Jo-Ann Mapson – författare

Those who do not remember family history are condemned to repeat it...Haunted by a failed marriage, a resentful son left deaf by a bout of meningitis, and the slow death of her artistic aspirations, Margaret Yearwood takes refuge in Blue Dog, New Mexico. There, in the shadow of Shiprock Mountain, and in the unlikely arms of Owen Garrett, she finds the courage to love again, and to be loved. And she comes to realize that even the most primal wounds scar over and that there''s nothing so renewable or so healing as passion. This is a bittersweet story of ordinary people who must learn to heal family bonds before they are permanently severed.

Chloe Morgan is a thirty-three-year-old part-time waitress, small-time horse trainer, and full-time thoroughly toughened Western woman living in a corner of the dwindling canyonlands of Southern California. Calloused and wary, Chloe allows herself to love with total abandon and complete faith only her horse and her dog. That is, until a quirk in the weather and a sunrise funeral service cause her to cross the path of Henry Oliver, a sedate professor of folklore at the local college, who, like Chloe, has his reasons for holding back. But once Hank steps inside Chloe''s makeshift cabin in the hills, Chloe realizes she must come to terms with her losses and decide between the life of solitude she had always thought was her fate and the love of a man who seems—at first—all wrong.

When thirty-four-year-old Chloe Morgan appears on Hank Oliver''s doorstep in Cameron, Arizona, she arrives with more than her old white German shepherd, Hannah, and a rambunctious young horse in tow. Chloe is pregnant with Hank''s child, and she''s as tough-talking and vulnerable, skittish and tender as when last we saw her in Jo-Ann Mapson''s acclaimed first novel, Hank & Chloe. As Chloe and Hank settle somewhat uneasily into domesticity, a local Navajo legend named Junior Whitebear returns home to collect his father''s ashes and renew his own spirit after years spent in the art-world fast lane. When Junior arrives at the reservation, he doesn''t expect to find a son he fathered unwittingly nine years ago; nor is he looking to fall in love with Chloe and to deliver her baby girl. Both events change his life, and the lives of those around him, forever. A passionate love story, Loving Chloe explores the emotional complexity of a love triangle with sympathy, humor, and compassion.

The impact of four-year-old Spencer''s death has rocked the Carpenter family. For Lainie, the loss of her son is unbearable, and now both her marriage and her very sanity are threatened. Her guitar-obsessed, slacker brother Russell isn''t doing very well either, and his own love relationship is rapidly coming undone. Then there''s Bop, her fierce and crusty 80-year-old grandfather. When he falls in love with a retired stripper, their earthy romance touches each of the Carpenters'' lives in unexpected ways.

The Wilder sisters fall in love with men when they least expect it—and most need it. Rose, the older, more practical one, is a widow who lives in New Mexico and has two ungrateful kids, a bored dog, and a horse with a bad back. Lily, the younger, more daring sister, lives in Southern California, where she has put her career before everything else—including love. Lily and Rose flee to their parents'' ranch, for some emotional detox. But the two haven''t spoken in five long years, and spending time togther is the last thing they''d planned on. Nor had either anticipated being so actively pusued by lovestruck men. Readers will be in their corner all the way as they rediscover the bonds of sisterhood and slowly open their hearts to love.