Andre Mele

SYNOPSIS: BOOK OF STORMS by ANDRE MELE

96,000 words

 

On a stifling Miami night, Will Hudson, an obsessed, ADD-afflicted climatologist, impulsively abducts his nemesis (and part of his extended family), climate-denying US Senator French Douglas, leaving behind everything he loves and risking life itself to sail an instrument-laden catamaran into the most destructive hurricane in history.  If he survives, he will be able to perfect his climate model (the Book of Storms) and predict hurricanes like the one that took his daughter and parents, gaining redemption and saving millions of lives. In the process, the nation’s leading climate denier will have borne witness, with immense political consequences.

Hudson’s pregnant wife, Erin Reilly, anchor of a highly-rated CNN show called Weather Today, stays behind to receive data he transmits from mid-ocean, mid-storm, and to coordinate a total evacuation, with or without the blessings of Will’s employers, the US Ocean Agency, if it is needed.  When the storm track veers toward Miami, and the Ocean Agency pettily demurs, the responsibility for 1.5 million lives falls upon Erin.  She plays Will’s mid-ocean voice transmissions, and his projected storm animations, on Weather Today, one of the most-watched TV shows in the country, to inspire the residents of Miami to run for their lives.  Soon, the whole world is watching.

In the end, she must rely upon her closest friends, and their allies in an unlikely group of street-fighting pro-democracy revolutionaries, to spread the word about the evacuation.  By the time the evacuation is underway, and they have time to think, Erin and her friends must confront the fact that they now alone in the path of a storm that will pack winds well above 300 miles per hour, for two straight days, with no place to hide.  They board one of the tramp island freighters docked on the Miami River, to ride the storm surge inland.  Erin fights her way back to her AM radio affiliate, the twinges in her womb becoming more painful, and invites anyone stuck in gridlocked traffic to find the ships and take refuge.

Will Hudson and French Douglas make an uneasy pact to battle the storm and settle any scores later, if they survive.  As Will’s 60-foot sailing catamaran becomes overwhelmed by the storm, it is apparent that they will have to abandon ship, but they hold on longer than they should in order to launch four undersea gliders that are key to the whole mission. Douglas, whose conscience has been troubling him for years, confesses that it was he who falsified the forecast of the storm that killed Will’s daughter and parents seven years before.

Will Hudson must survive to bring new knowledge and certainty to the field of hurricane prediction, to bring Douglas to justice, to love Erin forever and be a good father to the child she is carrying.  Erin must carry his baby through the terrifying chaos of a storm that is literally abrading a major U.S. city to dust, so that his heart can finally heal.