Estranged for years from her father and four brothers after her mother’s death, Carson Cartwright is surprised when she gets a phone call from her twin brother, urging a reconciliation before their father succumbs to his final illness. Though she has spent more than a decade trying to forget her family existed, she is suddenly pulled back to the Montana ranch where she grew up.
Carson discovers her brothers divided over plans to change their working ranch into a guest ranch, and their consultant, Kerry Elder, doesn’t seem above using her wiles to get her way. Kerry finds that while she may have her clients right where she wants them, it’s the wayward sister that may be awakening something she has long denied.
The big Montana sky crackles with thunder and lightning as emotions twist in unbidden directions. Neither Carson nor Kerry is prepared for the wild storms of summer.
My pre-ordered copy of Gerri Hill’s “Storms” arrived last week and was a relief from the rather bad batch of fiction I’ve read lately. Gerri has a knack for characterization and setting, interesting story lines and steamy sex. “Storms”… three outta four ain’t bad I guess.
The main characters are interesting; Carson with her older wealthy quasi-predatory anti-love lesbian BFF and Kerry’s determination to make her new start-up successful using faux charm and her whole clueless-to-being-a-lesbian thing. Carson and Kerry have chemistry, they have moments of fear and idiocy that everyone in lust and flirtation can relate to. Kerry’s epiphany and evolution from unsatisfied straight girl to confident lesbian was very well done.
Once again Gerri did an amazing job of turning the location/setting into a character. I grew up in the Rockies and her description of the ranch and the mountains made me a little homesick.
The sex did not disappoint, and neither did the romance. I’ve always appreciated that Gerri Hill doesn’t end the book 10 pages after the sex because she doesn’t know how to handle the afterward. She knows how to write a next day and a next week too.
Beyond the main characters there was the requisite busybody/matchmaker, played by a thoroughly charming (even if she was pretty one-dimensional) housekeeper/cook at the ranch. The supporting cast of family comprising: the indifferent brother(s), the evil brother, the good brother and the formerly evil asshole father now trying to reconcile because he’s days from death. If it wasn’t integral to the plot, I would have said “ehh just dump the dad dying thread”. Carson’s family dynamic was pretty unimaginative, I’m not sure if Gerri Hill just doesn’t have a grasp on how to write men (or brothers) or if she’s just not interested in making them more than black and white stereotypes. Honestly, for this book it probably doesn’t matter, it’s not like the story was an exploration of a male-dominated family. If the brothers helped move the plot that got Carson and Kerry together, they served their purpose.
Overall, a fun way to spend my morning. Not my favorite by Gerri Hill but worthy of her and worthy of my bookshelf.
