Trevayne

The vicious-looking airCRaft shot aCRoss the sky at near supersonic speed.

It was a modified Hercules cargo plane, known as an MC-130 “Combat Talon,” the delivery vehicle of choice for U.S. Special Forces units.

This Combat Talon stayed high, very high, it was as if it was trying to avoid being seen by radar systems down at sea level. This was unusual, because there was nothing down there—according to the maps, the nearest land in this part of the Pacific was an atoll 500 klicks to the east.

Then the rear loading ramp of the Combat Talon rumbled open and several dozen tiny figures issued out from it in rapid sequence, spreading out into the sky behind the soaring plane.

The forty-strong flock of paratroopers plummeted to earth, men in high-altitude jumpsuits—full-face breathing masks; streamlined black bodysuits. They angled their bodies downward as they fell, so that they flew head-first, their masks pointed into the onrushing wind, becoming human spears, freefalling with serious intent.

It was a classic HALO drop—high-altitude, low-opening. You jumped from 37,000 feet, fell fast and hard, and then stopped dangerously close to the ground, right at your drop zone.

Curiously, however, the forty elite troops falling to earth today fell in identifiable subgroups, ten men to a group, as if they were trying to remain somehow separate.

Life in Glory, Wyoming, population fifty-one, isn’t exactly exciting. The dusty old town isn’t even on the map. And for rancher Luke McCallister, that’s just fine. Broken by tragedy, the stoic cowboy spends his time at his Ten Bar Ranch or down at Ima Jane’s Rimrock Bar, trying to avoid the gossip being served along with the food and drink. But the everyday quiet of his life is shattered when he finds a human skull–and possibly the key to Glory’s oldest mystery.

It was one hundred years ago that a band of outlaws were said to have buried their gold in Glory. The one surviving bandit took the secret of the treasure’s hiding place with him to the gallows. Angie Sommers knows the story cold: that man was her great-great-grandfather. She’s come to Glory to see if the old legend of the gold is true, and she wants Luke to help her find it. She even has incentive: a possible clue written by the dead man himself.

Luke has no interest in chasing after pipe dreams. He’s seen the damage too much hope can bring. Still, he can’t deny that Angie makes him feel things he hasn’t allowed himself to feel in years. Something about her sweet, trusting nature, her honest eyes, and unshakable belief makes him feel alive again–and that could be dangerous. For someone else is determined to stop Angie, someone who would do anything for the outlaws’gold. Now, bound by the thinnest of ties and shadowed by danger, Luke and Angie set off in search of a mystery as romantic as the west itself on a journey of faith that will take them into Wyoming’s rugged, treacherous terrain and even deeper into the heart’s tender graces…

“The passion, spirit and strength readers expect from a Calder story–and a Calder hero–shine through.  .  .”
—Publishers Weekly on Lone Calder Star
“Dailey’s pacing, narrative, characterization and dialogue are all handled with verve and grace.”
—Publishers Weekly on Calder Promise

One night fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother and young brother are hauled from their home by Soviet guards, thrown into cattle cars and sent away. They are being deported to Siberia.

An unimaginable and harrowing journey has begun. Lina doesn’t know if she’ll ever see her father or her friends again. But she refuses to give up hope.

Lina hopes for her family.
For her country.
For her future.
For love – first love, with the boy she barely knows but knows she does not want to lose . . .

Will hope keep Lina alive?

Set in 1941, Between Shades of Gray, is an extraordinary and haunting story based on first-hand family accounts and memories