The Hurricane Lover

“Colorful and gutsy . . . a powerful book that deserves to be read both for the yarn it spins and for the real-life story it uncovers.”—Triskele Books Blog

As Hurricane Katrina howls toward New Orleans, Dr. Corbin Thibodeaux, a firebrand climatologist, preaches the gospel of evacuation, weighed down by the spectacularly false alarm he raised a year earlier. Meanwhile, journalist Shay Hoovestahl is tracking a con artist who uses storm-related chaos as cover for identity theft and murder. She drags Corbin into her plan, which goes horribly awry as the city’s infrastructure crumbles, a media circus spins out of control, and another megastorm begins to brew in the Gulf of Mexico. The Hurricane Lover is a fast-paced tale of two cities—one ruled by denial, the other by fear—and two people whose stormy love affair is complicated by polarized politics, high-strung Southern families, and the worst disaster management goat-screw in US history.

Drawing on firsthand experience, Joni Rodgers writes knowingly about the dramatic megastorms, weaving in climatology studies, riveting blow-by-blow weather reports and forecasts, and actual FEMA emails later released through the Freedom of Information Act. In this special 10th Anniversary Edition, bonus material looks back on the eerie prescience with which The Hurricane Lover—which was never meant to be more than a can’t-put-it-down thriller—foreshadowed a climate in crisis and a democracy coming apart at the seams.