Storm Chaser Quiz

I haven't been posting this here, because it's more a local thing and I don't think anyone from this area is following me on Blogger. However, I'm trying to mirror important and writing related posts both here and on LiveJournal, although the quiz goes up first at my Facebook fanpage, "Mark R. Hunter".

It's about the little town of Hurricane, a major setting for Storm Chaser that isn't a real town -- but that I set in a real location in Noble County, Indiana. People who aren't from Noble County won't have much interest in this, but the idea is to identify where the spot actually is, just for fun, and the latest clue also includes a couple of short excerpts from the book itself.

By the way, the Storm Chasercover art is now up over on my website, www.markrhunter.com -- thanks, Emily!

Storm Chaser Quiz, Clue #4, featuring an excerpt:



I’m running short on time (and I have a feeling I’ll be saying that a lot in coming weeks), so I’m going to let my book do the talking for me this time.

Hurricane is within an area of Noble County bordered by US Highways 33 and 6, and Indiana Highways 3 and 8. Although the town are made up, everything around it is real, so clues to its location come out when Allie Craine sees the town for the first time:

A rusty green sign at the crest of a hill drew Allie’s attention. “Hurricane.” The area below, although hardly low enough to be called a valley, allowed Allie to see the little town spread out before her.

Her first glance seemed to confirm Chance’s assertion that there was little to see. Hurricane huddled at the intersection of two numbered county roads—apparently no one thought they needed names.



A moment later Allie catches site of one of the few business buildings in town, a now-empty store that she’s bemused to discover was once “Hurricane Books & Bait”. Chance Hamlin explains:



“There’s plenty of room. He wanted a bait store and she wanted a used book store, and I guess they compromised. It’s been empty since they moved to Florida, but I hear they’re running a combination pet store and coffee shop down there.”

“Oh.” To hide her smile, Allie turned away toward the east, where a farm sprawled a half-mile away, on the other side of a field. Chance wouldn’t appreciate how much Hurricane delighted her. In fact, his attitude didn’t bother her so much as renew her determination to stick around for a while.

Two other streets joined the county roads to form a square making up the majority of the town, before the homes gave way to a wood on the far side. Just after turning left at the first street, he braked to a stop and lowered his window.



Suffice it to say Allie hasn’t seen the last of Hurricane Books & Bait. The other clues can be found here: http://ozma914.livejournal.com/tag/storm%20chaser%20quiz , or on my Facebook fanpage.