The Hurricane Lover

During the record-smashing hurricane season of 2005, a firebrand meteorologist and an ambitious journalist come together to catch a con artist who uses chaos as cover for identity theft and murder. A deadly game of cat and mouse unfolds alongside their stormy love affair, complicated by polarized politics, high-strung Southern families, a full-on media circus, and the worst disaster management goat screw in US history.

As Hurricane Katrina howls toward the ill-prepared city of New Orleans, Dr. Corbin Thibodeaux, a Gulf Coast climatologist and storm risk specialist, preaches the gospel of evacuation, weighed down by the fresh public memory of a spectacularly false alarm a year earlier. Meanwhile, Shay Hoovestahl, a puff piece reporter for the local news, stumbles on the story of a con artist who uses storm-related chaos as cover for identity theft and murder. Laying a trap to expose the killer, Shay drags Corbin into her agenda, which goes horribly awry as the city's infrastructure crumbles.

The Hurricane Lover is a fast-paced tale of two cities, two families, and two desperate people seeking shelter from the storm.

NYT bestselling author/ghostwriter Joni Rodgers, who lives on the Gulf Coast, writes knowingly about the dramatic megastorms, weaving in her own firsthand experience, authentic meteorology, transcripts of actual emails sent and received by FEMA director Michael Brown (later released through the Freedom of Information Act), and the riveting personal stories she heard while volunteering with relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.