Book Rec: Another Kind of Cowboy

Another Kind of Cowboy
by Susan Juby
Published: 2007

I'll state first that I liked this book. If ever there was a book deserving of a serious recommendation, this is that book. In fact, I'm not sure I can come up with a suitably snarky review for the blog, and I don't really even want to give up spoilers. What is wrong with me?

Well. Here's the summary:

For Alex Ford, dressage is an oasis. In the stable, he can slip into his riding pants, shed the macho cowboy image, and feel like himself for a change.

For Cleo O'Shea, dressage is a fresh start. She's got a new boarding school, absentee parents, and, best of all, no one to remember her past. . . .

They're an unlikely pair. Cleo's looking for love, but Alex has a secret he's not ready to give up, and a flirtation with Cleo is the last thing on his mind. But you can't find romance before you know real friendship, and sometimes the last person you'd ever think of as a friend ends up being the one you need the most.

If this was a Thoroughbred book, Christina would be having an aneurysm. The whole thing is about dressage, obviously. Alex has been obsessed with it since he was a kid, and Cleo spent her first jumping lesson sobbing. I appreciated that, actually.

The brief rundown is this: we've got two main characters. The book skips around between Alex and Cleo, telling Alex's story in third person and Cleo's story in first person. It sounds a little weird, until you start reading it. They're both sixteen. They both live in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, Alex because he's always lived there and Cleo because she was sent to a girl's boarding school centered in equestrian sports. Cleo is filthy rich because her parents are movie producers/directors, and thus leave her alone for vast quantities of time while they're off shooting movies in exotic locales. Alex's mom abandoned his family and his dad is a budding alcoholic living in an RV in front of their house. He's got an aunt and two sisters, twins, making sure things get done rather slowly around the house as Alex's dad spends all his time sleeping with a balding woman who is the island's most prolific realtor because her face is most commonly seen plastered all over areas destined to become strip malls.

Of course, they've got problems. Alex is struggling with his sexuality, which is to say he's a sixteen-year-old gay kid and horrified by the idea of having to tell anyone. Cleo is rich and selfish and lazy, but she's also dealing with the fact that her parents basically dumped her in Vancouver when her actions lead to their massive house in L.A. being stripped of all its expensive televisions, vases, and other possessions. She has no friends, and because she rides dressage and most of the girls at the school don't, that leaves her with one other girl who is a friend by proximity.

They both have horses. Cleo's parents bought her a ridiculously expensive and talented mare called Tandava. Alex has an elderly paint named Turnip that his dad won in a poker game. In a twist of fate, they both start training with Ivan and Fergus, dressage coaches recently retired to the area. Initially Cleo is interested in Alex, but when she tries to kiss him he just winds up screaming "gay!" at her.

And other things happen. I'm actually not inclined to spoil this book, because it's actually good. In the many books I've read for this blog (sure, many of them were Thoroughbred books, but they damn well count) I have learned that stumbling across a good horse-themed book is a miracle, so I'm treasuring this moment. Another Kind of Cowboy is a fun story. It's well-written and the characters are hilarious in a realistic way. It even makes dressage sound interesting. You'll probably like it. So run over to the library or the bookstore and grab a copy. Posthaste. As in now. Go.

You can't tame what wants to run into a tornado and die.

Taming the Star Runner
by S.E. Hinton

As requested by Kerry, I decided to pick up Taming the Star Runner. It's by S.E. Hinton, who is using the ever popular replace your first name with initials so readers won't know you're a woman method, because little boys everywhere are too afraid to pick up books written by women because it's not manly to read books written by women. What's with that, little boys?

Well, anyway. You too can request a book for us to read. It's very simple. Just run over to the requests page and ask away to your heart's delight. We're slowly, but surely, trying to comply with the demand here at the Whitebrook Farm Blog.

