Barbara Esstman was born in Carroll, Iowa, and grew up in St. Charles, Missouri. Like her character Nora in Night Ride Home, Esstman broke off a relationship at age nineteen to a young man who went off to war. Decades after her former boyfriend returned from Vietnam, Esstman reconnected with him. Much of her character Ozzie--his love of horses, his battle scars, and his long silence--Esstman says she learned from his real-life model. The book's dedication, "To 'Naldo from Rosie," refers to this relationship. "The novel," says Esstman, "is true in the deepest sense, though Oz and Nora are invented out of air and exist on a farm that never was."

After graduating from St. Louis University, Esstman taught high school English. During the years that her three children were young, she left teaching and the family moved frequently. For the last 15 years, Esstman has lived outside Washington, DC in Oakton, Virginia. Today she teaches occasionally but devotes most of her time to writing. Her three children come home often and fill the house with friends and pets.

Esstman's first novel, The Other Anna, was published in 1993 and was adapted for a television movie, Secrets.

Books by Barbara Esstman

Night Ride Home

by Barbara Esstman

With her two teenage children, Simon and Clea, who shared her love of horses, Nora ran the family horse ranch on the banks of the Missouri River. When Simon is killed in a riding accident, her marriage and the world she made for herself is shattered. Ozzie Kline, a horse wrangler who has loved her since they were teenagers, steps in to help her rebuild her life.