Weather Wardens

The Weather Wardens is a series of Speculative Fiction novels written by Rachel Caine and published by Roc.

They follow Joanne Baldwin, who is a sometime member of the Wardens. The Wardens are a global organization, headquartered in New York's United Nations building, whose job it is to protect mankind from natural disasters by stopping them or diminishing them. Joanne has never gotten along with one of the most well known and beloved Wardens, Bad Bob Biringanine—and when he dies under mysterious circumstances, Joanne is blamed for his murder. She flees with a Demon Mark growing in her, seeking the help of Lewis Levander Orwell, the man who turned his back on the Wardens and disapproves of their use of the Djinn as enslaved power amplifiers. Along the way she picks up a hitchhiker named David, who turns out to be more than he appears.

Joanne finds out more than she ever planned, gets in over her head and out again, falls in love, and repeatedly has to save the world—and herself—before it's too late.

Books in the series as of January 2015

• Ill Wind
• No Love Lost
• Heat Stroke
• Oasis
• Chill Factor
• Midnight at Mart's
• Windfall
• Firestorm
• Thin Air
• Gale Force
• Cape Storm
• Total Eclipse

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Tropes used in Weather Wardens include:

• About the Author
• Alliteration:
  • Bad Bob Biringanine
  • Marvelous Marvin
• Amnesia Danger: Book 6
• Angel Face, Demon Face: A Djinn with a master looks like a human but its clothing/hairstyle are confined to the human master's ideas of what they should look like. Fashionable masters have Djinn dressed to the nines. Outdoorsy masters have Djinn who look like they shop at REI. Teenage boys with libido issues have Djinn who look like centerfolds and wear French Maid Outfits.
• Attempted Rape: Quinn against Joanne.
• Bad Boss: Bad Bob Biringanine who infected Joanne with a Demon Mark. And to a certain degree, the Wardens in general.
  • And Marvelous Marvin, who sexually harassed his female employees.
• Blatant Lies: Joanne is forever telling outright lies in response to questions like "did I scare you?"
• Broken Angel: The Ifrit, or fallen Djinn, have this feel. If a Djinn is weakened enough, they're reduced to a near-mindless, inhuman-looking monster that feeds on other Djinn.
• Brought Down to Normal:
  • The penalty for abusing your Weather Warden Powers...often a Fate Worse Than Death because it leaves the former warden a drooling vegetable.
  • Done to Ashan at the end of book 5 for messing with Mother Nature.
  • This also occurs after Joanne and David face off against Bad Bob in Cape Storm.
• Cassandra Truth: The Wardens don't believe Joanne about most of the things she comes to them about; and they get mad when she is proven right.
• Cell Phone: Often failing due to severe storms or getting drenched. In one case the phone's GPS is used to kidnap Joanne.
  • A number of them get fried in Thin Air by the earth's magnetic field shifting.
• Chain of People
• Chained to a Bed: Well, tied, and restrained, but it happens to Joanne a good little bit.
• Clear My Name: Joanne's adventure begins this way in "Ill Wind", when she is accused of murdering Bad Bob.
• Cliff Hanger: Caine ends every book this way.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Cherise. She believes in the X-Files, has a Grey with a peace sign tattooed on her lower back, and after finding out about the Wardens, thinks it's all pretty cool.
• Cool Car: One for each book, so far. They're all sexy and very fast. They tend to get destroyed within a book or two, though, so Joanne has to get another by one means or another.
  • Book 1: Delilah the Mustang
  • Book 2: Mona
  • Book 3: Mona the Viper.
  • Book 4: Cherise's Mustang
  • Book 5: Juliet the Camaro and the BMW Z4 rental.
  • Book 6: Juliet and the new Mustang
• Cool Old Lady: Marion
• Deal with the Devil: Wardens who willingly take a Demon Mark in order to get the power boost.
• Dirty Cop: Thomas Orental 'Orry' Quinn
• Donut Mess with a Cop: Rodriguez, book 4.
• Driven to Suicide: A nameless Warden—except it only looks that way to the Muggles. Also cited by Eamon, but uncertain whether he was sincere or whether he was just trying to use it as a lever on Joanne.
• Driving Stick: Joanne, whenever she gets the chance.
• Drugs Are Bad:
  • Played with, in Kevin's case, but a justified one since he'd been drugged and pretty much tortured.
  • Played straight in Sarah and Joanne's cases.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Demon Marks are all squiggly tentacles.
