A Quiet Storm

by Rachel Howzell Hall

Scribner, September 2002

$13.00, ISBN 0-743-22616-X

Rachell Howzell Hall's debut novel, A Quiet Storm, is the compelling story of a young woman whose life is torn apart by her sister's mental illness and her parents' refusal to acknowledge or understand it.

As a little girl, Anastasia "Stacy" Moore hears strange stories about her grandmother, a woman who "wandered the neighborhood late at night" and "never spoke to anyone." As Stacy grows up, it becomes clear that her beautiful older sister Rikki, who goes from being the brilliant student with a prep school scholarship to the melancholy woman-child with "storms" in her head, is suffering …