Home Is Where the Heart Is

Casey Dawes

May 2019 · Mountain Vines Publishing

About this ebook

Mid-thirties photojournalist CJ Beck has been running from her past since she bolted from her family’s ranch on the Rocky Mountain Front after high school. Her life in a war zone means never having time to remember the pain, but a sniper’s bullet forces her to return to Montana and confront her demons.

As a teenager, CJ had everything she wanted—a loving home and steady boyfriend. Her father’s death on a lonely Montana highway was the beginning of the end of her girlhood dreams. She created a new image as a tough professional, avoiding her four brothers, family obligations, and any real commitment.  But when a sniper’s bullet kills her husband in front of her, she’s sent back home to recover. What her bureau chief doesn’t know is that the belief she’s responsible for her husband’s death makes it impossible for her to take pictures.

The terms of her return to the front depends on a clean bill of health from a psychiatrist.  CJ knows she needs a lot more than that if she’s ever to take a photo again. But when she’s forced to deal with the past, including a man who wants a second chance at a relationship, as well as new threats to the family inheritance, she may face her greatest challenge of all.

Home Is Where the Heart Is is a story about of a young woman who must confront her family’s past and help secure its future to discover what real happiness means. If you enjoy women’s fiction with romantic elements, you’ll enjoy this book.

Buy Home Is Where the Heart, Rocky Mountain Front Book 1, to begin this family saga series.

Ratings and reviews

A wonderful journey for CJ as she confronts the ghosts of her past while trying to find her true self. Set in the beautiful Montana mountains, CJ finds herself back home after a horrific event while she worked as a photo journalist in the Mideast. Being home is hard, as a teenager, her father shattered her vision of strong men then she lost her mom which lead her to run and leave her hometown and family behind. She believes she knows who she should be but when she is forced to meet with a therapist while also reconnecting with her family and friends from her childhood, well, she is forced to reevaluate. When she is able to help her ex-boyfriend’s son with his photography, they end up helping her recapture that love as well. Will CJ find her heart in Montana?

About the author

Casey Dawes has lived a varied life–some by choice, some by circumstance. Her master’s degree in theater didn’t prepare her for anything practical, so she’s been a teacher, stage hand, secretary, database guru, manager in Corporate America, business coach, book shepherd, and writer.

She inherited an itchy foot from her grandfather, traveling to Europe and Australia and many towns and cities across the US while in business. She’s lived in towns with a population of 379 and in an apartment complex on 42nd Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan. She’s dragged her belongings from New Jersey … to Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, California, and Montana.

She believes in true love and the ability of honest, thoughtful conversations to solve most problems.

Her stories contain characters who have to deal with real life and real problems to find real love.