Heart's Blood is set in the borderlands of southern Arizona, and spans two generations beginning in the early 1970s. It opens in a flashback when Ty McNeil, as a young child, watches his mother lowered into her grave. We jump forward 25 years to his fateful decision to leave an itinerant life for a ramshackle ranch on the Arizona/Mexico border, taking with him a bronco named Red-Eye. He reunites with Ware and Suzanne Lewis, elderly neighbors who are like family to him and support his efforts to start anew. He also renews a friendship with Lisa, his former wife from a brief marriage, and her husband Charlie Ritter, a Border Patrol agent who becomes his best friend. Their son, CJ, worships Ty's superb skill as a horseman, and plays an unexpected role as the story unfolds.Ty's makes the ranch livable once again, combats his own isolation, and finally takes in a very young and pregnant illegal crosser, called Mana. After her baby is born she disappears, and Ty becomes a parent, choosing a path that in turn determines the intricate outcomes of the novel. He meets Claire, woman who is the love of his life. Lita, his little girl, now competes with Claire for his attention. Her blood father, a brutal criminal called Blanco, enters the story, determined to claim Lita. He will stalk her throughout much of the story. Ty now learns that he is CJ's real father, conceived just before his divorce many years ago. Ty is shocked, but attempts to calm CJ, painting a rosy picture for the future. CJ rejects it and turns his heart against Ty out of loyalty to Charlie. In Lita's eighth year, Ty receives Mana's scalp in the mail, confirming everyone's fear that Blanco has killed her. Soon, Blanco calls Ware to arrange a meeting, intending to parlay the old man's love for Ty into cooperation with his plan to take Lita. The story shifts its focus to gentle, wise Ware, whose mental calculus inevitably adds up to murder, carried out with his loyal foreman, Jacinto in order to protect Ty's family. The two men carry out their grisly plan and Jacinto buries the body on the ranch. They fool the authorities into believing it is the work of a rival cartel. Though he saves Ty and Lita, Ware is haunted by guilt and dies soon after of a stroke (remorse?), leaving a letter to Ty to explain what he has done and why. The letter hides in an old book, to be discovered later.Now, Ty and Lita begin a long period of discord as Lita enters puberty and becomes increasingly temperamental and rebellious. But, as she matures Ty finally decides she must learn about her true parentage and tells her about Mana, leaving out the details about Blanco. Lita realizes that she has always loved CJ and they marry. She accidentally discovers Ware's letter and learns about her blood father, Blanco, and his murder by Ware. But she chooses to tell neither Ty nor CJ of her discovery.These secrets are compounded when she receives a call from her half-brother, Miguel, the son of Blanco's marriage to Marcela Beltran. Miguel persuades her to come to Mexico City, secretly (of course!), where she confronts the terrifying Marcela in an explosive scene, learning that the older woman wants to take her own daughter, Anna, to raise in Mexico. She returns home filled with fear for Anna but unable to share her burden with C.J. or Ty.The end of the book weaves the loose ends together, as Ty and CJ embark upon a vineyard, Claire succeeds as a writer, Lita's marriage thrives despite her secrets, Marcela relinquishes her fixation on Anna, and Ty and Claire become grandparents of three children.Heart's Blood is a novel of place, filled with lyrical descriptions of the grasslands and vistas of Arizona's southern border, the changing seasons, and the rich tapestry of rural life at the end of the 20th century. It is a story of secrets, both kept and revealed. And it is a story of blood versus emotional ties, blood spilled and blood passed on from generation to generation, family to family.
About the Author: Elizabeth Zinn Biography Elizabeth Zinn grew up in Michigan and graduated from the University of Michigan. She attended the University of Paris as a Fulbright Scholar in classical saxophone, and enjoyed an academic career in music. During its 18-year existence her ensemble, The Sonora Quartet, was internationally acclaimed as one of the finest of its kind in the world. Their CD, Treasures, available on Amazon.com, is widely used as the model for classical saxophone quartet playing. Before retiring from academia, she spent eight years as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Arizona. Ms. Zinn has been privileged to study under a number of wonderful writers and teachers: while at the University of Michigan, G.B. Harrison was her professor of Shakespeare and Marvin Felheim taught her Romantic Literature. At the University of Arizona she studied under M. Scott Momaday and Joy Harjo, and was able to work intensively with the late Diane Freund, winner of the Pirate's Alley/Faulkner Prize, during the last year of Diane's life. As a fiction writer Ms. Zinn has now completed three novels. Two of them, Dancer and Heart's Blood, are set on the southwestern border and share some of the same characters. In its short story form, Dancer, won an Honorable Mention in Glimmertrain's 2010 Short Story Award for New Writers competition, placing it in the top 5% of over a thousand other works. Heart's Blood won Honorable Mention in the Leapfrog Press Fiction Contest, placing it in the top 3% of entries. Her third novel, The Happiness Lottery, is set in Michigan, where she grew up. She has also authored a collection of short stories, a number of poems, and has finished a fourth novel, The End of the Music. Ms. Zinn lives and writes in a small town in the mountains of southern Arizona.