Author: redbadge

Genre: General fiction

What I liked about this book:

Gimme a horse book and I'm most likely gonna read it fairly soon.

Most of the time I'll then hate it, but this was an exception. I thought this book was wonderful, mostly because it really wasn't about horses. It was about abuse and trauma and figuring out how to get past it, and the main character--even though she was surly as hell--was really compelling.

I liked the bits woven in about the dressage world, and can tell the author probably rides dressage, because most of that is accurate. I loved the contrast between the racing stable and the fancy dressage place, and I also loved the contrast between Conan and Ollie.

I thought there was gonna be forced romance in this then there wasn't which I also appreciated.

If you're really into horses you'll probably like this book. It was paced fairly well, had a lot of things to say, and just in general was a fun read.

What I did NOT like about this book:

The author clearly does not know much about racing.

The race stable in the book is described as a pretty small operation not making a lot of money...yet they have second string horses training for the Derby and Oaks. These are some of the most highly regarded three year old races in the country. No one is gonna let a random dressage trainer on the back of an oaks contender, it's just not gonna happen. Even in training rides these horses are usually ridden by professional jockeys.

Horses that are running in one of these races start at two, and any two year old who is ALREADY a hopeful is gonna be at a big, fancy-ass barn that makes Oxford look like a petting zoo and is going to be worth thousands of dollars. Go google what Claiborne looks like to get an idea. The idea of a small barn having a two year old prepping for the derby yet complaining about Ollie's horse being worth the same as a car is *giggleworthy*. Racing is the most expensive sport literally in the entire world. This doesn't make any sense.

Apart from the need to research, there were a ton of spelling and grammar errors, and a lot of the monologues explaining Dagger's backstory did not feel like real dialogue.

Overall:

This was mostly fantastic but please research racing.

Rating:

8/10. Lost points for the racing bits.