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Horse Tales Booklist

Horse stories - Fiction and Nonfiction

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

2006

• A Fine Place to Daydream: Racehorses, Romance and the Irish
  Author: Barich, Bill
  Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 1400042798 Date: 2006
  Booklist
  Twenty-five years after Laughing in the Hills, Barich pens another racetrack classic, about how he fell in love and found a new life in Dublin, where he was soon caught up in the Irish obsession with horses and wagers.
  Updated 2.16.06

2005

• Great Inland Sea
  Author: Francis, David
  Publisher: Macadam Cage $ 23 ISBN: 1596921161 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  Traveling as groom for a horse called Unusual, Day meets Callie, who wants to be the world's first woman jockey. He is stranded by a love that takes him back to the harshness of his childhood in Australia, and to the dark secrets of his family.
  Updated 3.25.05
• Beautiful Jim Key: The Lost History of a Horse and a Man Who Changed the World
  Author: Rivas, Mim Eichler
  Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: Date: 2005
  PW
  Masterfully told, poignant, and rich with spellbinding historical detail, this is the remarkable, true story of an extraordinary horse and his pioneering trainer who symbolized America at the dawn of the 20th century.
  Updated 2.7.05

2004

• In Service to the Horse: Chronicles of a Labor of Love
  Author: Nusser, Susan
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 25.95 ISBN: 0316806315 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Nusser explores a year in the lives of three grooms, all working with champion thoroughbreds, interweaving stable lore, horse mythology, animal behavior, and meditations on the precise nature of the intense bond between humans and horses.
  Updated 4.6.04
• A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money & Luck
  Author: Smiley, Jane
  Publisher: Knopf $ 22 ISBN: 1400040582 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  A Pulitzer-winning author presents a charming, funny, and a bit outrageous exploration of the abiding bond between humans and horses, told with panache, intelligence, and humor.
  Updated 3.22.04

2002

• Stud
  Author: Conley, Kevin
  Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 25.95 ISBN: 1582341842 Date: 2002
  Kirkus
  Stud takes readers into the strange and seductive world of horse breeding on Thoroughbred farms from the gentle hills of Kentucky to the rich valleys of California.
  Updated 1.31.02

2001

• Seabiscuit: An American Legend
  by Hillenbrand, Laura
  Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375502912 Date: 2001
  PW Booklist
  One of the greatest legends of the 20th century, Seabiscuit was a discarded, bottom-level runner who became a champion with the help of three men: a trainer, an owner, and a jockey. This is the spellbinding tale of how they did it.
  Seabiscuit Online
  Suggested Reading: Reading Group Stars

2000

• Shattered
  Author: Francis, Dick
  Publisher: Putnam $ 25.95 ISBN: 0399146601 Date: 2000
  Booklist
  Menace and murder go hand in hand in the electrifying new thriller from the grand master of crime fiction. When jockey Martin Stukely dies after a fall at Cheltenham, his friend Gerald Logan becomes embroiled in a perilous search for a stolen videotape. The glassmaker is suddenly faced with terrifying threats to his business, his courage, and even his life.
  Updated 8/18/00
• Keeneland
  Author: Hagy, Alyson
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 23 ISBN: 0684855038
  PW Library Journal
  A compelling novel set at Kentucky's Keeneland race track. When her estranged husband becomes indebted to impatient loan sharks, Kerry Connolly learns that liking a horse doesn't make it faster and loving one means genuine risk.
  Suggested Reading: Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley.
• Hugger Mugger
  Author: Parker, Robert B.
  Publisher: Putnam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399145877
  Kirkus
  Someone has been killing racehorses at stables across the south, and Spenser, the Boston P.I., travels to Georgia to protect the two-year-old destined to become the next Secretariat. The case takes a deadly turn when the attacker claims a human victim and Spenser must revise his impressions of the Three Fillies racing stables.
  
• Horse Heaven
  Author: Smiley, Jane
  Publisher: Knopf $ 26 ISBN: 037540600x
  Kirkus PW Booklist Library Journal
  The universe of horse racing - passionate, cold-hearted, pure, corrupt - is revealed in Smiley's new novel that combines the intense feeling of her Pulitzer Prize-winning A Thousand Acres with the wit, pace, and brightness of Moo.
  Suggested Reading: Keeneland by Alison Hagy.

1999 or earlier

• Famine of Horses: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery
  Author: Chisholm, P.F.
  Kirkus
  
• 10 Lb. Penalty
  Author: Francis, Dick
  PW
  In this Grand Master's most gripping novel yet, menace and murder go neck-in-neck. Twelve years after he has given up his aspiring career as a steeplechase jockey, Benedict Juliard is plunged into a frightening morass of lies and treachery. His father enters the political arena to run for prime minister, and Ben finds himself targeted in a vicious attack mounted by his father's violent political enemies.
• To The Hilt
  Author: Francis, Dick
  PW
  The black sheep of a prominent family, Alexander Kinloch is content to paint pictures and play bagpipes at his ramshackle Scottish home - until a sudden call from his troubled and near-bankrupt family forces him to help protect the family's endangered treasures - and a savage beating forces him to brush up on his detection skills.
• Come to Grief
  Author: Francis, Dick
  Kirkus
  Ex-jockey Dick Francis brings back one of mystery's most intriguing heroes, Sid Halley, in his bestseller. When Halley becomes convinced that his friend Ellis Quint - one of the racing world's most beloved figures - is responsible for a shocking crime, he finds himself the target of the public's wrath - and finds that proving his friend guilty could be dangerous.
• Wild Horses
  Author: Francis, Dick
  PW
  
• Decider
  Author: Francis, Dick
  PW Kirkus
  
• Longshot
  Author: Francis, Dick
  Kirkus
  
• Straight
  Author: Francis, Dick
  Kirkus
  
• Chestnut Mare, Beware
  Author: Jaffe, Jody
  PW
  The official version says that the former beauty queen Josane Ashmore died after being trampled by her unruly chestnut mare. Her mother declares it was murder. Yet when Charlotte reporters Natalie Gold and Henry Goode go to Virginia to prove it, they find more questions than answers. From the author of Horse of a Different Color.
• Bred to Win
  Author: Kinsolving, William
  Kirkus
  
• Regret Not a Moment
  Author: McGehee, Nicole
  PW
  
• Belong to Me: Stories
  Author: Maristed, Kai
  Publisher: Random List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0679444106 Date: 1998
  PW
  A powerful collection of stories centering on people of the horse world. It opens with the most harrowing account of an abducted young woman since John Fowles The Collector.
  
• King of the Nightcap
  Author: Murray, William
  Kirkus
  
• Elena of the Stars
  Author: Rosenthal, Chuck
  Booklist
  
• Stalking Horse
  Author: Shoemaker, Bill
  PW