Homestead

Acknowledgments

When I first moved back “home” or about thirty miles from where I was born and raised, I felt as if a giant circle had been closed. I’d left in part to follow a dream, in part to find myself. I’d done both on my journey through college and medical school, through love and loss and discovery—and here I was, back in the country. I wrote When Dreams Tremble that year, thinking about the time I had spent working at “the Lake” the summer I graduated from high school. That book is still one of my favorites, and when I decided to write another book “close to home” it felt natural to connect the two stories. Circles never close in life, they just overlap and expand.

Homestead is not a sequel, but a few old friends do show up—and the themes of returning home—a little world-weary but maybe a little wiser—play through both stories, as does the hopeful theme of second chances. As I said when writing Code of Honor (speaking metaphorically then) when we return to a favorite place we feel a sense of comfort and belonging, and a part of us comes home. In writing these stories, I have literally come home (our farm is featured on the cover of the book) and parts of me wander the landscape. I hope you enjoy visiting the characters who emerged to keep me company.

Thanks go to Sandy Lowe, whose hard work makes mine easier; to Ruth Sternglantz for knowing my writing better than I do; to Stacia Seaman for always finding ways to make me better; and to my first readers Connie, Eva, and Paula for reading the early drafts and urging me on.

Sheri, many thanks for always finding the heart of the story.

And to Lee—Amo te.

Radclyffe, 2013

For Lee, for sharing the vision