Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series) [Kindle Edition]

Holly Hook (Author)

Book Description

***This is the first book of the Destroyers Series, a five-book young adult fantasy series that is now completed.***


Sixteen-year-old Janelle knows something's not right with her father when they move to their new home in Florida. He refuses to evacuate them from the coast when a hurricane bears down on them, despite the fact that all their neighbors have gone. Even worse, it seems like there's something he wants to tell her, something terrifying, but he's not quite opening up.

Then Janelle's life flips upside down when a teenage boy, Gary, materializes out of the storm right in front of her. He bears a strange marking on his arm, a gray spiral that matches the one she was born with. Perhaps her strange birthmark means something after all. But when she points out Gary's mark to her father, he refuses to speak more about it.

It's up to Janelle to find the truth about the connection she and Gary share. When she tracks Gary down again and discovers it, it's far more terrifying than she could ever imagine: she and Gary share a powerful, deadly curse. Worse, learning the truth is only the start of Janelle's horrifying adventure into a world she had never imagined.

***Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series) is a 2010 Amazon Breatkthrough Novel Awards Semifinalist in the Young Adult category***

"Meteorology may seem an odd literary motivation, but this novel puts weather at the center of a solid young adult fantasy-adventure."--Publishers Weekly

***Books 2-5 of the Destroyers Series are now available***

Inferno (#2 Destroyers Series)
Outbreak (#3 Destroyers Series)
Frostbite (#4 Destroyers Series)
Ancient (#5 Destroyers Series)


Also by Holly Hook:

2:20 #1 Timeless Trilogy)

Rita Morse and the Sinister Shadow
Rita Morse and the Treacherous Traitor

After These Messages

***About the Author***

Holly Hook is the author of the Destroyers Series, which consists of five young adult books about teens who are walking disasters...literally. She is also the author of the Rita Morse series, a young adult fantasy series still in progress, and After These Messages, a short ya comedy. When not writing, she enjoys reading books for teens, especially ya fantasy and paranormal series with a unique twist.

Product Details

• File Size: 485 KB
• Print Length: 284 pages
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00433TBEG
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,416 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
  • #15 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teens > Literature & Fiction
  • #39 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teens > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Tempest rocks! October 3, 2010

By Carolyn Chambers Clark

Format:Kindle Edition

Sixteen-year-old Janelle Duvall's having a series of weird days in this highly-creative story about a girl who's expected to fulfill her birthright. Filled with high-powered action and twists, it will make any teenager keep turning pages. Some of them may even wish they had all the power Janelle will soon have. The big question is, will Janelle give in and start destroying people or become a hero who saves them?

You can't help but cheer for Janelle. After all, her dad's so closed-mouthed about everything's that's happening, so poor Janelle's left in the dark. For most of the story, Janelle thinks her dad's lost his mind. He won't evacuate them from their new Florida home even with Hurricane Gary approaching. Then Janelle sees a teenage boy appear out of nowhere, just as the storm dies. Not only that, he's got a gray spiral birthmark on his arm, just like the one she has. Very creepy.

At least he tells her what her father won't about what's expected of her. So, we're rooting that she and Gary get together. Then she goes on the run with Gary, only to land in more trouble when the strange woman, Andrina, the evil Tempest High Leader appears. Little does Janelle know they're related, but she soon finds out just how twisted Andrina is. She won't settle for less than world domination.

Janelle won't stand for any of it. She comes up with a very creative way to stop Andrina, but does that mean Janelle can undo Tempest law? Will Janelle find a way to fulfill her responsibilities and still help balance weather patterns in the world? Will Janelle and Gary finally get together? The book answers all these questions in a way that's highly satisfying to readers.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars loved this book October 8, 2010

By Catie Vargas

Format:Kindle Edition

I really enjoyed this book. I cold not put it down. I liked the theory about the Tempest. I hope to hear more from this author. I would reccomend this book to Young adult and adult readers.

First we have Janelle who you can't help but root for. She moves to Florida and all of a sudden she is very strong and strange things are happening to her when she touches ocean water. She has a birth right that her mother expects her to follow through with but she does not want to. When she moves to Flordia it happens to be during Hurricane Gary.

Then we meet Gary who lives with his Guardian. He is sixteen. And happens to come out of the eye of the Hurricane. He ends up in a hospital and on the run from his guardian. Where he seems to run into Janelle alot.

This story has love, action, adventure. Alittle bit of everything. I could not get the story out of my mind when I was not reading it. I hope to see a sequel in the future.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Tempest October 4, 2010

By Kristi L. Stern

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Tempest by Holly Hook is a suspensful tale of a young girls journey of self-exploration and identity brought on by a secret that has been withheld from her all her life. Everything she thought she knew was a lie and it has left her questioning who she really is and just what she is really capable of.

Janelle Duvall has lived a somewhat normal life in Flint, Michigan. When economic times go bad, her father moves her to Florida where they settle in just as Hurricane Gary makes its way through. Janelle has noticed that her father has been behaving strangely in the week they've been in Florida, for instance, as the wind and rain howled outside their house during the hurricane, Janelle begged to go to the shelter but her father remained strangely calm, happy even. It wasn't until the police forced them to go to the local high school shelter that he gave in and went.
It's there were she meets Gary, a boy who seems to literally appear out of a water vortex in the parking lot. The strange thing is he has the same birthmark that Janelle has. Not just similar, but identical! The birthmark, oddly enough looks like a swirling hurricane. It's this meeting that sets Janelle on her journey to find out who she really is and just why her father is acting so whacked out! A journey that is rich with nail biting action, suspense and edge of your seat anticipation. The ending is incredibly satisfying yet leaves room for a possible sequel.

