"Gritty, emotional, superb story."

Annemarie Zimmer was an equestrienne and Olympic contender until she broke her neck in a jumping accident and awoke to find her horse put to sleep. Heartbroken, she packed up and left home for good.

Twenty years later, her life is spinning out of control again and she returns to her parent's horse farm with her teenage daughter. She discovers her father is fighting a debilitating disease and her mother is struggling to keep the farm running. Annemarie steps in to help, but in the process places the farm and her family in jeopardy.

Into her life comes Dan Garibaldi, a local vet and the man who loved her years ago. Dan has rescued a horse from the kill pen, and when Annemarie sees it, she's overcome with emotion. He's the exact replica of her dead horse, Harry, and about the same age as Harry would be had he lived. Now Annemarie must unravel a frightful mystery, save the farm and accept the love Dan has for her.

Ms. Gruen's book is gritty, emotional and technically superb. I highly recommend it.

Reviewed by Shayne Sawyer
Courtesy Old Book Barn Gazette
Posted March 10, 2004

Summary

A stunning new voice in American fiction, Sara Gruen makes a masterful debut with a novel of family, tragedy, rebirth ... and the breathtaking love of something wild. As a world-class equestrienne 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, her beloved and distinctively marked horse. 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 teenaged 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 red and white striped gelding startlingly similar to the one Annemarie lost in another lifetime. And an obsession is born that could shatter her fragile world.