About Shell Games: A dazzling thriller about a young woman whose fabulously wealthy mother might be the victim of an elaborate con or might be losing her mind––and the daughter can’t tell where the truth lies.

It’s hurricane season in Florida, and, as we now know, most of southeastern United States. I was in Florida when Helene struck, and I weathered that, only to learn that it had unleashed its worst on Western North Carolina. For 48 hours I couldn’t reach my husband at our house there or get a flight back. I finally rented a car and made a white-knuckle drive into the flood- and wind-ravaged terrain. After 14 hours, I arrived to find him safe and our house mostly intact, though without power, water, internet, or cell service.

For the next 10 days we lived like nomads in a succession of shabby hotels in South Carolina, wherever we could find electricity, water, and WiFi. Only to then watch as Hurricane Milton took direct aim at our other home in Sarasota. Two hurricanes targeting both our adopted cities? It was hard not to take it personally.

Obviously our troubles were trivial in the face of the devastating loss of life and property suffered by so many others. Nonetheless, the double whammy of Helene and Milton made a huge impact on me. My usually well-ordered life went spinning out of control. I felt helpless before the terrible power of these storms.

In the aftermath, I started to reflect on how and why hurricanes appear in fiction, including in my latest novel, Shell Games. A violent storm adds heightened drama to the plot and vivid images to the text, and that sense of helplessness can make the story even more compelling. After all, people might be able to outsmart or overcome a human killer, but there’s no way they’ll triumph over a Category 4 hurricane. The best they can do is survive, and survival in the face of overwhelming odds makes for powerful storytelling.

Here’s a sampling of novels, both classic and contemporary, that have deployed hurricanes to such effect.

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richards Hughes

First published in 1929 and still in print today, it follows a group of British colonial children whose Jamaican plantation home is leveled by a “high wind,” i.e., a hurricane. No longer safe there, their parents put them on a ship back to England. Along the way, they’re kidnapped by pirates. Here the hurricane not only starts the book off with a bang, it serves as the instigating event of the plot.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

A classic novel that traces a young Black woman’s coming of age. The actual Okeechobee hurricane of 1928 is central to the story. It killed thousands of people, most of them African American workers in the Everglades. The author uses the hurricane to show the power of nature, its disregard for human life, and its disproportionate impact on vulnerable people.

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn West

Similar themes can be found in Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn West, which depicts a Black family in Mississippi bracing themselves for Hurricane Katrina and later struggling through its aftermath. The novel shows the both the destructive force of the storm and the trauma suffered by its victims.  It also shows the role climate change plays in causing such devastation.

Camino Winds by John Grisham

The hurricane in Camino Winds, by John Grisham, serves as both an instigating event and a red herring. As the novel opens, a devastating hurricane levels homes and takes lives, apparently including a thriller writer named Nelson Kerr. But he has some suspicious injuries that suggest something––or someone––may have actually caused his death.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

A hurricane is employed to its full thrilling effect in Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. On a small island off the coast of Massachusetts, a murderer has escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane, and federal marshals are searching for him as a hurricane  bears down upon them. Nothing is quite what it seems, but the approach of the hurricane clearly conveys an eerie sense of foreboding. And when it strikes, its violence reflects all the rage and malevolence unleashed in the story.

My latest novel, Shell Games, features a Florida Gulf Coast hurricane as a set piece in the middle of the story. A wealthy, 70-year-old woman convinces herself that her brand-new husband is gaslighting her to get control of her fortune. Her daughter is torn between fearing that her brilliant mother is sinking into dementia and fearing that her beloved stepfather is a con man. When the hurricane approaches, the mother refuses to leave her mansion, so mother and daughter hunker down together as the storm rages around them. 

I included the hurricane in Shell Games to serve both character and plot. First, as the women ride out the storm, we see that the mother is still as sharp-witted and steely-determined as she ever was. Second, the aftermath brings about a joyous reconciliation between the newlyweds––or so it seems. The hurricane’s aftermath also shows the stark difference between the haves and the have-notes: the mansions survive the onslaught while low-income housing is ripped to shreds.

