"Hurricanes in Paradise" is Christian women's fiction. Since I don't think like any of the women in this novel nor have I had male-female relationship troubles similar to theirs (abuse, an affair, a widow having trouble letting go, and depression combined with alcoholism), I didn't connect emotionally with them. If I had, I think I would have really liked this novel since the characters did (mostly) deal with realistic problems.

The author was very fond of using figures of speech and extensively describing every detail (significant or not) of every character's clothing, their "police line-up" appearance, and the details of the decor in every room of the resort. This created a slower pacing in the first 100 pages or so, but then it picked up.

The main theme was about forgiving yourself and facing your fears. The target audience seemed to be Christian women or women with a Christian background. The first part of the novel hardly had any references to God, but each woman in turn had a supernatural experience of emotional healing (including wind where there shouldn't be any, the sun winking, an actual conversation with God, and similar experiences). Then the praying and references to God became more frequent. Jesus Christ didn't have a role in this novel.

While the story was enjoyable enough once it got moving, I was left feeling a bit irritated at the author for something that happened at the end. It felt not-quite believable and wasn't necessary, so the ending didn't feel completely satisfying.

There were implied references to sex in the character's conversations, but no sex during the novel. The minimal bad language was of the "he cussed" style. Overall, I'd recommend this as clean reading.

I received this novel as a review copy from the publisher.