Travis is the epitome of cool, especially when he's in trouble. But when he's sent to stay on his uncle's ranch, he finds that his tough attitude doesn't make him any friends and his city survival skills are no match for the unforgiving land around him.

He does find friendship of a sort with Casey, who runs a riding school at the ranch. She's the bravest person Travis has ever met. She's crazy enough to try to tame the Star Runner, her beautiful, dangerous horse that's always on edge, about to explode. It's clear to Travis that he and the Star Runner are two of a kind -- wild creatures not meant to be tamed.

This blurb is going along normally until that last sentence, when whoever wrote this summary decided to smack me in the face with the very obvious fact that the Star Runner and Travis are two of a kind. Hey, summary writer, I kind of got that to begin with. You could have said something else instead, like, how Travis learns that it's not okay to be a narcissistic asshole, but no, we just get a promise that he's going to remain "wild" for the entirety of the book.

Okay, everybody, meet Travis. Travis is a troubled sixteen-year-old kid who wants to be the next F. Scott Fitzgerald. Basically, this means that Travis is a prick. Notice how I could have said that Travis aims to rise above his problems and become the next Great American Writer before succumbing to alcohol and then collapsing at a relatively young age. No, Travis is just a prick. You see that "epitome of cool" line at the beginning of the summary? Travis genuinely believes this.

So the deal here is that Travis has this stepfather, Stan. Stan is your typical evil stepparent. He slaps around Travis's mom, refuses to have any photo of Travis's dead dad in the house, and randomly burned some of Travis's manuscripts because he thought it was clutter and, of course, you burn clutter. In front of your stepson. Of course you do. So, unnaturally evil Stan basically sets himself up for a fight, and Travis doesn't hold back, which lands him in jail. When he gets out, his mom decides to defuse the situation by sending Travis to her dead husband's brother's ranch in Oklahoma for the school year.

In Oklahoma, Travis is plagued by suddenly not being cool and not being able to drink whiskey at home. Life is so, so hard. He's also forced to hang out with girls all the time, because Ken, the uncle, has a barn that he leases out to Casey, our resident horse loving girl. Casey is trying to figure out this Star Runner horse, who is not wild so much as mean. Travis describes Casey as good-looking, if she were a guy. I don't know what to take from this. There's also a hoard of other girls -- Kristen, Kelsey, Jennifer, and Robyn. Jennifer is the pretty one, and Robyn is the insane "fat one." By insane, I mean she spends most of her time snorting coke and walking around shirtless because she's "good at taking her clothes off" because she's been strip searched so often.

So the book continues on about how Travis thinks he's cool and how everyone in Oklahoma doesn't understand his coolness. Then he gets the notice that his book is being accepted by a publisher, and he decides it's time to party until he gets sick. Being sixteen, this would be a problem. Fortunately for Travis, Ken keeps some Crown Royal around and he more or less downs that and manages to slip unnoticed into a bar that you get the distinct impression isn't cool enough for Travis (at least, according to him). Only then the owner finds out he's not 21 and flips out and fires the bouncer and the bouncer kicks the living crap out of Travis. All the while Travis is drunk and convinced that he'd be able to "take" the bouncer if he was not drunk. However, seeing as how I once worked with a bouncer, I really highly...HIGHLY...doubt that this is possible. I also dislike this whole scene. Sure, no one likes underage kids in bars because mainly they're annoying, but no owner is going to flip out to that degree. Just escort the kid to the sidewalk and get on with your life. Who the hell cares?

Anyway, Ken picks Travis up and Travis is all self-important about being drunk while Ken is not impressed. Neither am I, really. Later on, Travis, through his hung over haze, kills a water moccasin and earns Casey's respect in doing so, only then he hears from his mom via phone that evil Stan is up to no good and wants to read Travis's book before they sign any contracts. You see, he wants to make sure he's not in the book. Travis flips and throws the phone, narrowly missing Ken's toddler. Ken briefly thinks about kicking Travis out because Ken's soon-to-be-ex-wife doesn't like it when phones are thrown at her toddler. Travis cries, and all is well because when main characters cry everyone seems to magically understand their plight.

