It's the Horses' birthday!
Celebrate by saddling up with these seven horse themed fiction books(for adults) below.
The horses/ William Lane
An Australian author...
On the outskirts of Sydney, a boys' boarding school prides itself on the horses it keeps. David, a gifted working class student, receives a scholarship to attend. At the same time Gregory, a new master, is appointed. Both soon learn, from their different perspectives, that what is said bears little relation to what is done. The school isolates itself from the outside world and over the course of several months of rain, the atmosphere inside the school becomes increasingly lawless and violent. School buildings slip away in floods. Underlying differences between various parties in the school turn into open conflicts, and the school community begins breaking up. These tensions are focused in the conflict between two masters, Val and Mr C. These two men loathe one another, and both recruit boys in the war of ideas they are waging.Half broke Horses/ Jeanette Walls
A true life novel...
“Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did.” So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls’s no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town—riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane. And, with her husband, Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one who is Jeannette’s memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.All the Pretty horses/ Cormac McCarthy
A coming of age tale...
The national bestseller, All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself. With two companions, he sets off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.Fortress Iron Eyes/ Rory Black
A Black Horse Western ...
Tracking outlaws Dobie Miller and Waldo Schmitt into a deadly desert, the notorious bounty hunter Iron Eyes is closing the distance between them with every beat of his determined heart. Yet the magnificent palomino stallion beneath his ornate saddle is starting to suffer. For years the deadly Iron Eyes has never been concerned about his horses, but since acquiring the powerful stallion, his attitude has changed. Iron Eyes knows that the horse has saved his life many times, due to its remarkable strength, but now it needs water badly. Every instinct tells the bounty hunter to stop his relentless hunt for the wanted outlaws, but then his steely eyes spot something out in the sickening heat-haze: It is a towering fortress. Iron Eyes presses on.Triple Crown/Felix Francis
The latest horse racing thriller by Felix Francis, the son of Dick Francis.
Jeff Hinkley, a British Horseracing Authority investigator, has been seconded to the US Federal Anti-Corruption in Sports Agency (FACSA) where he has been asked to find a mole in their organisation, an informant who is passing on confidential information to fix races.
Jeff goes in search of answers, taking on an undercover role as a groom on the backstretch at Belmont Park racetrack in New York. But he discovers far more than he was bargaining for, finding himself as the meat in the sandwich between FACSA and corrupt individuals who will stop at nothing, including murder, to capture the most elusive and lucrative prize in the world – the Triple Crown.
Tag: A Man, A Woman, And The War To End All Wars/ Barry Heard
A bush tale, a family saga, a romance, and a revelation of the human spirit's ability to survive war's inhumanity...
As a lad in the high country of eastern Victoria, Tag Wardell shows an extraordinary gift with animals: he is followed to school by his pets; his rapport with his horse, Dimble, Becomes the talk of the district; and hi even manages to befriend a mob of brumbies during an adventure with his schoolmates in the Dargo high plains.
Later, when he becomes a blacksmith, locals come to watch him at work, amazed at his ability to clam the meanest of nags. But 1914 brings war, and the government's patriotic fervour entices Tag and his mates to join the Light Horse regiment.
For Tag, war begins as an adventure. On the convoy to Egypt, he is quickly singles out to help the distressed horses. Then, while on leave in Cairo, he meets Jill, a nurse, but their brief romance is cut short as Gallipoli looms. Tag's life spirals into one of survival in the day-to-day madness of the trenches.
The red pony/John Steinbeck
A Twentieth Century Classic short story...
Like most ten-year-old boys, Jody Tiflin has the urge for rebellion as well as the need to be loved. In these stories, jody begins to learn about adulthood – its pains, its responsibilities and its problems – through his acceptance of his father's gifts. First he is given a red pony and later he is promised the colt of a bay mare. Yet both of these gifts bring tragedy as well as joy, and Jody is taught not only the harsh lessons of life and death, but made painfully aware of the fallibility of adults.