Eli and Maxine fight to escape both the hurricane sweeping Shackles Island and the phantoms haunting them in this richly written survival story.
TWO PEOPLE WITH LOSSESEli and Max both have good reasons to go to the lighthouse on Shackles Island. For Max, it's an old vacation spot, the rare location where she has only good memories -- so it's the right place to scatter her dad's ashes. For Eli, it's the highest point near his Louisiana home, with the clearest view of the rocks where his sister died -- so it's the right place to end his own life as well.A STORM WITHOUT LIMITSBut neither of them expected the other, nor the storm. Because Hurricane Celeste is roaring toward Shackles Island, and its power will break bridges, slash electric lines, and stir up deadly wildlife -- some of it human. When the ruthless Odenkirk family steals Max's Jeep with her most precious possession inside, she and Eli begin a desperate quest to get it back and get off the island ... until they realize they must go into the hurricane. Advance Praise for Into the Hurricane:"Into the Hurricane is a riveting story of survival and redemption. Haunted by troubled pasts and hounded by a relentless storm, Louisiana boy Eli and Jersey girl Max must let go of what's holding them back and reach for what really matters as they run, drive, swim, and climb for higher ground. The result is a Category 5 adventure, driven onward as much by sacrifice and heroism as by the whipping winds." -- Michael Northrop, New York Times bestselling author of Trapped and Surrounded by SharksPraise for The Miracle Stealer:* "The power and danger of religion receives a realistic, gutsy -- and yet movingly spiritual -- examination in this ambitious and graceful drama... A slim book that reads with miraculous speed." -- Booklist, starred review"Andi's internal journey from faith to cynicism and back again (sort of) is handled with exceptional skill. It's a rare and welcome portrait of a girl trying to navigate teenage angst, family dysfunction, and religious belief." -- The Horn Book"A thought-provoking examination of the power of faith and the human desire for a savior." -- Kirkus Reviews Neil Connelly is the author of seven critically acclaimed books, among them four YA novels. The most recent was Into the Hurricane, which Kirkus Reviews called "thoughtful and provocative." He teaches creative writing at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and lives with his wife and their sons. You can find him on the web at neilconnelly.com. From Into the Hurricane:There's some disturbance there in the gently sloshing waves. Max wades through the drifting junkyard of gum and candy bars and Hunter's World! magazines to shine the flashlight in the area where the walkie-talkie landed. And then the light catches on two shiny black marbles about ten feet away, rising just above the waterline.Above her, Sabine yells, "Ivory!"Max sees Sabine standing at the railing on the second floor, horrified, pointing to where the eyes had been. When Max looks again, they're gone.Driven by instinct, she swings up onto a checkout counter, clearing her feet from the murk just as Ivory's snapping jaws rise after her. The albino alligator chomps air, collapses back into the water, and lifts again instantly, clawing now at the metal sides of the checkout lane. Max backs away, her slick boots nearly slipping on the rubbery conveyor belt. Ivory thrashes in the water, churning it, trying to get high enough to climb onto the countertop. More than once, his massive head makes it up, but the weight of his body pulls him back down.Max scans the water surrounding her. It's thirty feet to the stairs, way too far to make a break for it -- and what's to say this monster can't climb steps? She'd just be leading it to Sabine. Ivory launches once more from below, and Max sees the rows of yellowed teeth in his mouth. Without thinking, she leaps across the open space between checkout lanes a
