Tornado Alley

Tornado Alley is a story of a man and a woman who are on a dangerous collision course.  Marie Boule is a love-starved young woman who grew up in a small, impoverished town in Pennsylvania, and her one desire is to find a comfortable, easy life.  She thinks she is capable of hardening her heart and making any sacrifice necessary to get where she’s going.  It is only a matter of time before she meets Ben Lunn, a bright and responsible man who thinks he has made his peace with the woman he has married and the demands of being a father and husband.  When Ben and Marie meet it is with all the unstoppable quality of a force of nature: at first, they are just pleased with each other’s company, a kind of innocent companionship they both crave, but soon they enter into a secret bond.

Benn Lunn’s life has been marked by gifts, not the least of which is a kind of magical sense about the world.  He is the son of a small-town doctor, and in the heat of the place where he grew up, in the scandals of those around him, there is always the constant presence of the effect of passion.  His mother ran off to become an actress… his father keeps his own love alive, waiting for her return.

Marie has seen, in her own youth, the result of love come to nothing, and she is determined to avoid this at all costs…

Tornado Alley is a compelling novel about love and loss, honor and passion, and the mysteries of the human heart.  It is told with drama and humor, and its characters are real people dealing with the recognizable problems of life.

The LA Times wrote "Nova delivers a prose that is…lyrical, subtle, almost poetic, a prose that makes his characters' emotional lives palpable, a prose that makes a sad story pleasurable to read."

And, from the New York Times: “Mr. Nova’s women are alive and interesting even (or particularly) when the world around them is not…There are brilliant stretches of writing as well as truly touching glimpses of deeply hurt but paradoxically alive people...”