At this point, the editor from the publishing house comes along and gets Travis talking about books and reading and whoa if that wasn't fun for Travis and boring for me. Travis admits that he tried to read a book by F. Scott Fitzgerald that involved sipping sherry and he didn't get it, giving all readers a chance to feel superior to Travis. The editor talks about cleaning up the language in his book a little and end scene. Travis skips along, thrilled that he's being published. His mom takes back what Stan said about reading the book, and all is well.

But then there's this horse show that goes on and on forever. The Star Runner dumps Casey and she cracks a rib, but rides the next day and wins, of course. Travis takes this opportunity to kiss her, because he randomly fell in love with her after he decided she was good-looking if she was a guy. Casey discourages any relationship, but acknowledges that Travis somehow knows her better than anyone. They are so alike...and...stuff.

Now, apparently Travis left a bit of a power vacuum back in whatever dirty city he came from and his friends fell in with this guy named Orson, who had them all robbing houses. He discovers this after the horse show when Joe, random dirty city friend, calls him up from the local gas station to inform Travis that he hitch hiked all the way to Oklahoma and had to jump out of a moving vehicle when the driver started to get a little squirrelly. Travis and Casey pick him up and Travis breaks out the Crown Royal and Joe tells his sob story about how Orson, "the twins" and he were robbing houses. Only the twins did a job by themselves without giving Orson anything, and Orson went insane and shot them point blank. In the head. With a twenty-two. Ken, being a lawyer, dumps Joe off with the authorities and they all drive back home in what appears to be one of those massive storms I so anxiously remember back when I used to live in tornado alley.

So this tornado comes along and they try to get the horses in, only the Star Runner gets out of his paddock. So Casey and Travis jump in her car and try to chase the Star Runner down. In so doing they very vaguely drive straight into the tornado. I guess the Star Runner gets away, or maybe dies, or something. S.E. Hinton got heavy on the melodrama at the end, so who knows. There was some reference to burning flesh, and Travis is deaf for a few days, and Casey is fine, but no longer interested in Travis, so Travis transfers his affection to Jennifer and starts to write his next book.

• They were flying, skimming the road, the Central guys left behind long ago, and nobody, man, nobody thought he'd get the car back down. Here, Travis oohs and ahhs us with his fantastic drag racing abilities while chugging beer. I guess they're going 115 and there's some question about if they can stop? I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but there are three ways you can get the car "back down." 1. Take your foot off the gas pedal. 2. Even more efficient, step on the break. 3. Probably less efficient, but no less effective, crash the car. All three work.

• Travis combed his hair, staring into the mirror with fixed concentration. He was good-looking. Probably one of the best-looking guys in the school. He had dark brown hair, not so long that he looked like one of the dopers, not so short that he looked like one of the straights, the student council preppies. Five foot eight. Not bad for sixteen, and by the size of his hands and feet he hadn't stopped growing yet. Good eyes. Great eyes, actually. Gray-green and as cool as the Irish sea. He had read a book about F. Scott Fitzgerald once, and it said he had eyes as cold as the Irish sea. Travis liked that. He secretly liked his eyelashes, too, a black fringe, as long as a girl's. He had a good build, long-boned and lean and flat-stomached, and that was the reason he liked tight T-shirts. Kirk was taller, and had broader shoulders, but Travis thought his own build was as good as any in the school. A lot of girls thought so. A lot. I love this paragraph, so I had to transcribe it here in all its glory. I laughed, and laughed, and, oh, I laughed again.

• On the plane, Travis takes his cat with him into the cabin and the guy next to him states his displeasure. Travis? "Yeah, well, I hear a lot of faggots hate cats."
  

• Because Travis isn't popular at his new school (believe me, this is like the end of the world for him) he takes to smoking cigarettes unnoticed on the baseball field or "in the library." Call me crazy, but I think someone would notice if you were smoking in the library.

