Title: Hurricane

Author: Janice A. Thompson

Publisher: River Oak

ISBN: 1-58919-020-3

Genre: Inspirational/Historical/Fiction

Brent Murphy is on his way home to Galveston Island, Texas, discouraged. He’s done everything he can think of to succeed as a newspaperman in New York City, but it isn’t working. Now he feels like a failure. And to compound the depression, he’s forced to return to his father—a hard man who always seemed disappointed with Brent’s choices in life.

Scared to face his family, Brent checks into a motel near his home. He walks down that direction a time or two, but can’t seem to find the courage to knock. Feeling even more like a failure, Brent holes up in his room and tries to write out his thoughts . . . But things are about to change. A few short hours later, he’s told to evacuate the hotel as it is beginning to take in water. A hurricane, the worse in history, is about to hit Galveston Island.

With nowhere to go but home, Brett walks the streets, heading out into the storm to see what kind of story he can find . . . he is a writer, after all. He never dreams that what he will find will change the course of his life—forever.

Hurricane is written in many different points of view—and at first, I didn’t care much for it as we didn’t stay in a point of view long enough for me to start to care. I was getting confused who was who and what they did . . . but as I continued reading, I grew to love each of the individual characters and I hoped that things would work out for them and that they wouldn’t be one of the many unfortunate people who die in the hurricane.

Hurricane really hit home for me as just before I read it, Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and other nearby communities and then Hurricane Rita hit near Galveston Island a few short weeks later. I’ve seen the devastation on the news from these areas and I can now envision the damage and the casualties that Galveston Island faced in 1900.

Having talked with the evacuees that relocated to my area, I know the despair and fear that the residents of Galveston Island faced and I cried with them. Even though this is fiction based on a true story, I am going to have my junior high and high school homeschooled children read this book as part of their history lessons. Discussion questions are included at the back. $9.99. 286 pages.