{Book Review} Coyote Heart by Paula Margulies (@PaulaMargulies)

Trapped in a troubled marriage with a disabled husband, Carolyn Weedman is ripe for a change in her life. After a chance encounter with a widowed Pala Indian professor, Carolyn finds herself drawn into an unexpected love affair. Torn by conflicting feelings, she discovers a secret about her husband’s past that forces her to confront her divided emotions and choose between the two men that she loves.

Set against the simmering backdrop of local politics on the Pala Indian Reservation in San Diego, this newly revised edition of Coyote Heart explores the intricacies of illicit love and marriage, the strength that comes from sacrifice, and the courage to forgive the injuries of the past.

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Carolyn has lost herself.  She is living a life that she hardly recognizes.  After a tragic accident that left her husband in a wheelchair, they have drifted worlds apart. 

When she meets Roy Washburn, she begins to feel again – in a whole new way.  With him there is no distance and no pain.  He shows her that love is still alive.

“She and Roy were one, bow and arrow, flesh and bone, earth and sky. For the first time since she could remember, Carolyn felt no fear as a coyote sounded its long and lonely lament in the distance.”

But their intense affair has consequences that they never could have imagined. People will be destroyed and nothing but regret left in the wreckage, but she will never forget the beautiful Native American Professor who brought her soul back for the land of the dead.

“Her feelings for Roy had sprung out of nowhere, from somewhere deep within herself that she didn’t know even existed. Sadly, it was a place to which she could never return.”

Coyote Heart was a heartbreaking journey through pain, loss and sorrow.  Paula’s austere and poetic style made the story that much more haunting.  I connected to the characters and really wanted for Carolyn and Roy to end up together but too much stood in their way.  There were many tears shed but I wouldn’t have changed a single thing…

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