• These damn suckers were making him doubt his looks. Travis notices, to his horror, that he has round ears and a pale face. He tries desperately to remember that he is a modern day Adonis...and I laugh and laugh some more.

• "You must dress like your characters." She had it backward, his characters dressed like he did. Yeah, we in the business of being critical because we can call that self-insertion.

• The editor asks Travis who he thinks would read his book and he replies: "Teenagers. Kids like me." He was sure they would because he'd read it and loved it. The fact that he's the author of said book has no bearing on this at all, I'm sure.

• At one of Casey's horse shows, in which Travis accompanies her as a groom, he discovers that the rest of the girls (as, apparently, only girls ride horses at horse shows) think he looks like a "sleazy punk." Horrified, again, he runs to a mirror. Again. What does he tell himself? His hair is too long to look punk! What do hicks know anyway? He's so cool at home! Which is Cleveland, by the way. So...I wouldn't throw stones, Travis. I really wouldn't.

• S.E. Hinton is obsessed with K's and hard C's. The names in this book: Kirk, Ken, Christopher, Kristen, Kelsey, Ms. Carmichael, Katherine Caroline Kencaide (Casey).
  

• We get a lot of unwarranted comparisons between Ken and Achilles. Yes, Achilles from Greek mythology. I'm not sure where this comes from, especially since it's supposed to draw out this line of thought that Ken was young and pushed the envelope too when he was 16 and is now 37 (which means he is old) so he is therefore supposed to be the mentor to Travis's what? Patroclus? I really don't understand how Achilles could be anyone's mentor. He was insane. You know, with the rage?
  

Okay, the only reason I sort of liked this book is because I had the impression that S.E. Hinton was making fun of Travis along with me. Otherwise, I really wanted someone to walk up to Travis and kick him in the groin. Repeatedly.

Although, perhaps she's not making fun of him because, from her website:

S.E. Hinton on the book:
Taming The Star-Runner is a horse story, a love story, and a story of the different forms art can take. And some of the things that happen to Travis, who wrote his first book at sixteen, happened to me. But not all, Thank God.

Well, take from that what you will.

(In light of some pretty crazy rabid Taming the Star Runner fans -- who knew, right? -- I regret to inform you all that commenting on this post is now closed. If you want to take issue with my opinion, e-mail me. I know, I know, making anonymous, misspelled comments is cute and fun for everyone, but this is getting a little weird.)

That Bonnie could never be trusted.

The Betrayal of Bonnie
by Barbara van Tuyl
Published: 1975

My friends, we have reached the end for Bonnie and Julie. I know it's hard to accept, but in time I feel we'll all be able to move on and lead fulfilling lives.

Racing Luck

Bonnie just had to win the Marquesa Stakes and make her racing comeback. Everyone said she was good enough to do it. And it would mean everything to Bonnie's owner, Julie Jefferson, lying in a hospital bed after a cruel accident at the track. Yet Bonnie's return to her remarkable winning form did not end the run of bad luck for Julie and her trainer Monty Everett. For Bonnie was showing up positive in the track tests for drugs, and that meant trouble with a capital T! After all, what good was winning if you were accused of cheating and barred from racing?

But who would dope Bonnie? And how could the Deepwater crew catch the culprit and put Monty and Bonnie back in racing again...?

Well, I am remarkably less enthused about this installment. I think it's possibly because it's finally gotten on my last nerve that everyone loves Julie Jefferson to the point of worshiping at her feet. Also, Julie pulls a bit of a Cindy McLean in this book, and as we all know that's enough to set me on edge. Give me another seriously injured girl who won't shut up about winning races/seeing races/assisting the super special horse that needs her sublime presence and won't listen to medical advice to the point that she finds herself half-paralyzed and sprawled on a hospital floor...and I don't know what I will do. Probably start weeping as I hold the book to an open flame. Yeah...something melodramatic like that.

