This story is so relatable! Although the character's path is specific to her, the place she's come to when we begin her story in The Distance Home is something most of us have dealt with. Life is different than we planned, and sometimes we need to deal with the past so the present can be enjoyed. I think anyone who knows the healing power of horses, the struggles of "adulting" when your childhood was less than perfect or who loves a story about someone finding their way to happiness will absolutely adore The Distance Home.

Thank you NetGalley for the copy of The Distance Home by Orly Konig that I read and reviewed.
I had a really hard problem getting into this book and connecting to the main character. I just found myself putting it down and having trouble picking it back up again. Maybe, it was moving to slow for me or I just could not find anything that held my attention.
Unfortunately, I am for this book two out of five stars.

Reading THE DISTANCE HOME by Orly Konig is time well spent. The characters in this story are very developed and their emotional journeys are well documented. So much of this book tugs on your heartstrings.. for the girls as teenagers and as adults, for the parents, for all the relationships they had and those that they lost with so many unanswered questions. This book moved me as it's about healing but it also read so clean and fresh. There weren't any unnecessary plot points or characters. It was hard to believe this was a debut. The novel has a lot of horse elements to it but not in a way that would put a non-rider on the outside of the story looking in. I think that Emma's journey to conquering her grief and her past demons is one that many of my fellow readers would enjoy taking. I know that I did.

I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I can't help marveling at the 'realness' of this novel. By that, I mean the nuances, the subtle details, the elements of this story that take it from simple words on a page to a story that feels like sharing secrets with a close friend. It's those details that yank me into a story and don't let me go, and I turned the final page still feeling as if Jack was nuzzled beside me. Such a heartfelt, forgiving, and immersive novel.

This is a beautifully written book. It touches on topics that are dark, yet the story itself isn’t depressing but instead its life affirming.
Emma takes a week off from her high-powered job in PR in Chicago to return to Maryland and take care of her father’s things after his death in a car accident. In addition to trying to mend the wounds of dealing with a depressed mother who died when Emma was young—Emma’s father told her that her mother had heart problems and ultimately died of a heart attack—she’s also trying to sort out her feelings for a father who was emotionally absent from her life.
When Emma was eight years old, they moved to this rural area and she discovered Jilli, her neighbor, who was nine at the time, and Jilli’s grandparents, who raised Jilli and ran a horse ranch that gave lessons to kids who wanted to compete and therapeutic services for soldiers with PTSD, kids with behavioral or emotional problems, and folks with a variety of disabilities.
Though for years they were best friends, Emma and Jilli have been estranged since an accident when they were sixteen. After the accident, Emma’s dad shipped her off to boarding school and the lies about that day have haunted her ever since.
Emma finds that though she’d stayed away from horses since the accident, returning to them is good for the soul, even to someone who rode them for ribbons end glory once upon a time. Fixing things with Jilli, Jilli’s grandparents, and her father’s ghost, is not as easy to do as getting back on a horse.
The novel is about finding oneself by looking at the past and reimaging one’s future. I got lost in the story and in the way animals can be great emotional support in difficult times. The characters—including the animals—were well drawn, with complex, believable traits.
Recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley and Forge Books for the opportunity to review this book.

The Distance Home, Orly Konig

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre:  Women's fiction,

What a terrific debut book, absorbing story, well told and one I enjoyed reading. 

Emma is the consummate career woman, successful, polished, and never really switches off from working. Her boss wasn't keen to let her have the week off to attend to affairs after her fathers death, and she almost agrees with him, that could wait, work is more pressing. HR insists though so Emma makes the journey home ( great title , fits perfectly BTW), somewhere she's not been for 16 years.  She's no other realtives now so its a lonely journey.

The story is told from Emma's POV, and in present/past flashbacks. That works well to slowly let the reader see what happened, how she grew up, why she is the person she is now. We think we know who she is and what happened, but it's a very slow reveal to the full truth, and along the way Emma learns that her view of events is just that - her view, and things weren't necessarily as simple as a child sees them. There were reasons she either didn't understand or simply didn't see.
As her stay gets extended she gets more drawn into the reactions of people around her about that one catastrophic event, the things that were a catalyst for it, with her recall set against why things happened. 

I loved Emma, she was such a lonely child I felt for her. The horses had become her world and being a horse mad child and adult I could see how she got strength from them. My last horse died this year, 25 years of horse-owning, a childhood dream that took much effort and sacrifice but horse lovers will understand it was all worthwhile.

Of course while she's being slowly drawn back, increasingly entrenched in that past life her current one is blowing up the internet. Frantic emails pass back and forth, demands to know how soon she can go back etc.
I did find it hard to see why she accepted there was something huge going on and yet happy to wait til she was back on the following Monday, some days away, to find out what. I wasn't a quarter the workaholic Emma is and yet I couldn't have waited, would have to have answers now, and that bit didn't sit right with me.
Its a small crit though in a fabulous book I really enjoyed. Not sure its one I'd re-read now I know the story, favourite romances and some other books I love to read over and over but I don't think this will join them. 

Stars: four, great characters, including the animals, and a terrific debut read

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers