Girls and Their Horses

Friends, I thought I wasn’t interested in a horse book; I was so wrong. Here’s what I learned when I raced through this thriller in a single day: “Horse girls are the toughest girls around. You know why? They make a thousand-pound wild animal do whatever they ask.” And sometimes they ask for the unconscionable. I was hooked from page one: I wanted to know what would happen next, of course, but the story is also anchored by a strong emotional core revolving around ambition, sisterly rivalry, parenting angst, and devastating secrets. The stakes are high, the egos huge, the characters largely unlikable, and the horses untameable. I loved it. For fans of Megan Abbott’s Dare Me and Ramona Ausubel’s The Last Animal for its similar emotional core.