Join H.W. “Buzz” Bernard, author of the suspense thriller novel, Eyewall (BelleBooks), as he virtually tours the blogosphere in May 2011 on his first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!
About Buzz Bernard
H. W. “Buzz” Bernard is the author of five nonfiction books on weather and climate. Eyewall is his first novel. He’s won numerous awards over the past decade as both a fiction and nonfiction writer.Buzz is a veteran meteorologist having spent 13 years as a senior meteorologist with The Weather Channel, and 33 years as a weather officer in the U. S. Air Force.
His background as a meteorologist informs Eyewall. He’s had first-hand experience with hurricanes, having penetrated the eyewall of Hurricane Felix in 1995 with the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters. The mission he went on wasn’t nearly as exciting–or as terrifying–as the one described in Eyewall, but he did get an up-close and personal look at how the job is done. At The Weather Channel, he worked closely with some of the most highly regarded hurricane forecasters in the business.
Besides his trip with the Hurricane Hunters, he’s flown air drops over the Arctic Ocean and Turkey, and was a weather officer aboard a Tactical Air Command airborne command post (C-135). Additionally, he’s provided field support to forest fire fighting operations in the Pacific Northwest, spent a summer working on Alaska’s arctic slope and served two tours in Vietnam. Various other jobs, both civilian and military, took him to Germany, Saudi Arabia and Panama.
He’s a native Oregonian and attended the University of Washington in Seattle where he earned a degree in atmospheric science and also studied creative writing.
After leaving active duty with the Air Force, he spent twenty years in New England, but now lives in The New South. Along with his wife, Christina, he calls Roswell, Georgia, near Atlanta, home.
You can visit his website at www.buzzbernard.com or visit Eyewall’s official Facebook fan page here!
About Eyewall
Eyewall takes you on a dramatic ride into the eye of a major hurricane and the lives of the people who challenge it. Major Arlen Walker is on his final mission with the Air Force Hurricane Hunters. As commander of a WC-130, he’s been tasked to recon Hurricane Janet just off the Georgia coast On paper, the flight looks like a milk run. In reality, it turns out to be anything but. Walker, having been briefed that the hurricane is weak, penetrates the storm hat low altitude. Too late, he realizes Janet has turned savage and that he’s chosen a death wish flight level. The hurricane pummels the plane. The aircraft, spewing fuel, limps into the calm eye but is so severely damaged, Walker cannot fly it out. He and his crew are trapped in the center of a catastrophic storm as it swirls toward the mainland.
NO ONE PREDICTED THE STORM’S SUDDEN FORCE
A crippled Air Force recon plane, trapped in the eye of a violent hurricane.
An outspoken tropical weather forecaster, fired from his network TV job before he can issue a warning: the storm is changing course and intensifying.
A desperate family searching for a runaway daughter on Georgia’s posh St. Simons Island, cut off from escape as the hurricane roars toward them.
A marriage on the rocks; an unrequited sexual attraction; a May-December romance.
All will be swept up by the monster storm.
Get ready for a white-knuckle adventure.
My Thoughts:
I have always liked a good thriller type story and I was excited to read Eyewall for Pump Up Your Books. Not since the 70's and Jaws have I read a book that I literally did not want to put down. It didn't matter that I knew absolutely nothing about predicting weather, hurricanes and what goes on at a weather station. This book gets a great big WOW from me. The story of course is about a hurricane and about the people involved . It is obvious that the author knows what he is talking about when it comes to the weather and all that is involved, from forecasting, running a weather show, and hurricane hunters that go into the eye of the hurricane to get the information that goes into predicting the weather. Not only that, the characters were very intriguing and their storylines interesting. The book grabs the reader right at the beginning and does not stop until the end. I have to admit I was not prepared for the book to be as well written that it is, I assumed that it was going to be a very technical book. Well it was technical but not to the point of being bogged down and boring. A wonderfully suspenseful book from beginning to end, very reminiscent of Peter Benchley, except the monster is not a shark but a hurricane. I recommend it highly.
I received this book through Pump Up Your Books and was not monetarily compensated for my review.
