Remember my Beauties by Lynne Hugo - TLC Book Tour

Paperback: 194 pages
Publisher: Switchgrass Books; 1 edition (April 18, 2016)

Imagine a hawk’s view of the magnificent bluegrass pastures of Kentucky horse country. Circle around the remnants of a breeding farm, four beautiful horses grazing just beyond the paddock. Inside the ramshackle house, a family is falling apart.

Hack, the patriarch breeder and trainer, is aged and blind, and his wife, Louetta, is confined by rheumatoid arthritis. Their daughter, Jewel, struggles to care for them and the horses while dealing with her own home and job—not to mention her lackluster second husband, Eddie, and Carley, her drug-addicted daughter. Many days, Jewel is only sure she loves the horses. But she holds it all together. Until her brother, Cal, shows up again. Jewel already has reason to hate Cal, and when he meets up with Carley, he throws the family into crisis—and gives Jewel reason to pick up a gun.

Every family has heartbreaks, failures, a black sheep or two. And some families end in tatters. But some stumble on the secret of survival: if the leader breaks down, others step up and step in. In this lyrical novel, when the inept, the addict, and the ex-con join to weave the family story back together, either the barn will burn to the ground or something bigger than any of them will emerge, shining with hope. Remember My Beauties grows large and wide as it reveals what may save us.

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My Thoughts:

 I wanted to like this book, really really did.  I love horses and cowboys and western anything, and the cover itself  made me think that this was going to be a really good read for me.

It's not that the story was bad, it wasn't, but I found it a bit difficult to stick with it and to get into the story when it seemed that there was so much going on at once.  Busy is a word I would use to describe it.

So many characters, so many bitter and angry people, and then thrown in the actual horses thoughts and narration and it was a little distracting.

A story about a dysfunctional family, the drugs, the alcohol, caring for aged parents, and horses and a failing farm and a marriage on the line, a daughter struggling with drug addiction etc.

I think for me it would have been better if it had concentrated on maybe one particular character's struggles rather than feeling like every single person and animal needed to have a voice and to let us know what they were feeling and thinking.