Olivia Sutton's Fanfic Journal

Richard Castle is a character on ABC's excellent and fun TV comedy-drama series Castle. A successful author who sold his first novel while still in college, Rick Castle bores of his popular character CIA agent Derrick Storm and kills him off in Storm Fall. Then discovering he needs inspiration to create a new character for his next best-selling series of books, he gets a ride-along with the New York police.

Castle, however, gets more than he bargained for when he meets intelligent, driven, sexy Detective Kate Beckett. Before long they are falling for each other, but both are dedicated to their work, and Castle is also supporting his aging actress mother and teenaged daughter. Castle bases his next series of novels on Kate, creating "Nikki Heat" hot and sexy detective for the NYPD.

ABC has published three "Nikki Heat" novels under the pseudonym "Richard Castle". The Nikki Heat books are fun, and I'm looking forward to Frozen Heat which comes out this coming Fall (2012). The first Derrick Storm tie-in to be released was the A Deadly Storm hardcover graphic novel published by Marvel comics. A second graphic novel is also due this Fall.

A Brewing Storm an e-book novella is only 83 pages long, but it's part of a trilogy of novels. Most of the novella seems to be set-up. The plot involves the kidnapping (and eventual murder) of a influential and powerful senator's step-son. Derrick Storm is brought out of retirement and given a new identity as a private investigator. He's partnered with sexy yet insecure FBI agent April Showers. Yes, even Derrick comments on the unlikely nature of her name. The novella ends with Derrick assembling the suspects and revealing what happened. However, before he can clear-up everything a cliff-hanger event happens, which I'm not going to spoil. This sets-up the next novella, A Raging Storm.

Overall, this novella is fun, though a lot of time is spent on set-up. I suspect I'm going to need to read all three prior to giving a truly complete review. I first saw this book on Amazon, but I downloaded it as well as the second and third parts for my Sony e-reader. If you don't have a Kindle or Sony, you can download the Kindle app for free, then download the novellas. Each volume was $2.99 at the Sony Reader store. The e-books might also be available at Barnes and Noble for Nook but I'm not sure about that - I haven't checked.