About This Book
Believing that her mother died in childbirth, Garnet is shocked when on her fifteenth birthday, Frank unexpectedly shows up at the family ranch, Shalimar Canyon Equestrian Center, with a strange woman he introduces as her mother. At first angry and suspicious, enraged by the lie, Garnet reacts with hatred until she discovers she and Sophie share much in common beyond their blood tie. Torn between loyalties, entangled in bewildering new emotions, Garnet must wrestle with her own feelings about jealousy, commitment, and the importance of trust in making choices if she is to give honest love a chance to flourish. Hannah McLeod in particular fears for her granddaughter's future wellbeing. She struggles to keep her sense of looming disaster from Garnet. Despite desire to understand and accept Garnet's mother and forgive her as Christian charity demands, she sees a terrible reflection in her granddaughter of the woman she secretly despises as the "Winter Witch."Garnet even slights her best and only close friend and companion, Emiliano Chavez, the sixteen-year-old son of ranch farrier, Antonio Chavez, who has a secret of his own he keeps from Emiliano. Emil-as he prefers Garnet call him-overcomes his shyness and confronts Garnet with his hurt feelings and loneliness since her mother has absorbed all her time. They go riding again in the hills together and make a strange discovery. Their heretofore trusted adults react with dismay and utter confusion, plunging Garnet and Emil into decisions they find beyond their present knowledge and experience.
