Dream Country

No one understands the heart of a family better than Luanne Rice. Her luminous novels capture the mystery and miracle of love in all its guises. Now, on the heels of her triumphant New YorkTimes bestseller Cloud Nine, Luanne Rice draws us into the sweeping, unforgettable story of a family's search for hope, faith, and love to bridge the years that have held themapart.

Jewelry maker Daisy Tucker's remarkable talent has earned her a devoted, growing clientele. Her necklaces and bracelets are fashioned of polished stone and delicately etched bone, crafted intopieces inspired by family stories, myths, and Native American lore. But it is not just because of its unique beauty that her jewelry is prized — word has spread that Daisy's creations bring love into the lives of thosewho wear them.

Once, years ago, Daisy's work had brought love into her own life. Just out of college, she had traveled to the wilderness of Wyoming's Wind River Mountains in search of inspiration forher art. What she found was rancher James Tucker, a man with the wilderness inside him. Their life together was as close to paradise as a family could get — until the day their three-year-old son, Jake, disappearedwithout a trace in the wild country they both had loved. Her heart broken, her marriage in tatters, Daisy returned home to Connecticut with Jake's twin sister, Sage. Wyoming had taken everything from her but herlivelihood.

Now, thirteen years later, Wyoming wants more. Sixteen-year-old Sage, whose bedroom walls are covered with posters of the West, is on a dangerous pilgrimage across a vast continent to afather she has longed for but lived without for most of her life. Sage's thirst to see the land and father of her dreams, and learn more about her lost twin, is driving her westward on freight trains and farm roads. Daisy, terrified, flies out to where it all began, to where James Tucker now rides the range with a heart turned to stone, still scouring the canyons for Jake.

Still wary of each other, Daisy and James waitand pray for Sage's safe arrival. As Daisy pours her sorrow and hope into new talismans of love's magic and healing, she will need all the strength and wisdom she can find to learn that you cannot close the door on thepast, but sometimes, if you step through it, it can lead you home.

Played out against a timeless landscape of transcendent beauty, Dream Country is Luanne Rice's greatest achievementyet. At once a haunting love story, a gripping mystery, and a mesmerizing family saga, it will break your heart and mend it again

From the Hardcover edition.

Thirteen years after her three-year-old son disappeared into the wilderness of Wyoming, Daisy Tucker returns to the scene of the crime to confront the demons of her past and to find her runaway daughter, the twin sister of her missing son. Reprint.

At seven a.m., Daisy Tucker paused at the foot of the stairs to smell the laundry she held in her arms. She had gotten up an hour early to wash her daughter's clothes, throwing an extra sheet of fabric softener into the dryer the way Sage liked it.

Mounting the stairs, Daisy wondered why her heart was pounding. She felt nervous, as if she were applying for a new job instead of waking up her sixteen-year-old with a pile of clean clothes. The house was quiet, flooded with thin morning light. While waiting for the laundry to finish, Daisy had gone to her spare-room jewelry studio to work on a bracelet that she hoped to finish that afternoon. But she had been too upset to concentrate.

Daisy and Sage lived alone. There had been no witnesses last night to hear Daisy screaming like a banshee, see her pulling her own hair like a caricature of a maniac. There had been no one present to watch Sage sit back in her inflatable chair, messy dark hair falling across her face, observing

Luanne Rice is the author of twenty-five novels, most recently Last Kiss, Light of the Moon, What Matters Most, The Edge of Winter, Sandcastles, Summer of Roses, Summer’s Child, Beach Girls, and her soon-to-be-released new hardcover, The Letters, written with Joseph Monninger. She lives in New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut.

From the Paperback edition.