The Light Pirate

In this latest from Brooks-Dalton (Good Morning, Midnight), a massive hurricane bears down on a Florida town nestled south of Lake Okeechobee. For nine-months-pregnant Frida, the sounds and smells of the approaching storm trigger memories of her mother’s death in Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria. Husband Kirby, a county lineman, promises that the shutters and sandbags will provide protection while he’s working, but she knows better. The contractions, too soon, too strong, immobilize Frida. When Kirby arrives, Frida is dead, and the baby, still attached to her mother’s pulsing cord, whimpers on the kitchen floor. Inauspiciously named for the conflagration that upended her family, Wanda grows in the vortex of her father’s guilt and sorrow. Waters rise, infrastructure fails, residents who doubted global warming abandon their homes, but retired biology professor Phyllis saves Wanda from loneliness.