Oh the weather outside….
While waiting in line for batteries, bread and toilet paper to face the coming Franken-tropical-storm-Sandy, I thought, hey, I should get some appropriate reading too. We’re going to be trapped inside for a least a few hours.
What would be better than some good storm reading? Storm reading about storms seems right, somehow.
And holy tornado, there are a lot of them. The rain might be filling your basement, the wind might have shoved your tree through your car’s windshield, so maybe you’re not crazy about bad weather at the moment—but writers love a storm.
Whether we’re talking blizzards or thunderstorms, nothing works better to endanger the protagonists or, better still, herd them into a cozy shelter where they can bet trapped. Together. We get to read deus ex machina at work, only less obvious than a god coming down in a machine.
I put out the call and got some titles for the storm-filled reading list.
Scary storms:
Linda Howard's Ice: The hero goes to check on the heroine during a terrible storm. The weather is a killer and so is someone else lurking around.
Sandra Brown's Low Pressure: From the description: “Bellamy Lyston Price was only 12 years old when her older sister Susan was killed in a storm. Bellamy's fear of storms is a legacy of the tornado that destroyed the crime scene as well as her memory of one vital fact that still eludes her...”
Karen Harper's Hurricane: Set in Southwest Florida during a (surprise!) hurricane. The heroine’s daughter is missing, along with the hero’s son. They must face the bad weather and find the teenagers and there’s a killer or two thrown in as well.
Storms that let the characters get to know each other better (or give an excuse for a cuddlefest):
Mary Balogh's Notorious Rake: The heroine has a terrible fear of thunder storms. The hero is only trying to distract her. No, really.
Diane Farr's Dashing Through The Snow (formerly published as The Reckless Miss Ripley), a regency novella about a young man and young lady trapped at an inn together.
Cara Marsi's Storm of Desire: A nor’easter traps a woman with her ex-lover in an island cottage.
Brenda Novak's Snow Baby: The hero and heroine get trapped together and their time together has a cute lil consequence.
Janice Kay Johnson's Snowbound: When a blizzard strands a teacher and her students at a closed inn, they’re trapped for more than a single night with the ex-soldier hero inn-keeper.
Heather Macallister's His Little Black Book: An ambitious ad copywriter is trapped and riding out the hurricane with a sexy entrepreneur.
Michelle Pillow's Mountain’s Captive: New Yorker and mountain man meet up in Las Vegas. Now she has to track him down in Montana. Hello, snow storm.
And if the weather particularly frustrates you, read about someone who can do something about it!!
People who control the weather:
Rachel Caine—In the Weather Warden series, characters like the heroine, Joanne Baldwin, can control storms. (We had to include a paranormal in there)
Oh, hey! Speaking of paranormals, there’s also Selena Blake’s Stormy Weather series, five books set during very bad weather, featuring Cajun werewolves.
A shout-out to Shannon Stacey (if she’d written her storm book faster I could include it here), Diane Kelly, Mandy Roth—and a huge thank you to Leah Braemel and her street team! They found a link to another list of weather-y books from a couple of years ago.
“Sandy Sunrise” image courtesy of daspader via Flickr
Kate Rothwell writes romance using her own name and the pseudonym Summer Devon. She lives in Connecticut with four men (three of whom are her sons). You can out more about her at KateRothwell.com and SummerDevon.com.