But my larger purpose was to advance the book’s underlying theme of the perils of climate change. Scientists have predicted that overheated waters, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico, will lead to earlier and more ferocious hurricanes. That was the case with the hurricane I invented for Shell Games. I wrote it more than a year before the awful wrath of Helene and Milton descended on my cities. Now I’m wishing I hadn’t been so prescient.

The post Stormy Weather: The Sound and the Fury of Hurricanes in Fiction appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Happy March, everyone! This month, there will be quite a lot of debut book releases and if you’re looking forward to find your next favourite author (and book, obviously!), be sure to keep reading this post as we’ve selected a few of our personal most anticipated!

Contemporary

Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah (March 1)
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A magical story of a mysterious child who claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles and teaches two strangers how to love and trust again.

Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds (March 5)
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Before I Fall meets The Butterfly Effect. A love story of Jack and Kate, where Jack has to prevent Kate’s death by time-travel into the past. Jack will learn that each of his action has a different outcome and there will always be consequences.

The Quiet You Carry by Nikki Barthelmess (March 5)
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A story of Victoria Parker who tried to leave her dark past, yet still freeze up at random moments with unwanted memories and nightmares that disrupt her sleep. All she wants is to move forward, but how do you focus on the future when the past won’t leave you alone?

When All Is Said by Anne Griffin (March 5)
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This is the story of Maurice Hannigan, who, over the course of a Saturday night in June, orders five different drinks at the Rainford House Hotel. With each he toasts a person vital to him: his doomed older brother, his troubled sister-in-law, his daughter of fifteen minutes, his son far off in America, and his late, lamented wife. And through these people, the ones who left him behind, he tells the story of his own life, with all its regrets and feuds, loves and triumphs.

Mystery

Call Me Evie by J.P. Pomare (March 5)
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A gripping story of a seventeen-year-old girl, Kate Bennet, that kept in an isolated cabin by a mysterious man named Bill. Bill calls her Evie and tells her he’s hiding her to protect her from something terrible one night back home in Melbourne—something so unspeakable that he had no choice but to take her away. The trouble is, Kate can’t remember the night in question.

House on Fire by Bonnie Kistler (March 12)
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A suspenseful story about a blended family in crisis after a drunk driving accident leaves the daughter of one parent dead—and the son of the other parent charged with manslaughter.

Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1) by S.A. Lelchuk (March 19)
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Nikki Griffin isn’t your typical private investigator. She’s a bookseller by the day and a justice warrior by the night. She helped women victims that get hurt by men that claimed to love them. But then something goes wrong, and suddenly Nikki is no longer just solving a case—she’s trying hard to stay alive.

My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing (March 26)
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It’s a story of a couple who has been married for fifteen years. Every marriage has its own secrets. This one just happens to be getting away with murder.

SFF

The Fever King (Feverwake #1) by Victoria Lee (March 1)
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Sixteen-year-old Noam Álvaro is a son of undocumented immigrants. He spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees, and he’s also happened to be a technopath. This skill becomes useful, especially with his plan to use it against the government. But then he met the minister’s beautiful son and now he has to decide who he can trust and how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of the greater good.

The Last 8 (The Last 8 #1) by Laura Pohl (March 5)
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A high-stakes survival story about eight teenagers who outlive an alien attack—perfect for fans of The 5th Wave.

Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf #1) by Crystal Smith (March 12)
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An imaginative retelling of the Grimm Fairy tale “The Goose Girl” that takes a ghostly mystery and sets it inside an epic fantasy world.

If, Then by Kate Hope Day (March 12)
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In the quiet haven of Clearing, Oregon, four neighbours find their lives upended when they begin to see themselves in parallel realities. Each of them started to get relatively benign visions that grow increasingly disturbing—and, in some cases, frightening.

Are there any other debut authors or debut novels that you’re excited for or would recommend? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Debut Authors Making A Splash In March 2019 appeared first on The Nerd Daily.