Keeping a job for one year shouldn't be this hard. But I'm giving it all I've got. I've sworn off whipped cream and managed to keep my attitude in check, mostly. Just when I'm beginning to think the mysterious trust fund created by my mother and father might be attainable, the unthinkable happens. My long estranged parents come for a visit. They land on the doorstep with empty suitcases, a few sad-looking tomato plants, and a grandfather I never knew existed. As reunions go, this one's off to a rough start. 

Vi's kept a job for nearly one year and is sure she's going ride off into the sunset with her trust fund, but ghost horse Wastrel has plans that put everything she's worked for in jeopardy....Viola Parker knows old wounds can fester. What she doesn't know is how deeply they can cut or to what lengths people will go to recover. When she returns to her roots to solve her mentor's murder, nothing and no one is what they seem and no amount of whipped cream makes sense of it.

It's been a summer of changes for July Carter, who has left the high stakes racing season at Saratoga with not only a young filly to call her own, but also an unexpected boyfriend. Change, it appears, is good. But as the thoroughbreds return to Belmont Park for fall races, July is caught up in all of those summer changes.

Last year, I had it all: two jumpers on the show circuit, a lot of wins, and a lot of attention - the good kind. But now I have nothing. My life is circling the drain. The only spark of light that exists for me is my new, forbidden passion. If my stepfather finds out, he will kill me. My twin brother, my only blood relative in the world, has already begged me not to. But I can't help myself. If it can't be horses, it has to be this.

Blood is thicker than water. I didn't understand that expression when I was a kid. I only knew that I was closer to my brother Seth than to anyone else in the world. He was the calm to my storm, the light to my dark. We were tied to the rest of our complicated family by bonds beyond blood - love, loyalty, convenience - but as it turns out, the pull of blood is strong. Maybe even strong enough to tear me away from the person with whom I shared my very first breath.