Seven novels that use weather to enhance the suspense

Jody Gehrman is a native of Northern California, where she can be found writing, teaching, reading, or obsessing over her three cats most days. She is also the author of numerous award-winning plays and novels, including The Girls Weekend.

Her Young Adult novel Babe in Boyland was optioned by the Disney Channel and won the International Reading Association's Teen Choice Award.

Gehrman's plays have been produced in Ashland, New York, San Francisco, Chicago and L.A. She and her partner David Wolf won the New Generation Playwrights Award for their one-act, Jake Savage, Jungle P.I.

She is a professor of English and Communications at Mendocino College.

At CrimeReads, Gehrman tagged seven favorite "books that use the weather beautifully to enhance the reader’s sense of imminent danger," including:

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

I love the premise of this, and I don’t mind admitting it was a major inspiration for my own novel. A handful of friends, some of them estranged, gather in an eerie glass house deep in the English countryside to celebrate the upcoming wedding of Clare, the guest of honor. It takes place in November, and Ware makes you feel the cold in your bones as the danger creeps in. Atmospheric and brooding, cleverly plotted, this book will have you shivering with pleasure even in the midst of a heat wave.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue