Book Review: Trapped by Peggy Chernow

As far as Hurricane themed books go, this was barely a tropical depression

Hurricane Eloise is bearing down on the Florida Peninsula. The potentially deadly storm has its sights set on the Southeastern coast with Fort Lauderdale Beach in the crosshairs. Mandatory evacuations have been called and all bridges into and out of the barrier islands have been shut down. Any residents choosing to ride out the deadly storm are advised to do so at their own risk. For the remaining residents of the Seascape Condo the storm rolling in brings challenges of its own. As one of the newer condo towers in the area building codes lend toward a more secure structure so a handful of residents have decided to stay behind in their units.  During the pounding rains and the howling winds another threat lurks as a band of looters have gained access to the condo and are using the storm’s wrath as a cover for their crime spree. A small group of brave residents seek to track the criminals and bring them to justice with or without police intervention.

I feel I need to start this review by stating that I was clearly not the audience that this author was writing for. This book came up as a suggestion on my social media feed and I was immediately interested based on the title and cover art alone, and after having good experiences with similarly marketed ads I gave this title a purchase.  As a life-long Florida resident who has a career also dealing closely with Hurricanes and other natural disasters I was immediately drawn in by the title and the synopsis. I jumped into Trapped blindly, expecting an epic Florida based disaster novel with the hurricane as the main character and gripping chapters chock full of destruction, tribulation and the eventual triumph of the beleaguered survivors of the battered and destroyed Seascape Condo. That is not at all what I got. At best what I got was a romance, with a rainy backdrop as the “potentially deadly” hurricane was more of background noise and barely an afterthought. It was only after reading Trapped that I read the author’s bio and discovered that she mainly writes romance. Had I known that going in, I probably still would have read this title, but possibly wouldn’t have felt as disappointed with a “bait and switch” story as I do now.

If I were to rate this solely as a romance and not a disaster novel, I would say that while a tad cliché, the romance aspect of the story was alright. Looking at this from a hurricane-based disaster, this was weak. I felt that there could have been so much more the author could have explored with the hurricane itself and the potential destruction than she did. Additionally, the topic of hurricanes in Florida, particularly the naming of hurricanes, could have been better researched. The hurricane name used in this book “Eloise” was retired from the naming list in 1975 due to the destruction caused. This is a continuity error that not many people will catch but could have been avoided with a little more research.

Lastly and it pains me to do this as I try to stay away from critiquing spelling and grammar and focus only on the story, but especially after reading this author’s August 2022 blog post about “the importance of knowing how to spell and use words correctly” I feel that I would be remiss not to point this out. If this author is not using a proofreader she really needs to be. With mistakes such as “neckless” instead of “necklace”, rose “pedals” not rose “petals”, and the one that even had my teenage son cringe when a man was “plummeted” with another’s fists (pummeled maybe?), it just seems that this book could really have benefited from a final read through and round of editing. That was just the discrepancies that I noted in Trapped as I believe there were others, and to think that this author has at least 6 other published books out there. Hopefully they were better edited.

If you are already a fan of this author and know what to expect, then I would believe that Trapped will be enjoyable. I, for one, will be hard pressed to read any more titles in her library.