  • The Ifrit have aspects of this too; they're described as beings of shadows and hard angles.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: All four elements represented, but the powersets break down as Fire, Earth, and Weather which combines Air and Water.
• Emo Teen: Kevin, after his monster phase.
• The Fashionista: Joanne.
• Flash Back: A lot in the first three books, explaining How We Got Here.
• Gaia's Vengeance: Mother Earth is a literal thing here, and she does not like how humans have been treating her.
• Head-Tiltingly Kinky: Joanne's sister Sarah. Something involving velcro and a Spider-Man costume. Eamon also hints at some of Sarah's other proclivities.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: The reason the Mother is pissed off, even in her sleep.
• Idiot Ball: Joanne's sister Sarah.
• Interspecies Romance: Joanne and David, and Marion and her djinn.
• Literal and Jerkass Genie: Both represented if one who has a Djinn in their thrall doesn't know how to treat them and doesn't know to phrase their requests.
• Love Triangle: Joanne, Lewis and David
• Made a Slave: Any Djinn to anyone who claims its bottle.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Warden powers are really good for scams of this nature, and a plot for same began hatching in book 3, culminating in book 5.
• Makeover Montage: Joanne takes her sister out for one after the latter shows up on the doorstep, depressed and destitute.
• Men Don't Cry: Even when David has killed his best friend and become the Conduit between Mother Earth's rage and the rest of his race
• Muggles: Sarah and Eamon and the majority of the human race, although these two end up in the know.
• Muggle Best Friend: Cherise
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Sarah Baldwin, Jo's sister
• Oh Crap: word for word, on multiple occasions.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Eamon's cultured accent slips from upper crust British to Cockney when sufficiently upset.
• Our Demons Are Different: The Demon Mark magnifies a Warden's abilities but makes them hungry for more power while killing its host and incubating to hatch as a full Demon.
• Parental Issues:
  • Abusive Parents: Kevin's stepmother Yvette.
  • Mama Bear: Both played straight and subverted. Joanne pretty much threatens great harm to anyone who messes with her child. But then she leaves her child behind because she has to save the world.
  • Papa Wolf: David. Do not mess with his family.
• Not the Fall That Kills You: Joanne ends up falling from great heights on more than one occasion.
• Pillar of Light
• The Power of Love: David is willing to sacrifice himself for Jo because of this, and Kevin has a shot at redemption because of his love for Cherise.
• Power Tattoo: The tattoos are for the Wardens and their people to recognize each other, and are invisible to everybody except wardens and Djinn. They open magically encoded doors and suchlike.
• Pretentious Latin Motto: It works out to "defenders of mankind" but Jo jokes it should be changed to "We're screwed" around book 5.
• Product Placement: Lots of it—ranging from fashion such as Kate Spears, Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo to the brands of cars to Starbucks and McDonalds.
• Quizzical Tilt: The Oracle regards Jo this way after she saved it.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Indicative that the Djinn are not in control of themselves, rather the Mother is using them as antibodies.
• Revenge: Ashan's reason for wiping Joanne mostly out of existence
• Road Book: Most of the books have Joanne driving all over the US.
• Sealed Good and Evil In A Can The Djinn, and the Djinn who have Demon Marks.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money: Charles Ashworth, head of the Ma'at.
• Shock and Awe: Lightning used as a weapon is done rarely by Wardens who are not Demon Marked, but the sentient storm fronts do it all the time. Joanne is a frequent target.
• Slave Race: The Djinn, abused by the Wardens to the point where Wardens infected with Demon Marks force the Djinn to take them instead, and the Djinn cannot refuse.
• Stepford Smiler: Star turns out to be one of the worst sort, instead of the Iron Woobie she seemed to be.
• The Symbiote: The mutualism type with regard to Warden and Djinn. The parasitic with regard to Demon Marked Wardens and/or Djinn.
• Teens Are Monsters: Kevin, and justified to a point, but he does get better.
• Theme Naming: All the titles are weather related.
• The Vamp: Yvette.
• Villainous Breakdown: Ashan, when he realizes that Joanne is going to make it to the Earth Oracle
• Weather Control Machine: The Wardens themselves.
• Weather Dissonance: mainly because of the Wardens, who try to keep it to a minimum to protect mankind.
• Window Pain: Most of the windows are blown in by gale force winds.