Eric Slade

Cloudbusting Eric Slade

"I'm a witch," she said. "I influence the weather."



College student Rusty Stewart planned to spend an idyllic summer break in 1980s Athens, GA, living with his boyfriend, Hutch. But when Hutch ditches him for another guy, Rusty must navigate a broken heart through a maelstrom of outside expectations and embarrassing social spectacles.



Enter Charlotte, an enigmatic, outcast caricature of a wealthy Southern belle who communicates with ghosts and directs the forces of nature from within a fragile psychic shell.



"Charlotte wasn't the only person I'd ever met who claimed she could control the weather, but she was the first to make it rain right in front of me while she talked me through the process."



Intrigued by her esoteric offerings and desperate for distraction, Rusty begins exploring his own latent magic. But is Charlotte merely guiding a kindred spirit, or does she intend to provoke him into joining her own simmering darkness?



As their tempestuous personalities converge like gathering weather fronts, Rusty and Charlotte will either learn to master their emotions and their powers... or rip an unsuspecting town up by its Southern Gothic roots.