It’s simply another day here in Camellia Beach, South Carolina. . .if you ignore the hurricane that’s heading this way.

Long-time residents on the sea islands are pretty used to the threat of hurricanes, especially after the last several years and the active hurricane seasons we’ve learned to expect. It’s business as usual (of a sort.) We board up windows, put out sandbags, and hightail it off the island.

The local weather reporters are experiencing their personal nirvanas. They’re on the air twenty-four hours a day, punch-happy from lack of sleep and feeling drunk with power. People are tuning in and actually taking their forecasts seriously for a change.

My dear friend and new owner of the local chocolate shop, Charity Penn, is one of the residents who has been hanging on every frantic word the weathercasters utter. The poor dear, a transplant from the Midwest, has never experienced the chaotic energies hurricanes bring to our area. It’s quite troubling really. She’s worried about losing everything while emotionally falling apart when falling apart really isn’t necessary.

I’ve lived here my entire life. I own the local magic and crystal shop—a shop Penn thinks is filled with overpriced rocks. I know this area. I have a mystical connection to the island. My life ebbs and flows around the pull of the saltwater tides. And I know, just like every other time a hurricane warning as been posted for our area, we will be fine.

“But Camellia Beach is going to take a catastrophic direct hit from Hurricane Avery,” Penn quotes what she’s heard on the TV and radio and read in the newspapers whenever I try to calm her.

“They always say that,” I tell her because it’s true. The reporters seem to always make it sound as if the end of the world is nigh. They’ve done this. Every. Single. Year. And though in the past there have been flooded roads and damaged buildings, we’re all still here. Despite any damage the hurricane might bring, we’ve always returned and become a community again.

I laughed off Penn’s concerns and felt confident in our preparations and in trusting that nothing bad would happen to any one of us until this morning. This morning on the beach Joe Davies, a stoop-backed treasure hunter, Penn, and I all saw her.

The Gray Lady.

She’s a ghostly legend that is as real as the silvery Spanish moss that hangs from our ancient oak trees. The sight of her walking the beach is a bad omen. Her transparent gray presence warns of death, destruction. Doom.

And we saw her. My hands are shaking.

What if Hurricane Avery is different from all those other storms that have threatened our coast? What if the weather forecasters’ shrill warnings are as dire as they want us to believe?

We saw the Gray Lady. Not even the most powerful good luck charm or incantation can protect us. All we can do is pretend that today is like any other day on Camellia Beach as we pack up and flee from the island we lovingly call home. We’ve been warned. We now have to wait for fate and the storm to do its worst.

It’s simply another day on Camellia Beach. I hope it’s not our last.

To learn what happens to the island and the trouble the hurricane blows in, pick up your copy of the latest book in the Southern Chocolate Shop Mystery series, Bonbon with the Wind.

Bonbon with the Wind is the fourth book in the “Southern Chocolate Shop” cozy mystery series, released December 9, 2019.

Join Penn and Stella on their latest adventure!

There’s a legend in the Sea Islands that before a hurricane hits the Gray Lady can be seen walking down the beach warning of doom. Penn doesn’t believe in such silly stories, but she does believe weather forecasters. A powerful hurricane is heading their way. Everyone on the island of Camellia Beach is busy boarding up windows and securing valuables to upper levels of buildings. Joe Davies, a local treasure hunter with an unquenchable sweet tooth, claims to have seen the Gray Lady walking toward him just that morning and is terrified for his life.

After the storm passes everyone returns to survey the damage. As Penn walks her little dog Stella on the beach, she finds Joe Davies’ body washed up onshore. Not only that, it looks as if an exploding transformer caused Joe’s seaside shack to burn to the ground. Did the Gray Lady claim another victim? Many on the island believe that is exactly what happened.

Penn is sure there’s another explanation. She follows the clues and hints of lost gold to discover that the truth behind the treasure hunter’s death is as much of a maze as the boating channels winding their way through the local marshes.

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About the author
Dorothy St. James is the author of the White House Gardener mysteries. For the past twenty years she made her home on Folly Beach, an artsy island community in South Carolina with her sculptor husband. Dorothy is a member of Mystery Writers of America (MWA) and the International Thriller Writers (ITW). This is her fourth Southern Chocolate Shop mystery.

For more information, visit Dorothy’s website at www.dorothystjames.com. Follow her online on Facebook, on Twitter, or on Instagram.

All comments are welcomed.