Riding Lessons by Sara Gruen

Riding Lessons
by Sara Greun
Pub. Date: March 2004
Genre: Fiction
400pp

Synopsis from BN.com:
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.

Why I Picked It:
Water For Elephants. Need I say more?

My Review:
I learned not so long ago that Sara Greun, author of Water for Elephants, had written two other books. After devouring Water for Elephants, I'm not sure why or how it took me so long to figure this out, but well, anyway. Ms. Greun has written Riding Lessons and it's sequel, Flying Chances.

Horses, Harry in particular, had been her life, until the accident. Years of pressure and demands from her father to perform, succeed, at the cost of everything else. Harry made it bearable for Annemarie, but after the accident that killed Harry and almost left her completely paralyzed, she fled.

Twenty years later, she is in a distant marriage with rebellious teenage daughter, and a job writing software manuals. But that all changes in one day. Her world comes crumbling down -- laid off from her job, husband is leaving her for his 23-year-old intern, and a phone call from her mother to tell her that her father is dying of ALS. Annemarie packs up her daughter and they head back home to the ranch.

There, things have changed so drastically. Her father is a shadow of the overbearing man he used to be, barely able to lift a spoon to his own mouth. She thrusts herself into that life, taking over the management of the stables, to avoid having to acknowledge how far his disease has progressed, the emails from her attorney regarding her divorce, the entire state her life is in.

Then a horse shows up at the rescue center who looks strikingly like Harry, though completely emaciated, starved, missing one eye. She insists on taking him, and as she builds trust, breaking through his barriers, an obsession is built in Annemarie as she learns that Harry had a brother. She researches and pushes her old friend (ex boyfriend, now a veterinarian) Dan to check into it further, but isn't quite prepared to deal with the truth about everything she learns.

I read Riding Lessons in one day. The story is absolutely addicting, an easy read, yes, the pages were flying. The sequel is sitting on my shelf at home, so I will be reading that one as well.