Ann Dougherty is horse crazy. All she's ever wanted was a horse of her own, but when she gets the chestnut mare Forever Amber for her eleventh birthday the first thing her new horse does is bite her. Afraid for his daughter, David Dougherty wants to sell Amber, but Ann refuses to give her up, determined to earn the respect of her horse, and of her father. Taming Amber is easy compared to winning over her father, who-seeing his daughter growing up and growing away on horseback-tries to control Ann through her horse. For ten years Amber is the center of an emotional tug-of-war until Ann is forced to make the decision that ends her childhood forever. Only then does she understand that no love is easy, not between a daughter and her father, not even between a girl and her horse.



Heidi Furseth's mother insists that her daughter's first word was "horse", but that 's an exaggeration, of course. It was probably her third or fourth. Putting the "crazy" in horse crazy, the nine-year-old Heidi badgered her parents into moving to the country and buying her a horse, touching off a lifelong love affair with all things equine. Heidi now lives in a small western Washington town with her three horses, various cats, and a resident raven. When she's not working as a Microbiologist she divides her time between her two passions: riding and writing.