Heavy Weather by Normandie Fischer (Audiobook) ~ My Thoughts

Heavy Weather

Heavy Weather by Normandie Fischer

A Carolina Coast Novel

Narrated by Laura Jennings 

Published January 30, 2017 by Normandie Fischer

Death, life, family, domestic abuse--Heavy Weather explores all these themes in a memorable and compelling narrative. When Annie Mac's life explodes like a storm at sea, she is helpless to fight back. Left for dead, her two children targeted by her abuser, her life appears to be over. The people who help her show her how to weather a storm that she cannot control.

It takes a town to save a child. That town is Beaufort, North Carolina. 

Annie Mac’s estranged husband vows that nothing will stop him from getting his baby girl. Not Annie Mac and certainly not that boy of hers. 

Only four blocks away, Hannah Morgan lives in comfort with her husband and dog, making pottery and waiting for her best friend to come home. When she discovers the two children cowering in the bushes and their mama left for dead, it doesn’t take her long to set her coterie of do-gooders to some extra-strength do-gooding. Add in Clay, a lonely police lieutenant yanked out of his comfort zone and into the heart of this small family, and who knows what will happen? 

From the author of Becalmed comes this latest tale of the Carolina coast, introducing some new characters to love--and to loathe. 

Purchase Heavy Weather

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Heavy Weather was my introduction to Normandie Fisher's books and I am now hooked on her stories. I loved reading this book and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it just recently. 

The narrator, Laura Jennings, does an excellent job and her soft, soothing voice was a treat to listen to. She does an amazing job with all of the different character's voices and her smooth southern drawl transported me to that time and place. I look forward to listening to more of her work. 

My thoughts about Heavy Weather ~~ 

(originally posted on May 25, 2015)

(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first lines.)

First line—"Blood oozed between Annie Mac's fingers from the gash in her cheek. She huddled by the refrigerator, shivering, praying Roy's knuckles wouldn't rip up more of her flesh." 

I have kind of been on a Southern fiction reading binge lately so this one caught my eye. I knew I would enjoy it as I have all of the other Southern fiction I have read lately but I didn't realize that I would love it as much as I did. 

The stories starts off with a very intense scene which drew me into the story and made me want to keep reading. Annie Mac has suffered horrible things at the hands of her estranged husband and is left for dead. 

'Evil existed. Real evil, the black-and-white kind without any gray, where a man lost his humanity and acted as if he'd signed on the devil's dotted line. It seemed that Royce Bingham was one of those.'

The community comes together to support Annie and her children while the authorities are trying to track down Roy. I was so engrossed in the story and by the characters that I felt like I was right there along with them. I experienced the joys and sorrow that the characters did. I also felt the anxiety and fear that they felt when that evil person showed his hand. 

I was sometimes so wrapped up in the intensity of the story that I couldn't allow my eyes to wander ahead on the page because I didn't want to know what was going to happen. I had to let the story unfold naturally the way is was supposed to. So ... wow! That was amazing to feel that way and to be so into the story that I was nervous right along with the characters. 

This is the second book that the author has written in her Carolina Coast series. I didn't feel at all confused by not having read the first book but I now want to go back and read the first book, Becalmed, so I can visit this world again and learn more about the wonderful characters. I really hope there will be more stories after this one. 

Becalmed

About the author

A life-long sailor, Normandie has been writing and editing professionally since the seventies. She studied sculpture for several years in Perugia, Italy, before returning stateside to complete her degree with special honors in English. When they’re not visiting grown children who have scattered elsewhere, Normandie and her husband divide their time between their waterfront home in NC (where she takes care of her mama) and their waterborne sailing home, Sea Venture, lately returned from Pacific Mexico. 

She has three women's fiction books now: Becalmed, which was the first Carolina Coast novel; Sailing out of Darkness; and now the second Carolina Coast story, Heavy Weather.

Connect with Normandie

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