So, as we all know from several previous installments, Bonnie is the best racing filly that ever was. Julie is the most loved girl in horse racing, if not the world. Bonnie, however, has suffered some horrible luck and as a result got injured, suffered through some crazy breeding adventure, gave birth to twins, and is now back on the track looking at a come back. Everyone is thrilled except for Monty, who is simply cautiously optimistic. Monty is awesome, I have decided. He's really the only one who acts like he has a brain.

The book opens up with exercising Bonnie, and I guess she's training so well that Monty starts mentioning this Marquesa Stakes thing and this somehow leads him to a pancake house with Julie. They eat pancakes. I guess. I don't know...I read that part quite a while ago. I just know that this scene ends during a rainstorm and in the middle of the storm, while they're driving back to the farm, Julie sees "something alive" on the side of the road. Just guess what it is. Guess. I bet you will get it right on the first try.

It's another dog. Someone ran over it (while it was, like, not raining!) and left it to die. Yeah, poor it. I didn't really care all that much because all I was thinking was "Really? Another damned dog?" Monty is kinda thinking the same thing, proof positive for why he's awesome. Unfortunately Julie wears the pants in their non-relationship and insists that they take the dog to this vet and then she comes up with this idea that she'll open an animal shelter at Deepwater Farm and because Mr. T is rich he says sure? Something like that. And she keeps the dog. She names it Barney or something along those lines. She now has a Beagle, a St. Bernard, and this new dog, which is an Irish Wolfhound. How she manages this, I really don't know.

Moving on, Bonnie continues to be fantastic. Everyone exclaims on how fantastic she is. Oh, to be so fantastic! Then Julie kinda sorta gets squished by a crazy run away and injures her back. This is the END OF THE WORLD for everyone, pretty much. Because, as previously stated, Julie is everyone's personal Jesus in these books. So Bonnie's stakes race comes along and by that point there's been this long hospital drama I don't care to get into because there was all of that "but I have to see the race!" and more "like hell you do!" and more "but I really can walk! oh, wait... *collapses*" and then some "well, okay, but as long as you stay in your wheelchair..." and by that point I wanted someone to run a car over her.

But then Bonnie wins! Oh, bliss! She wins her race by seventeen lengths and sets a new track record of 2:01 and something which doesn't impress me. Everyone is thrilled. Only then they have to test her and a couple of days later they are informed that her tests are "cloudy" but not positive...so, yeah. Monty screams a lot and the racing secretary guy just sort of shrugs and since they are "cloudy" they are not disqualified? Well, whatever. It doesn't really matter because this means Julie has to immediately ask Monty why he did it. Wow, that's friendship for you.

Monty is suitably crushed. The girl he loves and wants to marry instantly suspects him of doping her equine soul mate. What is a boy to do? So everyone finally gets over Julie's super shininess to tell her she was being a bitch to Monty, and she's still determined to blame him because she figures he couldn't handle seeing her disappointed or some such.

Now, granted, Monty has been treating her like glass for five books now. I understand Julie's frustration because she's something like 22 at this point and I imagine she just wants to have sex already. Monty still sees her as a child, but really, it's just ridiculous. So then Julie finally realizes that this can't possibly be right. Monty wouldn't do such a thing because he's awesome.

So another race comes along. Bonnie wins by eleven or twelve lengths or something. She comes back with another positive test. Monty freaks again. Julie freaks. Everyone freaks. What's more, Monty gets suspended so they have to move Bonnie off to another trainer. Mr. T is NOT HAPPY. But because he's rich and therefore powerful, he pushes his weight around and gets Bonnie put in a stable to herself with 24/7 guard so she'll be under watch constantly. It is, theoretically, impossible for this horse to be tampered with. So what happens? Yeah, she comes back from another race (she wins it by ten lengths) and has yet another positive result. All hell breaks loose because at this point they're all questioning each other and so forth.

