Forgetting How to Breathe

Abandoning people who love you was about the worst thing a person could ever do. That wasn't Tia. And it wasn't Mama, either. If she let herself think that — even for a second — she was afraid she'd forget how to breathe.

In an Icelandic community in the heart of Canada, 13-year-old Tia is angry. Her mother has disappeared and she and her eight-year-old brother, Tag, have been sent to yet another foster home. In a lodge at the edge of Lake Winnipeg with a family and "fake mom" that feels smothering, Tia feels more isolated and farther away from her mother than ever. She desperately tries to convince her brother to return to the city where they will find Mama, and reunite their family.

But when a freak spring snowstorm and a herd of runaway horses lead her to a job at the Ice Pony Ranch and Animal Rescue Centre, Tia is offered a job that might just change everything.