Far Side of My Dreams

Travel from civilized, West Coast society to the rugged mountains of the west, and learn how determination can bring an independent woman from the depths of despair to achievements beyond her dreams, as a rancher, performer, and world traveler. Mixing cow-talk, horse sense, and personal revelations, Carole Mercer will lead you on a humorous, heart-wrenching, and inspiring ride through her personal experiences as she recreates herself again and again. This is a not a story of just one woman's life, but of the many lives she has interacted and grown with. The result is a novel-quality memoir that will keep you reading. Be ready to ride Mercer! Drawing from her journals, Mercer has compiled a memoir that will warm your heart, make you laugh and then cry, and come away knowing that life has so much to offer when you take it by the reins! This story will be especially touching if you have struggled with the death of a close loved-one, lived with depression or agoraphobia, or if you have a passion for ranch life, Morgans and good horses, or living off the land. Mercer intertwines her life lessons with humorous and touching anecdotes about working cattle, cooperating with people who may be friends or sometimes enemies, and the power of animals to draw us from our darkest moments back to a life of purpose and achievement.

Carole Mercer has been a teacher, single-mother, and one-woman rancher and has loved horses and western living as far back as she can remember. Keeping a journal of her high and low points has allowed her to pull together a story spanning 27 years of life ranching in the rugged Cascade Mountains of Oregon. Making it work is a mantra she has lived by in all those years, even to the point of overcoming her dyslexia to produce a colourful story, and to shrug off the weight of depression and agoraphobia.

Softcover, 219 pages

Carol Mercer, Author