Storms

Storms: Tales of Irmariageddon is the final novel in Wilson Roberts’ St. John trilogy.  Set on St. John, the smallest and least developed of the three main United States Virgin Islands, just prior to and during the 2017 hurricanes, Irma and Maria, Storms tells of the havoc wrought upon the island and its people as the two hurricanes ripped through the Caribbean with fearsome winds and tides, leaving shattered homes, businesses and lives in their wake.  Storms is a novel for everyone who loves St. John; for everyone who knows someone who loves St. John; for everyone who understands what it means to love their community.  Storms is a novel for everyone who understands that a beloved community cannot be allowed to perish, whether as a result of greed, ignorance, wind, fire or rain.

Each novel in Wilson Roberts’ trilogy is a stand-alone tale.  Major characters in one book are often part of the background in subsequent books.  The first, Murder in Coral Bay, introduces readers to the island of St. John, a Caribbean jewel in the United States Virgin Islands, where Roberts and his wife, Diane Esser, had a home for thirty years.  In the wake of a murder, a few of the courageous and honest officers’ struggle against their corrupt police department as they attempt to bring a murderer to justice.

It Happened on St. John, the second novel in the St. John trilogy, is a love letter to the island, in which the community unites to fight the schemes of two con-artists and their fraudulent, extravagant plan to develop a marina that, if it were ever to be built, would threaten the island’s natural and social ecology, as well as its economy.  It is the story of a community of trades people, musicians, artists, business owners, artisans; a community in which people put aside small differences to help one another in the face of adversity.

Like Wilson Roberts’ three previous Caribbean novels, February Heat, Caribbean Ice and October Fury, which were set on the fictional British island of St. Ursula, the St. John trilogy presents fully realized characters living in fully realized places.  Their lives and loves, their struggles and victories, their grounding in the communities in which they live will remain with readers long after they have closed the books on the final pages.

In addition to Storms: Tales of Irmariageddon, Wilder Publications has published thirteen novels by Wilson Roberts and a book of poetry, Before the Storm and Other Poems.