Bøger af Kate Merrill

Realtor Diana Rittenhouse is getting her act together after a messy divorce. She has uprooted her real estate business from urban Philadelphia to rural North Carolina and has recently survived A Lethal Listing (see Diana Rittenhouse Mystery 1/5) that almost claimed her life. Diana is excited about getting her Broker-In-Charge license and taking a second chance on love with Matthew Troutman, an easy-going southerner who is her polar opposite. But fate intervenes in the form of two eight year old look-alikes, who are destined to turn her world upside down. Juan is a Mexican orphan, while Johnny is the son of Diana's wealthy new clients. The boys are a modern day Prince and Pauper, but in spite of their differences, they become inseparable friends---until Diana makes a terrible blunder and one of the boys is kidnapped from her Open House.Neither the local police nor the FBI makes progress in the missing persons case, and as the casualties mount, Diana is devastated by guilt. She takes matters into her own hands and joins forces with her new love, Matthew, to find the abducted child.The quest leads them deep into the Carolina mountains, where the backwoods natives seem to hail from a previous century. When bullets start to fly, they fight not only to rescue the child, but also to save their own lives.

MISS ADDIE'S GIFT; Portrait of an American Folk Artist, is a biography/full-color catalogue/tribute to North Carolina self-taught artist, Addie James (1943-2011). Author Kate Merrill, longtime gallery owner and co-owner of Merrill-Jennings Galleries in Davidson, NC, represented Miss Addie from 2000 to Addie's death in 2011, and during that time helped elevate the artist to national prominence. The text not only includes Kate's assessment of how to place Addie in art history--- in that complex maze of what is lumped together as primitive, naïve, folk, or outsider art--- but also conveys Kate's deep friendship with her subject. After hours of taped interviews, the text also weaves Addie's first-person narrative as well as Addie's original poems through the presentation. The result is a colorful art book which evolves as a portrait of as unique human being who inspires hope in a troubled time when peace and joy seem all but lost. As opposed to being an academic critique, Miss Addie's Gift, should appeal to a mainstream audience, especially all women, African Americans, art and folk art lovers---indeed anyone open to an inspirational message. Addie James was an African American mother of five, grandmother of six, who never learned to drive a car, nor did she stray far beyond her hometown of Statesville, North Carolina. She worked in the cotton fields, endured segregation, financial hardship, and personal tragedy. Yet neither her art nor her spirit reflected one trace of bitterness. Addie painted for as long as she could remember, graduating from crayons and pencils to watercolors, acrylics, and all manner of mixed media. She painted on any material available: fabric, cardboard, wood...even the jackets of broken books. As a young woman, Addie was an accomplished fashion designer with a flair for sewing. She filled notebooks with her designs, translated them to clothing, and received an offer to design as a professional. Because she was busy raising a family, Addie ignored the opportunity in favor of making clothes for her children's paper dolls and capturing her fashions in her paintings. Miss Addie wrote poetry and songs. She adorned quilts, chairs, gourds, and handmade fans with her art. If painting had been a lifelong passion, it became a necessity when her husband died in the early nineties: I use drawing as a stress reliever. It brings me fun and joy. Indeed, all Addie's work reflected her natural joy in everyday living. Much of her subject matter can be described as the five "F's" fun, fashion, friends, family, and faith. While living the African-American experience in Statesville could not have been easy for Miss Addie, her art always spoke with a positive voice. If Addie had a dark side, it seldom showed in her art. Over the years, Addie James slowly attracted critical attention. Her art was featured in community shows, The Wallace House at Mitchell Community College, the Iredell Museum of Arts and Heritage and the Statesville Depot. In February 2002 and 2003 Miss Addie had major One-Woman Show at Merrill-Jennings Galleries in Davidson. The gallery represented her exclusively. Addie James saw herself, quite correctly, as a serious, dedicated painter. Her unselfconscious balance of ego and humility were key to her success and a joy to behold. When Addie James died unexpectedly in August, 2011, her friends, family, collectors and the art world at large lost an authentic American treasure. While she will be terribly missed, her gift will live forever in her art.

Realtor Diana Rittenhouse is surrounded by April fools-fools for love, that is. Her oldest clients, her partner Liz, her stepdaughter Ginny and even her elderly mother Viv are planning weddings. Only Matthew, her longtime lover, is stubbornly avoiding the subject of marriage.As Diana struggles with her disappointment, a mysterious enemy attempts to intimidate and kill her. From tire slashing to a car bomb, does this evil stem from her unmasking of an illegal alien, her listing of a foreclosed "drug house"-or what about those skeletons she dug up? Has the perpetrator of a forty-year-old triple murder decided she needs to die?As she tries to stay alive, Diana fears she may be the biggest April fool of all.Buyer Beware is the final novel in the Diana Rittenhouse Mystery series. The others in order are: A Lethal Listing, Blood Brothers, Crimes of Commission, Dooley is Dead.

In 1868 Confederate War hero, Tom Dooley, returned to North Carolina to marry his longtime sweetheart, but became romantically involved with her two cousins. When his fiancée was brutally murdered, the ensuing trial and Tom's celebrated hanging became the stuff ballads were made of. But had Tom really committed this murder? Or was it a legendary love triangle gone wrong?In contemporary North Carolina Iraq War hero, Trev Dula, Tom's distant ancestor, plans to marry his sweetheart, but history tries to repeat itself. The modern murder lands Realtor Diana Rittenhouse and her tentative new family smack dab in the middle of the violence. As Diana and her lover, Matthew, try to protect themselves and their family from false accusations and a killer on the loose, the reader wonders if the contemporary mystery will be resolved, or will a potentially innocent person die again?

Realtor Diana Rittenhouse has survived a nasty divorce and her career has stalled, so she moves her art collection, her foul-mouthed parrot, and Viv, her testy elderly mother, from urban Philadelphia to rural North Carolina for a fresh start. Diana's mother had grown up in that part of North Carolina back when it was forest and farmland, before backhoes raped the red soil and turned an old culture upside down. For Viv, the move means coming home. for Diana, a confirmed Yankee, the change is frightening. As a new associate at Crawford Realty, Diana anticipates making an easy living selling upscale lake properties and enjoying a simpler life style. Instead, her new home seems like a foreign country, where invading newcomers from all over the nation are fast disrupting a proud society. Fortunes are made overnight, and Diana lands squarely in the middle of a power struggle. Her very first client, land-rich Jedidiah Porter, is murdered, and Diana becomes the prime suspect. As she seeks the real killer, Diana is dragged into a deadly triangle of greed and violence. New friends are outnumbered by new enemies, and in the midst of turmoil, Diana encounters the last thing she expects...a second chance at love. But will she live to enjoy it?