“As evening deepened into night, the rain became a steady drumbeat tapping against the roof and pattering and sliding across the windows of the Desert Inn Cafe. The moon and her entourage of stars were hidden once again behind rolling clouds, and the sands shifted in wet dark waves of midnight black.”
If this setting suggests to you there’s about to be an epic conflict engaged and resolved, you’d be right. Protagonist and antagonist, both complex characters fashioned through remarkable back-stories, engage in a classic confrontation of good and evil, but also young and old, innocence and experience, apprentice and master. Dramatic tension inside the cafe mirrors the energy in the storm outside. As the inside conflict escalates, the storm intensifies, the howling increases, the pace accelerates. I swiped Kindle pages faster and faster as the action progressed, eager to learn what comes next.