Mr. T has had it. He's ready to pull Bonnie off the track. But then someone comes up with the idea to send Bonnie to Cornell. Because they have some fancy lab equipment that they can put to use testing their horse to see if she'll randomly test positive for amphetamines. As it turns out, she does. So apparently she's just special and producing her own steroids? Well, whatever is happening, Bonnie is the source of all the drama because her metabolism changed after her pregnancy and no matter what she'll keep spitting out false positives.

I have no idea if this is possible. With people, kidney and liver disease will give you a false positive for amphetamines...as well as diabetes...but I don't know how this works for horses. I have no interest in finding out, either. As it happens.

Anyway, everyone is happy. Monty finally asks Julie to marry him and she says yes.

• Monty is as "hopelessly tongue-tied as a bashful lad out of the summer of 1875." Were lads especially bashful in the summer of 1875, or is this a reference I'm not catching?

• "The other boys would have loved to beat [Sunbonnet]. I know for a fact the boy on Ruby Frump bet a bundle on [Sunbonnet]..." Yeah, that's not possible. Jockeys can only bet races through the owner of the horse they're riding, only on the horse they're riding, and only to win. Also, who names a horse Ruby Frump?

So, there's nothing else to say. Except that I think I'm going to try out a Nancy Drew book called The Riding Club Crime next. I may have been tempted to read it solely because the cover depicts a girl and horse falling over Niagara Falls. I couldn't help wondering how they get out of that one.

Genuine Risk

Genuine Risk
1977-2008

Typically, we're all books all the time here, but you can't ignore Genuine Risk. She was basically our Wonder, after all.

The oldest Kentucky Derby winner is now Alysheba.

Does flannel turn you on? Well? Does it?

Paradise County
by Karen Robards

Sure, I said I was going to read The Betrayal of Bonnie, but when it came right down to it, Karen Robards started to look all enticing again. I can't explain it, especially considering Karen Robards single-handedly inspired the books to avoid tag when I read Hunter's Moon. I think I was convinced this was the book for me when I went to its Amazon page and found reviews simply stating "ew."

Also, according to the Amazon page, Paradise County's "sensuality rating" is an eight. I didn't really know what this meant, considering Amazon has no guideline that I could find that lists what is to be expected from a book with a sensuality rating of eight. If this is on a scale from one to ten, ten being explicit sex on each page and one being accidental skin contact resulting in innocent blushing, Amazon doesn't say and thus I was intrigued enough to find out for myself.

So, one of the summaries I found that is shorter than having to type the ridiculously long (for this book) summary on the book jacket:

Grief-stricken at her father's suicide and struggling to cope with the collapse of the family businesses, photographer Alexandra Haywood travels to her family's thoroughbred horse farm in Paradise County, Kentucky. She cannot understand why her father would take his life, and her journey to Whistledown Farm is driven by her need for answers as well as the need to sell the farm. Sparks fly when she encounters farm manager Joe Welch, and Alexandra is yanked from the cold lethargy of grief that has gripped her emotions since her father's death. She doesn't want to be attracted to the handsome, difficult man but her hormones refuse to cooperate. Joe doesn't want to crave the gorgeous blond who intends to sell the farm and destroy his dreams, but he, too, has no choice.

The two have bigger problems, however, when a crazed killer whose heinous crimes have gone undetected in Paradise County for many years targets Alexandra. Before Joe can save her, his own son and her young sister may also fall victim to the madman.

On the book jacket, Alex is referred to as a "rich rhymes-with-witch." That's really the only thing I'd like to point out there. Also, the county isn't actually called "Paradise." It's Shelby County (Motto: Good Land, Good Living, Good People). People just love it so much they call it Paradise.

