Karena Hallingdahl Jorge has not heard from her twin brother, Charles, for 20 years. Inseparable as children, they were driven apart by Charles's bipolar disorder and the "djinn" as Karena thinks of it, which would take him over. Medications kept the worst of the disease at bay, but Charles refused to take them because of the nearly incapacitating side effects. For awhile Karena could calm him down during his manic periods, but one day she couldn't -- a day that would haunt both twins for the rest of their lives. Charles, who always had a fascination with storms, became a storm chaser and slipped away from home and family. Karena remained in Minnesota, where she became a reporter, living a mostly solitary, quiet life.

Then a phone call from a hospital in Wichita, Kansas, changes everything. Charles had come in and was treated for a panic attack. He had given the staff Karena's name and number as his contact information. Karena gets there as soon as she can, but Charles has already disappeared. Feeling that he must still be nearby, Karena discovers a storm-chasing tour in the area and joins up by pitching a potential story about storm chasers to the paper back home. She hopes to either find Charles or someone who knows him. What she doesn't expect is to develop new friendships with this diverse group of people or to be so deeply affected by learning about the complexity and even the beauty of the destructive forces of nature.

When she finally finds Charles -- or he finds her, she's not sure which -- he seems healthy, mentally as well as physically, and she takes him back home with her. But is the djinn still lurking just below the surface, waiting to strike when everyone's guard is down?

Being from the Midwest, I have always had a healthy fear of and respect for tornadoes, so the storm-chasing part of this book was fascinating to me. However, the story of Karena and Charles was just as fascinating, as well as bittersweet and heartbreaking. The storm metaphor resonates beautifully throughout the book, and the narrative (told in present tense and in a long flashback) is compelling: What starts as a "missing person" mystery becomes a sweet romance and then full-blown family dysfunction, with just enough humor to keep it from being completely depressing. While I felt things wrapped up a bit too neatly at the end, I was enthralled with the journey and found that the characters stayed in my mind long after I finished the last page.