The mood is instantly set once the book is opened by the smokey grey end paper,  followed by darker grey with fine white rain blowing from right to left across the page, followed by even darker grey with white rain blowing across the page from left to right amidst the multi- tined lightening bolt. So Hurricane Emily, in St. Petersburg, Florida,  greets the reader of this, the second book in a trilogy.  Book one is quickly reviewed in a one page prologue, but this book can stand alone.  Author, Roland Smith, uses time stamps for the chapter titles, sometimes in 20-30 minute increments and sometimes in 2-3 minute increments. Tension and suspense keeps the reader from putting this book down!

Hurricane Emily, a once in a hundred year storm, is hammering everything in sight throughout the middle of the night. Rashawn, Chase, Nicole and Mama Rossi (Nicole’s grandmother) are hunkered down in an enormous steel-sided circus barn with a very pregnant elephant. They will be cast into pitch darkness when the generator runs dry and the needed  fuel is two out buildings away. Meanwhile, Chase’s father – John and Tomas try to work their way back to them through the hurricane’s storm surge, along with a local TV news reporter and camera man .

If the hurricane isn’t enough, the circus’s lion, bear, and leopard are loose from their cages and stand between Chase and the needed fuel.

It’s said trouble comes in threes. Book three will bring Tomas’s family and Nicole’s mother (with circus) into the equation as they try to reunite with their families from their distant locations in Mexico after a major earthquake.