Doves in a Tempest - The Underground World - Doves in a Tempest, #2

The summer of 1958 has come to a frightening end, the school year is starting, and the HI-Q gang is investigating the aliens and trying to figure out what to do. Along the way, they confront a number of other questions — How do you get a shy boyfriend to give you your first kiss? Should it be the French kind, and what is that, anyway? What is it like for a white family to attend a Black church, and how do you survive as the first Black girl in a white junior high? Other challenges arise as well, some that make them question who they really are, as the gang negotiates the twists and turns of the new school year and confronts the evil that continues to threaten Austin.

 The series is a coming-of-age tale that follows the adventures of a group of misfit preteens and their personal struggles, both real and psychological. It's set in Austin, Texas in 1958 and takes the form of an old-fashioned sci-fi thriller for fans of old B movies, The Twilight Zone, Super 8, and Stranger Things. There's plenty of nostalgia for us oldsters as the reader is presented with hard truths about the period.  Doves in a Tempest — The Underground World is the sequel to the first volume subtitled The Valley of Horror. The book includes a summary of the first volume so that it can be read as a standalone.