quest for justice, capturing the attitudes and intentions of all players in this complex scheme and futuristic setting: “…we’ll do our best to ignore a news industry that exists to put us down and kill the dreams of a God-centered state.”

The conflicts, idealism, and murderous events coalesce in a whirlwind of violence and realizations which will keep readers riveted—especially since many of the political scenarios presented here aren’t far from present-day possibility.

Annie’s personal life comes into play with emotions and reflections that also provide a satisfyingly realistic contrast to the murder mystery itself.

Libraries and readers seeking a story set in a fictional, yet familiar, near future where religious, psychological, social, and political interests intersect will find much to appreciate in Annie’s character and focus in Deadly Secrets.

Book clubs, too, will find it an unexpected opportunity to discuss a variety of subjects about church, state, women’s issues, and the price of proactive thinking and behavior on all sides.
In short: Deadly Secrets is powerful in its characterizations, astute in its political extrapolations, unexpected in its action and twists and turns, and hard to put down.

– D. Donavan