Home To Hope Mountain-Joan Kilby

Home To Hope Mountain Joan Kilby Harlequin SuperRomance, May 6 2014, $6.75 ISBN: 9780373608461 Melbourne-based architect Adam Banks moves to Hope Mountain as a single dad to his fourteen years old daughter Summer. Bushfires left many dead and the town severely devastated. While making a pitch to a Japanese contingent, Summer’s school interrupts Adam. Summer was arrested for shop lifting earrings that she tells her stunned dad she took to give to her mom Diane on her birthday. Widower Hayley Sorensen mourns the death of her husband and several of their horses due to the inferno. To help herself heal and provide comfort to despondent neighbors, Hayley runs a clinic allowing people to ride her surviving steeds as a form of therapy. Desperate, Adam turns to Hayley to help his troubled teen. As the two adults fall in love, they learn her late spouse and his former wife had an affair; leaving both with major relationship trust issues. Home To Hope Mountain is an emotional Australian contemporary as the traumatized townsfolk struggle with survivor guilt and paralyzing grief with evidence of the tragedy everywhere leaving little escape. The spousal affair feels unnecessary except to add an unneeded roadblock to the lead adults’ romance as they already have plenty of scars to deal with. Still readers will appreciate this angst-laden tale paying homage to the real Horses for Hope program that focuses on “therapeutic healing of the mind, body and soul …” Harriet Klausner