Alpenglow (Romance in the Rockies)

About the Book

Grace Hilferty has found her mountain paradise. Her abusive marriage has ended and now she is blissfully alone. She retires at age sixty-one and buys a condo in a ski resort in the Colorado Rockies, where she hopes to recapture the spirit of her college days. She isn’t interested in love or marriage; she’s content skiing and volunteering at the library and museum.

Her life changes while eating lunch in a mid-mountain restaurant, when a handsome Norwegian skier sits down at her table. Over lunch, Grace recognizes him: Brad Berger, her college sweetheart.

Brad, now a widower, makes Grace’s heart beat with a passion she hasn’t felt in thirty-six years, when he married another woman. Sixty-nine-year-old Brad is a ski patrolman and instructor and is active in civic groups in the valley. He has a four-bedroom house on a hilltop with forty acres, on which he keeps a few horses. He’s not interested in marrying again.

Grace and Brad can’t help meeting at social functions and on the ski slopes of the small mountain valley. They begin dating and soon rekindle their love. After several months, Brad asks Grace to marry him. She refuses, remembering how he broke her heart when she was young.

A second romance blossoms between Brad’s son, who lives with him, and Grace’s roommate, Laurie. At the couple’s wedding, Grace realizes she can’t live without Brad and doesn’t want to. They plan a mountaintop wedding.

The two romances are set against a background of conflict between ranchers and newcomers in the valley and a new threat: terrorism.

Everything goes smoothly between Brad and Grace until he is buried in an avalanche while trying to rescue two skiers. Will their love affair survive this new setback? Is their marriage still on?

About the Author

A graduate of the University of Colorado, Boulder, the author moved to Fraser, Colorado, in 1991, where she enjoyed skiing and hiking. In 1998, she published her first book. Since then, she has written two novels and updated the first book. Her 23-year U.S. Civil Service career included jobs as a writer and editor, and she was a reporter for a daily newspaper in Guam. Her freelance travel articles have appeared in newspapers and magazines around the country. She moved to Grand Junction, Colorado, in 1999 and is now writing a novel set in Honolulu.