You'll have to read the book to find out more and I guarantee you will be enthralled. Janelle and the supporting characters are believable and real. The story itself is fascinating and brings a new element to the young adult paranormal genre.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Another one I wish I could give 0 stars too... September 24, 2011

By Megsly

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

So, after I finished Tempest Rising by Tracy Deebs, I saw that this was right below it and was like, "What the hell, lets read some more tempesty goodness." Sometimes, you shouldn't judge a book on other's with a similar name...

Tempest, by Holly Hook, still centers around the oceans and the turmoil within them, but it follows a totally different mythology. Actually, I'm kinda sad to say it follows any legitimate mythology, no matter how the author twisted it. The novel follows Janelle, a 15 year old midwestern girl who's recently moved back to the place of her birth, Florida, at her father's insistance. The opening scene is of the two of them taking shelter from within their house as a hurricane strikes. I should have known from the first pages that the book was a dud, but then again I was like, "Well, it's hurricanes and I like hurricanes; just because the author writes a category two hurricane as being this giant monster that destroys towns and knocks down entire trees, and tears roofs off of cars and homes alike, doesn't mean she's completely ignorant about them..." (note: I've been through MANY hurricanes, and a category two will pretty much take down a limb or two, and dent your car in with some hail. Occasionally, you may lose some shingles or a window but that's about it.)

I was wrong.

But we'll get to that later.

Anyways, Janelle's rather psychopathic acting dad is all, "OMG OMG OMG THERE IS A HURRICANE! BEHOLD THE BEAUTY OF A STORM!" And as these massive wind gust destroy all the houses around them (as I said, a category two doesn't do much damage unless your house is a bajillion years old and in bad shape. Janelle's neighborhood?... It's pretty nice) her dad continues on sputtering nonsense about how they're storm proof and she just needs to enjoy is and that the hurricane would never hurt them...Finally, cops come and Janelle leaps into their arms and begs them to take her to safety as their house shudders around them. Reluctantly, her less than stable father agrees to come as well, and they venture off into the horrifyingly bad storm (insert eye roll here) to find safety in a high school gym.

Then! In a movement of sheer heroism, Janelle rushes back out into the storm that terrified her only moments before, to save a small child who had rushed out into the now downgraded tropical storm to retrieve a toy from the car. And voila! We meet our hero, a scrawny kid named Gary who strangely enough gets dumped into the middle of the parkinglot by a water spout (I've never actually heard of a water spout making it as far inland as the author describes...considering that water spouts have to be over, well...water...to be called a water spout.)

Needless to say, I wasn't impressed. And as I forced myself to read further, I became even less than impressed. Gary informs Janelle that she is a "Tempest", and is essentially a hurricane and that if she ever fell into the ocean, she would spawn a hurricane of epic proportions. Well, immediately Janelle is all like, "I WOULD NEVER BE A HURRICANE." And then some how, she's splashed with water or Gary is splashed with water, or some such nonsense, and BAM! Instantaneous storm for 2.5 milliseconds. Come to find out, when a "Tempest" is born, their name is immediately logged on the hurricane name list (it's a real thing, it's kinda cool. You should research the hurricane name list and see when your name comes up, unfortunately, mine never will. Sigh. and when a hurricane or tropical storm with their name approaches land, it's their turn to dive into the water to give it the necessary juice to make it a big storm. Note: This is another point in time where the author's researching skills are obviously very lacking as the list of names for hurricanes is recycled every 6 years, they don't add NEW names to the list unless a major hurricane hits and that name is retired. That doesn't happen that often. There's like...one or two major hurricanes world wide a year, and some years, there are none...so out of a list of 26 names per year, on average only one is removed every year...so...GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND! Do your research! Or don't...it's whatever).

Getting back on track, apparently, recently Gary's name appeared in conjunction with a small tropical storm, and therefore his guardian had dumped him into the ocean, spawning a Category 2 hurricane that killed like...9 people or something (category two killing 9 people in a community that goes through hurricanes every year? Highly doubtful. Perhaps if it hit a huge coast city that never has hurricanes...like, lets say, NYC? But a Florida town? GIVE ME A BREAK! Seriously, my brain is trying to bleach itself of this book. Don't judge me) and she was now after Janelle to do the same, because Janelle's name was next on the hurricane list and it was her turn to wreak havoc and destruction. The villian in the book has no sound reasoning for being...well, a villian. She just spouts off the normal, "Humans hate hurricanes, so therefore we much kill them all and rule the lands." (Odd enough, I wonder if the author ever considered that hurricanes can only happen on the coast lines...it's hard to take over the world if you can only dominate the coasts.)

I have to be honest, and this is one of the few times I'll be brutally so, because this book killed me to read. The characters have little to no development, they're crudely written and for the most part, Janelle can't decide whether or not she wants to give Gary her virginity, or if she wants to beat him with a stick. Which, keep in mind this is understandable for teenagers, BUT NOT WHEN THEY ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A LIFE OR DEATH SITUATIONS. Even hormonal teens don't get all rambunctious and naughty when they think they're going to die a horrible death in the next 5 minutes. The plot is just...ugh...it's badly researched, it's badly prepared, and has plot holes big enough to make one think a hurricane went right over the book while Hook was writing it. The writing itself is...okay. It's nothing special, but it would pass a generic grammar and punctuation test. The best I can give this book? Your very, very, very young pre-teen or teenager might enjoy it, but that's doubtful.

Reviewed for MyVampFiction.com Read more ›

More About the Author

Holly Hook is the author of the Destroyers series, of which the fifth and final book is due out in April or May of 2013. She is also the author of the Rita Morse Series and a stand-alone young adult comedy novella titled After These Messages. Currently she is also writing 2:20, the first book of the Timeless Trilogy.