Novels With Nell - Hurricane Season

If there is anything that growing up by the water has taught me, it's that an especially hot summer can lead to an eventful hurricane season. Growing up I never really had snow days but instead our school had more hurricane days than I can remember. That's the price you pay for being nearly waterfront. From boarding up the house, evacuating, stepping outside during the eye (and my dad and grandfather even cutting down a tree in the midst of the eye one year), and picking up debris, hurricanes were essentially part of my childhood. 

Nell's most recent pick certainly has some overlap with where I am from and what I am used to. I recently discovered my love of books that switch perspectives periodically making this book particularly enticing. 

Hurricane Season

By: Lauren Denton

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that this will be my last post for a while as I’m about to start PA school (also good news), but I don’t know how much non-academic material I’ll be reading. The good news is that I’m leaving you with the name of a great book to finish up the summer. I wrote an earlier post about The Hideaway, and this is Lauren Denton’s second novel so if you enjoyed that or are like me and love Southern fiction, you should read Hurricane Season. Alternating between three narrators, the book covers a lot of ground on family relationships, sister bonds, and seemingly out of reach dreams. One review I read described it as a “comfortable” read, which is an accurate description. You feel like you are right there with the characters in their relatable struggles. Thanks for reading; hopefully I’ll be back soon!

“Betsy and Ty Franklin, owners of Franklin Dairy Farm in southern Alabama, have decided to put life’s disappointments behind them. At least in theory. Ty manages their herd of dairy cows, while Betsy busies herself with the farm’s day-to-day operations and tries to forget the longing for motherhood set deep in her heart. But when Betsy’s free-spirited younger sister Jenna drops her young daughters off at the farm to attend a two-week art retreat in Florida, Betsy’s carefully constructed wall of self-protection begins to crumble.

As those two weeks stretch much farther into the hot Alabama summer, Betsy and Ty learn to navigate the new additions in their world and revel in a home that’s suddenly filled with the sound of laughter and life. Meanwhile, record heat promises to usher in the most active hurricane season in decades.

Four hundred miles away, Jenna is fighting her own battles. She’d once been free to travel and pursue a career in photography, but all that changed with the appearance of two pink lines on a plastic stick and a boyfriend who hit the road. At Halcyon art retreat, she finally has the time and energy to focus on her photography. As the summer continues, she wonders how her rediscovered passion can fit in with the life she’s made back home with her two children.

When Hurricane Ingrid aims her steady eye at the Alabama coast, Jenna must make a decision that could affect both her and her children’s futures, and Betsy and Ty find themselves protecting their beloved farm as well as their own hearts."