Reap the Wind

Reap the Wind has one of the most exciting starts to a novel that I’ve ever read! If you are not completely hooked by the end of the prologue, you are un-hookable!

This story starts with a perfectly good airplane flying into a hurricane—on purpose! True, that’s what it’s supposed to do to report the conditions of the storm, but no flight like this could ever be considered “smooth sailing!” After that prologue, the story begins in Houston, Texas, at the Four Seasons Hotel. Attorney Josh Goldberg, and other lawyers from the Philadelphia law firm he works for, are hosting an oil and gas conference for their clients. The conference is somewhat sparsely attended because there happens to be a major storm raging outside.

Near the end of the conference, Josh learns that his very pregnant fiancé Keisha has been admitted to a Cincinnati hospital following an accident as she was traveling. Josh’s primary focus now becomes getting to Keisha as soon as possible. But all the flights have been cancelled due to the storm. As Josh bounces ideas off his friend and colleague Geoff, Josh decides the only way to get to Keisha in a hurry it to get a car and drive. Josh enlists Geoff to go along to help with the driving, and then Josh’s boss, Diane, decides to tag along so she can get to an important meeting on time.

So now we have three lawyers, heading cross country into a major hurricane driving an old limo. What could possible go wrong?

That may seem like a wordy synopsis, and it is, but I couldn’t think of shorter way to tell you about the overarching storyline. There are several other storylines in the book, as well. For example, in addition to Keisha’s hospital stay, Josh and Keisha go back and forth about whether they want to get married.

This story is like the ultimate road trip, but instead of fun there is panic and danger. Yet what makes the story fun to read is the author’s marvelous description! I don’t think I’ve ever read better description of a bad storm and its impact on the environment and transportation.

“At that moment, a thick clump of leaves and small branches splattered against the window with a loud bang. Then, a gray ball crashed into the center of the glass. Claws sprang from the ball and scratched the glass for a grip. A gray squirrel. Not the flying kind, but the regular neighborhood type. He was soaked and you could see his heart pounding through his white underbelly. Shit. That dude must have flown about three hundred feet in the air to reach the twenty-eighth floor.”

I like the organization of the story. Each chapter is based on either Josh or Keisha. In the chapters with Josh, the author uses first person POV (except for one instance when he changed to third person near the end of one of Josh’s chapters), and then uses third person in Keisha’s chapters. The chapters were pretty much sequential, with only a slight overlap at times.

The four main characters—Josh, Keisha, Geoff, and Diane—are very well defined, particularly Josh and Keisha. However, the author did a great job of making their character arcs unpredictable. Nice!

There was a little bit of low-key humor, but it was very subtle. For example, the name of one of the speakers at the conference was Dr. Somebody. I don’t know if that was meant to be funny, but I took it that way. Another example is the banter between the lawyers in the limo when they try and decide what kind of music to listen to.

My only real complaint has to do with the pacing. The prologue really kicks the pacing into high gear with the plane flying into the hurricane, but going from that to a conference on oil and gas is, well…meh. However, once the road trip begins, the pacing gets going again. And that’s great. However, as the storm starts subsiding, the pacing slows. I imagine that’s the way it should be; it makes sense. (Personally, I don’t know how anyone could make an oil and gas conference more exciting than this author did.)

I happen to love climate fiction, and that was my main reason for reading this novel. However, there is so much more than climate stuff going on. It’s really quite good and very exciting at times.

I think I’d like to read more by author Joel Burcat. I like his style!