There is only one way to go: north toward their old home by the sea—the ranch that had been sold, and their beloved horses sold, when their parents were killed in the car accident. Running away from the drunken and abusive uncle with whom they’d been sent to live, Karen and Tom know they are taking the most obvious route, but no other place draws them. It’s a long journey before they reach the coast and discover the one place where wild ponies roam, ponies that people call magical—and where they tangle with a gang of thieves. Escaping, they find shelter with a group of honest, kind and mismatched new friends, not all of them what they seem. They don’t know then, longing so for their horses, that Karen’s buckskin pony yearns for bis old home too, where he had been bom—but that pony is as stubborn as Karen. This haunting story, like Shirley Rousseau Murphy’s other horse book, White Ghost Summer, has been enjoyed by many readers who will be happy to find back in print.
Author
Shirley Rousseau Murphy is the author of over 40 books, including 24 novels for adults, the Dragonbards Trilogy and more for young adults, and many books for children. She is best known for her Joe Grey cat mystery series, consisting of 21 novels, the last of which was published when she was over 90. Now retired, she enjoys hearing from readers who write to her at her website www.srmurphy.com, where the reading order of the books in that series can be found. Murphy grew up in southern California, riding and showing the horses her father trained. After attending the San Francisco Art institute she worked as an interior designer, and later exhibited paintings and welded metal sculpture in the West Coast juried shows. "When my husband Pat and I moved to Panama for a four-year tour in his position with the U. S . Courts, I put away the paints and welding torches, and began to write," she says. Later they lived in Oregon, then Georgia, before moving to California, where she now enjoys the sea and views of the Carmel hills. .
