Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite

Everyone is born with some sort of irregularity. We are all different and God made us that way. Unfortunately, some irregularities are very visual and, in some people's eyes, might suggest that the person is cursed, or a creature of the devil. Lilli is born with a large birthmark that curves up her neck and is difficult to hide. People stare at her, avoid her and tell her that she is marked by the devil. Even the pastor says that she's cursed. It's the 1930s, and she lives in Kansas, where the once prosperous farms are turned into dust bowls and the worst storms, the most frequent storms, are the dust storms that make Lilli very sick. She suffers from dust pneumonia and if she doesn't leave Kansas, she may very well die.

In Hidden Storms by Nancy Shew Bolton, the people in their tight little community are relieved that Lilli is leaving. They blame her for everything that has gone wrong in their community: the dust storms, the ruined crops, the lost farms, starvation. Only Gram and Bert accept her as she is. With such a stigma attached to Lilli and her birthmark, she struggles over the changes that she faces when going to live with wealthy cousins in Florida, and being blamed for a disaster that affects their livelihood, and then venturing north to New York and wondering if the hurricane that wreaks havoc along the eastern coast is because she has arrived. It is a difficult journey for anyone to take, an even more difficult journey for a seventeen-year-old girl, suddenly alone in the world and too frightened to return home where she fears she will inflict more pain on the only two people she loves and the only two people whom she knows love her.

Nancy Shew Bolton has written a compelling story set in the Depression years, when life was difficult at the best of times and sometimes it was easier to find someone to blame. The author has taken great care to create an historical piece that is both believable and realistic. The story is told almost like a memoir, like Lilli is telling her story, but the plot evolves eloquently as the tension heightens. Great character and scene descriptions. The reader feels compassion for the protagonist, Lilli. This is a classic story about a young girl's battle to accept herself as she really is, in a time (the 1930s) when prejudices were very prevalent and often life-altering. Well done!