Rebecca Parker-Brown has the perfect life, wealthy husband and loving daughter. Life among Toronto’s elite couldn’t be better. When she discovers the ultimate betrayal, Rebecca and Emma move to a remote cottage on the outskirts of Algonquin Provincial Park to start life over again. A chance encounter with a passing stranger changes her future forever. She endures much heartache and suffering on the journey ahead. When her daughter is lost in the Algonquin wilderness during a severe snow storm, on what should have been their first Christmas together in O’Malley’s Cottage, Rebecca reaches breaking point.
This story takes place in Canada and shows the determination on a young mother as she discovers her husband in the shower at work with his secretary. Rebecca immediately picks her daughter up from school and phones her sister, Reachel to meet her at her house. She gathers up what she needs as she temporarily moves into her sister's home with her daughter, Emma. Then one night as the two sisters are sitting and remembering their younger days at the family's cabin, Rachel suggests the three of them take a trip north.
While up north, they meet an older couple, the O'Malleys who have a cottage to rent and a farm full of animals, including horses. Of course Emma is thrilled to see all the animals, but she has always wanted to learn to ride horses and the O'Malleys have a shetland pony named Toby that Emma falls in love with. Rebecca decides to rent the caottage for the summer for her and Emma. It will be the perfect place for Rachel to work from reading manuscripts for her sister's publishing company. All is wonderful until Mr. O'Malley dies and his wife sells the farm and moves into town. The new people renting the farm are far from farmers and have little regard for the animals. The husband at the farm, Garry is a jerk, makes rude remarks to Rebecca about the two of them 'doing it' in the hay barn. Rebecca ends up giving him the knee where it hurts. She drives Emma to and from school so she will not be taunted anymore by neighbor's daughter. Little does she know that Garry watches her everyday to time her comings and goings. Then one day, he is waiting for her and overtakes her as she is entering the cottage. She bangs her head and is knocked out, when she comes to, Garry is trying to rape her. About that time, her good friend, Alison and her fiance happen to arrive for a surprise visit. They hear the screams and the ex-Constable Alison goes into action. Luckily her fiance Brian stops her before she does Garry in, leaving him half naked in the snow for the police. Then after Rebecca is back home, Emma gets a note from the neighbor's daughter informing her that Toby is going to the slaughter house. Emma secretly makes plans to take Toby into the forest to hide him. It is almost Christmas, but she feels that O'Malley taught her enough on how to survive the winter. She is gone five days. Many have given up hope, but not her mother. Emma is returned to her family on Christmas Day. Everything turns out alright in the end for Emma and her mother as they decide to make O'Malley's Cottage their home.
Beautiful story. Be prepared to fall in love. What an utterly wonderful book. Rebecca's courage was amazing but most of all, I fell in love with Emma. At the begnning of the book, I was getting rather fed up with this super sweet, perfect child but once the Brown's moved the the Cottage, Emma was changed. Roger O'Malley was treasure and reminded me of my grandfather with his remembrances of better times. I know this wasn't a book about sex or hard core romance, but I would have like to see Chuck reinstroduced a lot sooner. I felt that the connection that Rebecca had with him wuld have been better explored and would have made the end of the book tidier. Be prepared to grab a few tissues while reading this book.
overall, book was a fairly good read. I was a bit confused with Little Emma's age. I had a hard time getting through the book after the first chapter but it ended up being a tear jerker at the end.
This book is about Rebecca, her husband George and daughter Emma. They are happily married so she thought until she found out he had left something at home that she thought he needed at work and when she got there found him in the bathroom in the shower with his secretary. It was all down hill from there and you will have to get the book to see all the trouble that happened after that before she starts to fell safe and protected again. This is a must read book so pick yours up today.
This was a great book full of love stories, mom and daughter, girl and pony, old man and neighbor kid and their animals. I had to take one star off for grammatical errors of switching your and you're in a few places. Tearjerker of happiness.