Thundering Dawn

Jack Standish, a man fractured by the perceived ignominy of a collapsed commercial alliance with his progenitor, seeks a masochistic sanctuary within the humid, gin-soaked latitudes of the South Seas. In the sweltering isolation of Java, his moral compass demagnetizes, leaving him vulnerable to the predatory machinations of Gordon Van Brock, a plantation autocrat of singular brutality, and the intoxicating, ruinous allure of the 'vamp' known as Lullaby Lou. Standish’s descent into atavistic despair is interrupted by the arrival of Mary Rogers, his steadfast fiancée, who embarks on a harrowing odyssey to reclaim his soul from the miasma of addiction and psychological paralysis. As the domestic tension reaches a fever pitch, the very atmosphere of the archipelago revolts; a cataclysmic tropical storm coalesces into a gargantuan typhoon, a literal and symbolic purgation that obliterates the colonial settlement and provides a violent, elemental crucible for the couple's ultimate liberation.