Gray

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“Ever feel like a black cloud is hanging over your head?”

Tucker never believed the storm stories about his mother. He always thought she abandoned him as a child because-- he never knew why, exactly. Depression? Alcoholism? She was gone, it was what it was, and besides, he grew up just fine without her with his uncle, the caretaker of the Southeast Lighthouse on Rock Island, and with his blood bros, Mike and Olin. But when he finally seeks her out in the desert of southern Arizona, he discovers that the stories may actually be true, that there has indeed been a storm cloud following her for thirty years, and that it has driven her to embark on her own journey back home, to commit suicide. Suddenly, he is the only one who can stop her. He is the only one who can save her from her life of rainy pain and misery.

He is determined to save her.

He runs! He has lost his baby girl to congenital heart disease, and he has lost the love of his life, Mary, because the memory of their daughter’s death is too painful to bear anymore. From a southwestern desert to the northern Atlantic, from Cloud Mountain to Rock Island, Tucker chases a demon bent on destroying everything in its path, a country. He runs, and rescues as many victims as he can along the way with help from old friends and new friends, both human and canine. He runs from his wife. He runs from his failure as a father. He runs to beat his mother back home, to somehow piece his family back together again.

Mary and Jonathan Tucker. The Woman and her Dragon. A dark cloud that follows a mother, the blood brothers who chase it. A caretaker who helps his sister die. Friendly werewolf-angel-dogs sent from heaven. A fierce boy and his rock. A daughter with a soul too big for her body and a butterfly with mighty indestructible wings of love that no storm could ever corrupt. An ancient island born with water. The colors of a rising sun. If eternity could be found in the blink of a baby’s eyelash, satisfaction from snuggle-cuddles in a rocking chair, or endless possibility from a box of crayons, can forgiveness free a lifetime of burden? Can true love conquer history?

“But it was more than just a stare; Tucker’s mom was smirking
at Mary, like she was in on some kind of joke, like she was a ghost
who knew something the rest of the living world didn't: there was
indeed a hell. It was muddled, and mind-numbingly tedious, and
not very hot despite popular misperception. Hell did not burn, her
gaze told Mary. It was wet. It was totally void of warmth. Hell
was the absence of color.”

Gray.