A Romance Novel for All Ages: Mustang Summer

Mustang Summer

If I were a wealthy woman, I could hire someone, or an entire agency for that matter, to promote my work, but since I am a woman of limited means, I must rely solely upon my own resources. Therefore, I am using my website to promote what I cannot help but think is my best work, and that is Mustang Summer, which is available both in hardcopy and for download to Kindle or other electronic devices at Amazon Books.  It was originally published in 2008 but was revised and republished in 2013. If you enjoy love stories in the tradition of The Horse Whisperer and Bridges of Madison County, I cannot help but think that you will enjoy Mustang Summer. Of course, it isn't your typical love story because it is about more than a relationship between a man and a woman. It's about the human condition. It also contains elements of adventure and, to a degree, even fantasy.

In brief, it's the story of a chain-smoking menopausal Cherokee (Ramona Raven), a has-been middle-aged rodeo rider (Austin Cahill), and a runaway learning disabled teenage girl (Killian Russell), all of whom are trying to escape the past and find redemption. And one fateful summer when destiny brings them together, they set out on an adventure-filled journey that changes their lives forever. 

Here, however, is a longer synopsis:

At forty-eight, Ramona Raven is determined never to fall in love again and to find redemption from a lifetime of allowing men to control her destiny. So, in keeping with her Cherokee beliefs, when she dreams of a wild gray stallion, Ramona interprets the dream as a message from the Country of the Spirits. The horse is the key to her salvation. She must find the animal and bring him back to Georgia, the land that contains “the scenes of her childhood and the graves of her fathers.” Yet, in order to find the horse, Ramona realizes that she is going to need help. 

Help arrives in the form of Austin Cahill from Paradise, Texas. A tall, lanky cowboy, with the bluest eyes Ramona has ever seen, and former All-American Rodeo Bronc Rider, Austin is now a middle-aged drifter. Having lost his wife and child in a terrible accident, he is determined to settle down, although he’s failed in the past, and to put to rest memories of the Huntsville Prison Rodeo and the crazy stallion that destroyed the only thing he had left—his ability to ride any horse breathing. 

Accompanying Austin is “his daughter,” Killian Russell. Deserted by her own father when she was a child, Killian has run away from an abusive, alcoholic mother, and although learning disabled, Killian is yet smarter than most people when it comes to the ways of the world, so when Austin offers her refuge, she sees it as the opportunity to escape the past and to finally have the idyllic life of which she’s always dreamed. 

When Austin accepts Ramona’s offer of employment, the three of them embark upon an adventure-laden journey that will take them from the rolling hills of Georgia to the sun-blasted landscape of northern Utah. Yet little do they know that this one fateful summer will change their lives forever, for in the days to come they will learn to trust, to love, and to believe in the unbelievable.