A Righteous Wind

In acclaimed southern author Janice Daugharty’s apocalyptic Biblical thriller, the Rapture comes not with spectral flourishes or rumors of war but with unemployed former real estate agent Shelton Teasdale waking from a nap in his rural Georgia home to find the power off and his wife gone.
At first, he thinks she is out with her pet goats, but going outside their small frame house, he sees that her old Jeep isn’t parked in its usual place. Depressed about his job situation and lethargic about life in general, Shelton shrugs off the peculiar circumstance at first, but as evening arrives he grows worried. Next, he notices his cell phone is dead.
He sets out in his pickup truck with his dog beside him. Driving up the long dirt road running by his house, he begins to smell and see smoke out over the woods near the highway that Elaine takes to her job in the nearby town of Valdosta. When he reaches the highway he sees automobiles in every direction, some burning, some wrecked and others only parked, but empty.
A massive traffic accident? Terrified, Shelton searches for Elaine amidst the wreckage. He finds her Jeep with her cell phone on the front seat and, next to it, her purse with all her belongings inside. Bizarrely, she left the ignition turned on, and the Jeep has run out gas.
Shelton races to a nearby convenience store to call for help. But the frightening mystery deepens as the manager shoots at Shelton and refuses to talk to him.

By now Shelton is filled with horror. Has the United States been bombed? Has there been a massive terrorist attack? When he makes his way back to his wife’s Jeep with a can of gasoline in hand, a state patrol officer orders him out of the vehicle . . . and then scans the microchip on the top of Shelton’s right hand.
Shelton bolts, unwilling to risk being jailed for reasons he can’t comprehend. He becomes a wanted man.
In Daugharty’s A RIGHTEOUS WIND, the United States is a place of big brotherism gone out of control, where the citizenry is under the thumb of an international cabal known as the World Government System, headed by an iconic former President who was once hailed as a savior but is now revealed as the embodiment of evil—the Anti-Christ.
Filled with poignant religious themes, the dark secrets of the political superpowers, and the struggles of the ordinary people left behind to face the Tribulation, A RIGHTEOUS WIND is a thought-provoking suspense novel that readers of apocalyptic fiction will add to their keeper shelves.
“Janice Daugharty is a born storyteller.” – Joyce Carol Oates
“Janice Daugharty is a natural-born writer, one of those Georgia women like O'Connor, McCullers, or Siddons who are best grown in small towns, a long way from city lights. There is a lot of red clay and long nights in every line she puts on paper." --- Pat Conroy

Janice Daugharty’s 1997 novel, EARL IN THE YELLOW SHIRT, (HarperCollins) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She is the author of seven acclaimed novels and one short story collection. She has served as writer-in-residence at Valdosta State University, in Valdosta, Georgia, near her home, and is now writer-in-residence at Abraham Baldwin College. Visit the author at www.janicedaugharty.com

Special thanks to my editor at Belle Bride Books, Deb Smith, for this long description of "A Righteous Wind"