PBOTD 27th June: Maggie Stiefvater - The Scorpio Races

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Today's PBOTD is a modern book, which only appeared in 2011. There are very few books I recommend to my family, bookaholics though they all are, because there's only so much horse they can take. This one, however, is different. It's the horse story you can read without betraying your anti-pony book principles.



The Scorpio Races was one of my stand out reads of 2011. It takes the water horses of Celtic legend, and sees what would happen if they were part of a more or less contemporary society. Humanity is far more likely to come off worse in encounters with the water horse, and the book opens in a way which leaves you little doubt about what kind of creature you're about to meet.

It's a dark and occasionally bloody and violent fantasy about a race of water horses who live off the island of Thisby. Sometimes flung up by storms, and sometimes captured, the water horses are raced by the inhabitants of the island once a year, in the Scorpio Races. The race is notoriously lethal, particularly for the riders. Sean Kendrick has won the race twice already; and thinks he can again, but then Puck enters too, only not on a water horse, but her own unfit, ordinary horse, Dove. Sean and Puck should be rivals, but they're not.

My review of The Scorpio Races

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