by Aryn Kyle
"Wow!" is all I can say about this wonderful debut by Aryn Kyle. This breathtaking book, the kind you cannot put down, is narrated by Alice Winston, a lonely, poor, twelve year old girl living on a Colorado horse farm. Her father is rugged, handsome like a marlboro man, and tireless in his efforts to turn their floundering farm into a lucrative business that trains, breeds, boards, and shows beautiful horses. Alice's mother has been very depressed since Alice's birth and rarely leaves her bedroom. Her beautiful older sister Nona has just runaway to marry a rodeo cowboy even though she's only seventeen, devastating her entire family and creating a huge scandal. Alice misses her sister desperately; Nona was her best and only real friend. An extremely talented equestrian, Nona was her father's favorite and his only hope for saving their farm. Alice's life begins to change after a classmate drowns in a nearby canal and her father is forced to give riding lessons and boarding other people's horses to make ends meet. New people begin to show up at the farm and each one affects Alice in some unexpected way.
Two of Kyle's greatest strengths are her expertly drawn characters and the ways their lives all intersect. The author brings you right back to the miserableness of adolescence and creates a unforgettable setting in dusty Desert Valley with her vivid descriptions. The momentum of the story builds slowly to an amazing ending as all the interwoven plotlines reach a climax in the final scenes. Kyle's brutal honesty shattered all my preconceived romantic notions about life on a horse farm, just like most of her characters end up shattered in one way or another by the end of this book. A wonderful story about families, horses and lost love; one of my favorite books ever.*****
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