Patti Hale

A man is pardoned from prison and returns to Santa Rita, CA to be with his family, but discovers his children have been told he's dead and his wife is in love with another man.

Ken McLaughlin is a precocious 10-year-old who lives with his family on a remote Wyoming ranch. When Ken returns home from school with failing grades, his father, Rob, blames the boy's lack of personal responsibility. At the suggestion of his wife, Nell, Rob allows Ken to choose a single colt from the herd to raise as his own. Much to his father's dismay, Ken chooses a fiery mustang filly -- but the two soon become fast friends.

A young boy tries to train Thunderhead, a beautiful white colt and the son of his beloved Flicka, to be a champion race horse.

The title of Grand Caesar in the Ancient Order of Noblest Romans of Wakefield, Indiana keeps Jim "Pop" Helton so involved and distracted that he forgets to pay the family's bills, nearly makes a shambles of a real estate deal his oldest daughter, Ethel is working on, almost wrecks her romance with Captain Tom Drayson, and gets involved in a game with a pool shark in an effort to raise the remaining $75 of the $6,750 needed (that they didn't have) by the Wakefield Lodge to host the national convention of the Noblest Romans.

A reporter runs from charges by a corrupt politician only to face them years later.