What Remained of Katrina

After Hurricane Katrina destroys her city, an unlikely heroine turns to art and revenge to survive....What Remained of Katrina is not about Botox. Implants. Designer wallpaper and expensive china. Or places where there are no storms. It's about a woman who knows her way around catastrophe.When her fourth husband tries to kill her during Hurricane Katrina and make it look like nature did the job, Katrina Miller performs the magic trick of a lifetime--and survives. Afterward, only her hand is found; everybody thinks she's dead. A failed magician's assistant, hotel maid, ice cream truck driver, and ex-prostitute in the Big Easy, Katrina, driving a used red Cadillac, comes barreling back to 'haunt' her abusive husband. Bent on revenge and scaring the bejesus out of her cruel, colorless ex, she remembers a past life as Vincent van Gogh. No one seems to care that art and hope are leaking from their water-washed city, maybe for good. So Katrina, who abandoned her art years ago, creates murals on flood-damaged homes of The Ninth Ward, trying to plug the leaks in her city and her heart. As she paints up a storm, she realizes she's not the only "ghost" in town...Honorable Mention Fiction, 2009 Leapfrog Press