Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Mystery thriller novel The Storm by Rachel Hawkins is hitting the shelves on January 6.
The story takes place in the Rosalie Inn, a century-old hotel in St Medard’s Bay, Alabama, which has survived all of its deadly hurricanes that regularly sweep into town. It tackles a crime that put the town on the map, in which a local girl named Lo Bailey was accused of murdering her lover, political scion Landon Fitzroy, during Hurricane Marie in 1984.
When the inn’s current owner, Geneva Corliss, hears a writer is coming to town to research the crime, she’s less interested in solving a whodunnit than in how a successful true crime book might help the struggling inn’s bottom line. But to her surprise, August Fletcher doesn’t come to St Medard’s Bay alone. With him is none other than Lo Bailey herself, who says she’s returned to her hometown to clear her name once and for all.
“This is maybe the most personal thriller I’ve written yet, and I can’t wait to take y’all to St Medard’s Bay and the Rosalie Inn,” the author said on social media.
Rachel graduated from Houston Academy in 1998, and received a degree in English literature from Auburn University in 2002. The 46-year-old began writing her first novel, Hex Hall, while working as an English teacher at Sparkman High School, which later turned into a best-selling trilogy released through 2010 to 2013.
