After a visit up north to see her friend Char and Blue Ribbon stables, Valerie decides it is time for a change. She leaves her boyfriend Duke down in Southern California with the promise that he will join her up north as soon as he gets a transfer with the radio station that he works for. For a while, things are working out perfectly as Valerie shows a lot of talent for horseback riding, and she is able to help around the stable in addition to being a promising prospect with a future riding career.
It all falls apart one afternoon when the horse she is riding, Erde, becomes spooked and Valerie falls off and ends up in the hospital, again, only this time with a concussion. While she is hospitalized, Duke, with the most imperfect timing, calls to confess that he really doesn't want to give up his surfer lifestyle and move up north anymore, essentially breaking up with Valerie.
Hurt physically and emotionally, with no prospect of living on her own, Valerie is ready to throw in the towel and head back down south. She has no real job, no boyfriend, and no place of her own. In Better Before Than Forever, Valerie must decide if she should keep moving forward, or try to go back and piece her life together, the way it was before.
Throughout it all, Valerie learns a valuable lesson about moving forward and learns that sometimes, things aren't necessarily better in the past…
