As a world-class equestrian and Olympic contender, Annemarie Zimmer lived for the thrill of flight atop a strong, graceful animal. Then, at eighteen, a tragic accident destroyed her riding career and Harry, the beautiful horse she cherished. Now, twenty years later, Annemarie is coming home to her dying father's New Hampshire horse farm. Jobless and abandoned, she is bringing her troubled teenage daughter to this place of pain and memory, where ghosts of an unresolved youth still haunt the fields and stables-and where hope lives in the eyes of the handsome, gentle veterinarian Annemarie loved as a girl ...and in the seductive allure of a trainer with a magic touch. But everything will change yet again with one glimpse of a white striped gelding startlingly similar to the one Annemarie lost in another lifetime. And an obsession is born that could shatter her fragile world.
Me and women's fiction don't always work, because it tends to be heavier than I like, and I think that was one of the problems with this book. This woman just kept taking the hits, and at first, I was sympathetic, but then her bitterness began to wear on me. Maybe if there had been some more levity built in the story as she unpacked her baggage, I would have kept being on Anne Marie's side, but it was tough. She eventually did have her moment of enlightenment, but it was really late in the story.
I was invested enough to finish though, because I kept hoping Gruen would give this poor woman a break. The ending was good, and I enjoyed the horse stuff, but not enough to erase all the heavy/sad stuff that came before it.
