In the Storm opens up with Carly, a seventeen year old girl living a life of hell. Carly and her five year old brother Mitchell live with their stepfather, an alcoholic abusive man who gets his jolly’s by torturing both of them on a daily basis. Its during one of these intense almost “tortures” that Carly becomes so furious so clicks herself into another world…a world inside of a storm, full of purple, lightning, thunder and crashing waves.

Clicking over once was easy, clicking over twice though proves to be difficult and while Carly endures the daily threats, insults and watching her brother be terrorized she desperately seeks that other world. We are literally dragged through Carlys depression and finally when she finds her way back into the storm we are then plunged into a sci-fi story with a paranormal feel thinking perhaps Carly has finally snapped and her world is just a storm of madness. Shortly we discover the storm is a sanctuary for Carly and there she meets her created love Morgan…although we don’t really know if Carly has created him or if he has been sent as ruler over her creation….hmm sound weird, well it only gets more psychologically twisty as Morgan begins to explain who Carly is and what his purpose has been all along in her world. As Carly gets closer to the truth and closer to dreaded events we all know is coming, she will have to face the unbearable and lose everything she loves to really find the truth in who she is.

In the Storm is considered a novella and while the story and the transitions move at lightning speed, the story offered a lot of depth. Child abuse doesn't need 200 pages to get its message across and I felt horrified by the things Carly and especially Mitchell dealt with. Personally child abuse is one of hardest things for me to handle and seeing this happen in detail to a five year old, did disturb me. The use of visual detail Metcalf used was beautiful and I loved the concept of the twisty Sci-Fi elements Carlys worlds contained. I thought the story was suspenseful and written well, although the clicking concept was a bit confusing, I got lost a bit in the description Morgan gives for the many portals or dimensions they call them, but the dialog and scenario was based in realism and that’s what stood out in the story making it genuine. But even with some of the light moments and the oddity of the romance, I couldn't get past Mitchell’s character and for that reason I would consider this story dark and full of sorrow. I almost feel that I need to shake it off and think about sunflowers and daisies and sunshine and beautiful things that make the terrible things that evil people do easier to handle.