A book where weather/climate is central to the plot

Book Prompt #5 for the Between the Lines 2026 Reading Challenge

Updated January 27, 2026
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The water knife
Bacigalupi, Paolo.
Paper Book
Paolo Bacigalupi, New York Times-Bestselling author and National Book Award Finalist, dives once again onto our uncertain future with his first thriller for adults since his multi-award winning debut phenomenon The Windup Girl.   In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona,...
Mother of storms
Barnes, John
Paper Book
In the middle of the Pacific, a gigantic hurricane accidentally triggered by nuclear explosions spawns dozens more in its wake. A world linked by a virtual-reality network experiences the devastation first hand, witnessing the death of civilization as we know it and the violent birth of an emerging...
The light pirate
Brooks-Dalton, Lily
Paper Book
RUNNER-UP FOR THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE Set in the near future, this hopeful story of survival and resilience follows Wanda--a luminous child born out of a devastating hurricane--as she navigates a rapidly changing world: A "symphony of beauty and heartbreak"...
Parable of the sower : a novel
Butler, Octavia E.
Paper Book
The time is 2025. The place is California, where small walled communities must protect themselves from hordes of desperate scavengers and a roaming band of people addicted to a drug that activates an orgasmic desire to burn, rape and murder. When one small community is overrun, Lauren Olamina, an...
No judgments : a novel
Cabot, Meg
Paper Book
The storm of the century is about to hit Little Bridge Island, Florida--and it's sending waves crashing through Sabrina "Bree" Beckham's love life... When a massive hurricane severs all power and cell service to Little Bridge Island--as well as its connection to the mainland--twenty-five...
All the water in the world : a novel
Caffall, Eiren
Paper Book
FINALIST FOR THE 2026 GOTHAM BOOK PRIZE In the tradition of Station Eleven, a literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York's Museum of Natural History in a flooded future. "Gripping...tense, de­­­lightful and rich with resonance." --Scientific...
The lost cause
Doctorow, Cory
Paper Book
It's thirty years from now. We're making progress, mitigating climate change, slowly but surely. But what about all the angry old people who can't let go? For young Americans a generation from now, climate change isn't controversial. It's just an overwhelming fact of life. And so are...
The displacements
Holsinger, Bruce W.
Paper Book
An adrenaline-fueled story of lives upended and transformed by an unprecedented catastrophe To all appearances, the Larsen-Hall family has everything: healthy children, a stable marriage, a lucrative career for Brantley, and the means for Daphne to pursue her art full-time. Their...
The fifth season
Jemisin, N. K.
Paper Book
At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times) This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time. ...
The perfect storm: a true story of men against the sea
Junger, Sebastian.
Paper Book
In October 1991, three weather systems collided off the coast of Nova Scotia to create a storm of singular fury, boasting waves over one hundred feet high. Among its victims was the Gloucester, Massachusetts-based swordfishing boat the Andrea Gail, which vanished with all six crew members aboard.
Under a dark summer sky
Lafaye, Vanessa
Paper Book
Under a Dark Summer Sky is a stunning debut novel, at once a love story set in a time of great turmoil and a vivid depiction a vicious hurricane. Florida, 1935. In Heron Key, relationships are as tangled as the swamp's mangrove roots. It's been eighteen long years since Henry went away to...
The children's blizzard
Laskin, David
Paper Book
"David Laskin deploys historical fact of the finest grain to tell the story of a monstrous blizzard that caught the settlers of the Great Plains utterly by surprise. . . . This is a book best read with a fire roaring in the hearth and a blanket and box of tissues near at hand."  -- Erik...
Migrations
McConaghy, Charlotte
Paper Book
* INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Amazon Editors' Pick for Best Book of the Year in Fiction "Visceral and haunting" (New York Times Book Review) · "Hopeful" (Washington Post) · "Powerful" (Los Angeles Times) · "Thrilling" (TIME) ·...
The Johnstown flood
McCullough, David G.
Paper Book
The stunning story of one of America's great disasters, a preventable tragedy of Gilded Age America, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough. At the end of the nineteenth century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking...
The last day : a novel
Murray, Andy
Paper Book
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER "Wonderful: boldly imagined and beautifully written--the best future-shock thriller for years."--LEE CHILD A visionary and powerful debut thriller set in a terrifyingly plausible dystopian near-future--with clear...
The night of the storm : a novel
Parekh, Nishita
Paper Book
Hurricane Harvey is about to hit Houston. Meanwhile, single mom Jia Shah is already having a rough week: her twelve-year-old son, Ishaan, has just been suspended from school for getting in a fight. Still reeling from the fallout of her divorce - their move to Houston, her family's disapproval, the...
The ministry for the future
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Paper Book
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR "The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I've ever read." --Jonathan Lethem   "If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year...
The siren
St. John, Katherine
Paper Book
In this "decadent" thriller, a Hollywood heartthrob and his ex-wife shoot a blockbuster film on an isolated island-soon finding themselves trapped with each other's long-buried secrets and lies (Emily Henry, NYT bestselling author of Book Lovers). ​<...
One deadly eye
White, Randy Wayne
Paper Book
*NATIONAL BESTSELLER* From New York Times bestselling author Randy Wayne White, after the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida's Gulf Coast in a century, Doc Ford must stop a gang of thieves--and worse--during the twelve hours of chaos that follow the passing...
The long winter
Wilder, Laura Ingalls
Paper Book
The sixth book in Laura Ingalls Wilder's treasured Little House series, and the recipient of a Newbery Honor. This edition features the classic black-and-white artwork from Garth Williams. The fledgling town of De Smet in the Dakota Territory is hit hard by the brutal winter of 1880-1881....

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