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• Mustang Summer: A Novel
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Description

Ramona Raven is Cherokee and embraces the teachings of her beloved grandmother, Ayasta Ross of the Bear Clan. As a result, on the night of her 48th birthday, when Ramona dreams of a wild gray stallion, she sees it as a challenge from her ancestors. She must find the horse and ride it across "the land that contains the scenes of her childhood and the graves of her fathers." When she does, she will at last gain redemption for a lifetime during which she let others, namely men, control and manipulate her decisions and actions, with often-disastrous results. The problem is, as much as she hates to admit it, Ramona knows she is going to need help or her mission is doomed before it even begins. Enter Austin Alexander Cahill. A former All-American Rodeo Rider of the Year, he is now an ex-con and middle-aged drifter. Austin comes to Georgia to be near the only family he has left—a sister—and to make one last attempt at curbing the wanderlust that has controlled his life since the tragic death of his wife and child. He is also trying to outrun, though he knows he really can’t, memories of Old Satan, the crazy bronc that almost killed him during the Huntsville Prison Rodeo and, worse, destroyed the only thing he had left—his ability to ride any horse breathing. Yet, in order to settle down, Austin needs to find work, so naturally, when his and Ramona's paths cross, he accepts her offer of a job, especially since she also offers to let him and "his daughter" live on her secluded farm near the Chattahoochee River. Not that Austin relishes the idea of perpetuating the farce he so "stupidly" began when he decided to harbor a teenage runaway instead of turning her over to the cops, but one thing Austin can say for himself—he’s a man of his word. Killian Russell, fifteen and learning-disabled, is determined to have a better life than the one that was "dumped upon her at birth and through no choice of her own." Tired of living with a promiscuous, alcoholic mother and being called "retard" by the woman and her endless string of "sicko, perverted boyfriends," Killian boards the first Greyhound leaving Memphis, Tennessee. Her destination? A "picture-perfect little town" like those in the old sitcoms on Nickelodeon. And such a town does exist; it's called Fairburn, Georgia. But when Killian arrives in this idyllic setting, she is broke, hungry, and soon finds herself running from the local police after she steals Vienna Sausage and crackers from the Seven Eleven. Help comes in the form of a tall, lanky cowboy from Paradise, Texas, who offers her shelter—at least for now—and lets her tag along on the adventure of a lifetime.

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