When I read the description of Good Hope Road by Lisa Wingate, I knew I had to read it since a tornado that levels the town of Poetry, Missouri.  I didn’t know it was part of a series at first and haven’t read any other books in the series.  This book focuses on Jenilee Lane a 21-year-old girl still living at home so she can protect her little brother Nate from their Dad.  He’s a Vietnam vet who suffers from alcoholism and depression.  Nate is 16 years old and good go down a good road or a bad one.  Drew is the older brother of Nate and Jenilee who escaped their home life by joining the National Guard.  Nate and Jenilee have a lot of resentment for Drew moving on.  When the tornado hits, Nate and the Dad are on the road and both are injured.  Jenilee is unharmed and goes to work helping others.  First, she rescued Eudora Gibson, a bossy know-it-all but good grandmother.  Eudora has it out for one of the injured community members, June.  He appears to be a good guy so Jenilee can’t understand why Eudora is so mean to him.  It’s a story of unrequited love turns out.  So Jenilee wants to help both by using the tornado as a lesson on the important things in life.  Jenilee is the typical small-town girl in bad circumstances. Although Eudora is supposed to be a troubled heroine in the story, she was more just a self-centered old bitty.  She wasn’t as bad as Mazelle Sibley, the town do-gooder.  The small-town feel was captured but I didn’t think the story properly encompassed the aftermath of a tornado.  Maybe if I’d read the first book I would appreciate the characters more.  I listened to the audiobook and the narration for Nate was despicable.  He’s a 16-year-old boy who has lived a hard life but he sounded like an 8-year-old crybaby.  I did like the narration for Jenilee as a character though.  I loved Lisa Wingate’s Before We Were Yours so I thought I would love this one.  It definitely wasn’t as good though.  Take my review with a grain of salt though since I didn’t read the first.