Editor Reviews:

Book Description:
"A stunning new voice in American fiction, Sara Gruen makes a masterful debut with a novel of family, tragedy, rebirth ... and the breathtaking love of something wild. As a world-class equestrienne 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, her beloved and distinctively marked horse.

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 teenaged 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 red and white striped gelding startlingly similar to the one Annemarie lost in another lifetime. And an obsession is born that could shatter her fragile world.

Rating : - Really hits the mark
I was given this book as a gift from someone who knows how much I love horses but so many books involving animals and romance are sappy and sweet and just too much.
So, I was very pleasantly surpised when I read "Riding Lessons", the more I read the more I couldn't put it down. Clearly this author gets the horse world, she understands the combination of fear and love and respect that is between rider and horse. Her writing allows you to taste, smell and feel what the main character Annemarie is feeling.
I read Water for Elephants and enjoyed it very much but this book really hit home for me. Her writing is rich and sensitive and her main character is frought with flaws but the reader really relates to her and her struggles with her relationships with her mother, father, daughter and "friend" If you at all have a love for horses or just a really good and real story, give "Riding Lessons" a read.