Wild Ride Home: Love, Loss, and a Little White Horse, a Family Memoir

** ＂This memoir seems written directly from Hemp’s soul, as she beautifully shares her moving story of learning to love and trust again after loss.＂--Booklist **

Christine Hemp’s debut work of nonfiction, Wild Ride Home, is a brilliant memoir, looping themes of finding love and losing love, of going away and coming home, of the wretched course of Alzheimer’s, of cancer, of lost pregnancies, of fly fishing and horsemanship, of second chances, and, ultimately, of the triumph of love and family--all told within the framework of the training of a little white horse named Buddy.

Wild Ride Home invites the reader into the close Hemp family, which believes beauty and humor outshine the most devastating circumstances. Such optimism is challenged when the author suffers a series of blows: a dangerous fiancé, her mother’s dementia, unexpected death and illness. Buddy, a feisty, unforgettable little Arabian horse with his own history to overcome, offers her a chance to look back on her own life and learn to trust again, not only others, but more importantly, herself. Hemp skillfully guides us through a memoir that is, despite devastating loss, above all, an ode to joy.

Christine Hemp lives on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula with two horses, two cats, and one husband. She is the author of That Fall and has aired her essays and poetry on NPR. She teaches at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival and Hugo House. She can be found on www.christinehemp.com