I thought the time spent on Palan, prior to their “arrest”, was probably the strongest part of the book, from a visceral image point of view. I was particularly impressed by the rainstorm – the build up, the ominous indicators of impending danger, and the reactions of the vehicle in the onset of the floods. I liked the image I conjured of Drummond(? – sorry the book is at home) and wished for that aspect to be developed a bit more, but understand the constrictions of a new author and a publishers concerns about word count. I found myself practically screaming at the kids not to go to the Navy, and then not to return to the Hotel! They should have read some Robert Ludlum novels before embarking on their adventure, lol.

“If I fleshed out every scene to its fullest, I could easily double or triple the size of the book.”

I completely agree Hugh. There will come a day that you will have that luxury – I guarantee it!

And as far as fewer people reading it, I whole-heartedly disagree. 

During the navy scene I felt scared but also a little hopeful like “come on, maybe, maybe they can help”.  The hopeful part of me won out over any fear because I really didn't suspect the navy to be the bad guys there.  Well, act like the bad guys anyway.  Maybe that's a reflection on my automatic trust of authorities issue since you all had suspicions early on!!

I absolutely LOVE parts of the book when a novelty is introduced – liike the hook things the cars got tied to. Those are some of my favorite parts. 

It was also cool to see the tensions between Molly and Cole developing as their different personalities led them to have different approaches to the problem and we get to see them finding ways to navigate that together in this section.