Uninvited Daughters — Elinor Spielberg

Odessa Levin is single, has sworn off family life, and has fled her Long Island roots for the rough-edged solace of northern Vermont. Working in an antique shop, she becomes happily obsessed with being an apprentice to a high priest of the carriage trade.
But in the dead of winter, she finds herself with more solitude than she bargained for and a growing fear that before long her feet will find their way into a pair of sensible shoes without consulting her. Then she finds friendship - despite herself - with Megan, a feisty ten-year-old who lives with a huge Scottish deerhound and a politically hyperactive mother.
Megan's determination to draw Odessa into her life pulls Odessa out of her self-inflicted isolation and into everything she's set out to avoid: families, children, her own heritage - and romance.