Calder Storm [Mass Market Paperback]

I have read every book in the Calder series in the order they were published. (By the way, for newcomers, they are meant to be read like this: This Calder Range, Stands A Calder Man, This Calder Sky, Calder Born-Calder Bred, Calder Pride, Green Calder Grass, Shifting Calder Wind, Calder Promise, Lone Calder Star and Calder Storm.) I read This Calder Sky first, just as Ms. Dailey wrote it. She then went back in time to write the two prequels. I still believe that book was the best.

I have reviewed the four most recent books here on Amazon, and I couldn't help expressing my disappointment with them. Thankfully, I think the last two are a step back in the right direction.

All the Calder books have two basic elements, romance and danger. Ms. Dailey excels at the romance part. We love the Calders, and we love it when they fall in love. Each story also includes a plotline where someone is greedy or jealous of all the Calders have built, and that's where the mystery/danger comes in. I, and many others, have criticized Janet Dailey's penchant for killing off characters. I don't want to spoil anything for readers, but a couple people die in this one, too. Personally, I didn't feel too broken up about them. This book was mostly about the love story, and I think that's why it was good. Trey and Sloan's romance starts quickly and burns hot. Sloan is a likable character (unlike Trey's twin sister, Laura, who was the heroine of Calder Promise).

The thing that drives me crazy, in this and the last few books, is the way the author plays with time. She employs the standard soap opera trick of rapid aging to get maximum story out of the family. I guess without it we wouldn't have all the books, but it just bugs me. Every book reads like it's set in present day, but Dailey deliberately makes no specific references to time. I suppose next year we'll be reading about Trey and Sloan's new baby, Jake, taking over the ranch!

This was the first Calder book in a while that I had a hard time putting down, but I must say I found the ending disappointing. Still, I do recommend it to all Calder fans and newcomers, too.

I have read all in the Calder Series and will continue to read for as long as Ms. Dailey continues to write about them. This was a nice addition. Not as emotionally engaging as the first 3 or 4 but worth the time.

Young Trey has fallen in love and fallen hard. Truly, if ever there was love at first sight, this was it. Sloan, his love, was a little slower in getting there but could not escape the magic for very long. They got married and then old Max Rutledge starting his campaign to tear this young couple apart - quite successfully.

Ms. Dailey tracks how this fantasy love slowly dissolves as it falls prey to distrust, innuendos, malice and old wounds ending with Sloan leaving Trey for the enemy's camp. It is a little disconcerting that Sloan would and could not believe the Calders unless she had heard directly from the "horses mouth" what he was up to. Love alone would not have conquered all. Sloan did not go through the same process that Dallas in Lone Star did in which she concluded that her love for Quint was the most important thing. All's well that ends well however as soon Sloan returns to her home and the genuine love and care that the Calders have to offer.

Some other observations: I read my first Calder book (Stands A Calder Man) at 17 so I have been growing up with them. I found that I could not quite relate to Trey as a true hero. Despite Ms. Dailey struggling mightily to equate the physical and the physique to the legendary Calder's indomitable spirit, Trey came across at times (just sometimes now) as indifferent at best and downright shallow at worst. Yes he was young but so was Chase when we first met him. Ty was even younger.

I was also deeply troubled by the callous way JD dealt with Tara's death. Yes, I know that she was meddle-some, arrogant and over-stepped the boundary but she has been a part of their world for such a long time that she deserved more. Firstly, she was minding her own business in her own house when Sloan came and asked for her help. She did not hesitate. She instinctively sacrificed herself for the baby. Yet as she lay dying, instead of reflexively attending to her, these two were busy kissing and was kissing for such a long time and in such an absorbed way that it was only the baby that brought them back to awareness. It was Laredo who came offered help. And then after she died, they just left her there. At the big re-union at The Homestead nobody even mentioned her. I was most disappointed. But that bespeaks more to Ms.Dailey's mindset than to these two. She nonchalantly and happily kills off people whom we have come to love for absolutely no reason. Here she not only kills off Tara but does it in a most disgusting way. There is absolutely no reason why Tara couldn't have survived in today's world. Seems she is not happy unless some-one dies.

Again, I would definitely recommend this book.

In Montana, Trey Calder, heir to the Calder Cattle Company and its vast Triple C Ranch, meets photographer Sloan Davis at the Miles City Bucking Horse Sale known locally as the "Cowboys Mardi Gras". The pair is attracted immediately to one another and sees each other even after everyone has left Miles City for their homes. After a short courtship and a warm welcome to the family-less newcomer, they both know they are in love and marry.

Paradise collapses shortly after Sloan learns she is pregnant as each soon finds a reason to distrust the other. Trey has found about a secret that Sloan kept from him about her past, a link to Fort Worth's Maresco CEO, Max Rutledge, who blames the Calders for the death of his son. Sloan begins to hear that Trey is having an affair, drug trafficking, and the family plans to bury her reputation with dirt including some that is made up if they fail to uncover enough to do a real nasty spin.

Though a bit slow paced, the latest Calder saga tale grips fans of the series due to the heat, passion, and anger between the fifth generation and the outsider orphan. Rutledge provides a powerful realistic threat as he gradually spreads his venom while the support cast, mostly family members and of course the Big Sky Country, add depth to the best entry in several years.

Harriet Klausner

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 11 reviews  4.0 out of 5 stars