Belated Book Review: Searching for Redemption

Title: Searching for Redemption

Authors: Misty Zaugg, Stephanie Mylchreest, Mike Kraus

Date: 2021

Publisher: Muonic

Quote: "Alpha was the storm's name."

It's climate fiction: If "global warming" really did generate deadlier storms, buckle down for a pair that make Katrina and Rita look tame. In this hypothetical storm season, the human names for the year have been used up, the Weather Service have reverted to calling hurricanes by letters in the Greek alphabet, and Alpha and Beta are bearing down on a set of people who have different attitudes toward hurricanes.

It's vividly written. After a sunny day, under a clear sky, waiting for the moon to rise, after reading this novella I'm braced for the next flash of lightning, asking myself why I'm out here with the laptop . Well, this is Virginia. Killer storms ravage Florida and Mississippi every year; we get rain. But the details of the fictional hurricane almost make me forget that tonight, for once, we're not getting even rain. This story--the novella opens a series--is not for anyone prone to hypertension.

Its intended audience is probably preppers...the sensible kind, like the family in the book, who are preparing to survive the kind of crisis situations they've survived before, like storms and power outages. In the story we watch Alpha and Beta smash into the weak points of each human's storm preparation plan. 

Dave, Brittany, and Lilly are storm chasers, the girls delightedly tagging along with their serious scientist father and enjoying their mother's worries. 

Rayleigh and Avril are homeless drug addicts. Rayleigh's too rebellious and Avril's too scared to leave a private women's shelter for a bigger public shelter in another town. They find a smashed-up liquor store, get some expensive liquor, and start drinking, but those storms just won't let them pass out in peace. The phrase "searching for redemption" is part of Rayleigh's thought processes.

Michael and Danielle are preppers with a beautifully planned and stocked storm shelter under their house...until their house falls in on top of it. 

This story will go on, though lots of sympathetic characters will die. 

If you can stand a "thriller" that reminds you of weak points to shore up in your storm preparation plan,..and of the possibility that, if "Category 6" hurricanes with winds over 200 miles an hour came to exist, something would break down anyway...then this is the series for you.