Moving on, Joe wakes up one night and suspects that something is wrong. Immediately he thinks this is parental intuition telling him one of this three children is off being unruly and/or disobedient. Thrilled with the opportunity to be a disciplinarian, Joe hunts down all of his children, shocked to find them all in the house. I deduce from this that Joe is not a very good father. Plus, what is it with Karen Robards needing to have main characters with tons of kids? Especially when the book has a sensuality rating of eight? (Whatever that means.)

So he decides that since he's up he's going to check the horses. This naturally leads to the discovery of a body, who happens to be his boss. And it's a suicide. Or so they think. Naturally, because they think it's a suicide, you know it's not a suicide. Especially when every so often a chapter comes along that's told from the viewpoint of "the predator." The predator slips out of the barn and is kind of annoyed because things didn't go according to plan, so he has to go taser some kids at a rest stop. Bully for him.

Anyway, we skip forward a few weeks to Alex, the dead guy's daughter. She's pretty much liquidating everything because her dad sucks at business and was going bankrupt. The farm is last on her list of things to deal with, and she wants to do it personally because if she brought her lawyers with her that would have probably gotten in the way of the potential sex she could have with Joe, the farm's trainer or foreman or only worker on the place. Now that I think about it. He's really the only one there. So she meets with Joe and he immediately doesn't like her and really doesn't like it when she basically fires him on the spot. Then he remembers that he has this contract thing that means he can't be fired until next December. Alex is not impressed because she has no money to pay him with anyway and essentially tells him to go to hell. But then her asshole fiance has to call so he can randomly tell her that he got married yesterday to someone who is richer than her. One cannot climb the social ladder with a girl who has a bankrupted, dead father, after all.

And then Alex's half-sister, Neely, magically appears from her boarding school to tell Alex what she already knows and that Joe is "sex on a stick." Neely, unfortunately, is going to be sticking around for the remainder of the book. As soon as the two girls decide to stay the night in the house, weird things start happening and Alex gets knocked over the head, resulting in a wild dash out of the house in the rain to Joe's house, which is conveniently located at the bottom of the hill. Because it's November, Alex is all wet and chilled and woozy. This, naturally, means they both have to get in the shower. This, naturally, leads to sexual awakenings. Although there is no comfort-turned-sex, thankfully. Instead he takes her to the hospital like a sensible person.
On the way to the hospital, she sees a person on the second floor porch. Joe thinks this isn't possible. Alex thinks it might be the ghost of her dead father. Or the person who knocked her out. Either way, they don't find it and the next day they have sex because...well, I don't really know why. They just do because it seems like a good idea and she doesn't want to regret not having sex with him, I guess. But then she sort of says her ex's name and he gets all pissy again. The mood is killed, so he tells her to get her crap together because the power is out in the house and she can't stay there without power and she refuses and then they wind up chasing each other around the house, which gets interrupted by Neely. So she does have a purpose after all, which is to save us from Joe and Alex killing each other.

Instead of staying with Joe, Alex hauls Neely off to the Dixie Inn. The predator is thrilled about this, calling the inn "ground zero," as I guess he has tiny cameras in each room. This would suggest that he lives there or owns the inn, which sort of kills the mystery of who the guy is. Anyway, Alex gets a letter the next day (she's been in there a grand total of two days) because the phones have been out for a whole day, making this letter (its existence possible only because the lines are down) the fastest delivered letter on the face of the earth. The letter is from Alex's lawyer, who tells her all about this story the papers are running in Philadelphia about how Alex's dad is a jerk, and tells her to stay in Kentucky for a while longer because reporters are camped out at her house in Philly. Like they don't know about the farm and can't camp out there? Well, whatever. She decides to stay in Kentucky, giving her time to go to a bonfire by way of wagon for the local high school's upcoming basketball game.

Meanwhile, Joe learns his ex-wife died. I didn't care.

So they get in the wagon and hay ride their way to the bonfire, where they discover that they should really take the next few weeks to discover if they can stand each other. They arrive at the bonfire with the kids, proceed to abandon the kids, and troop off into the woods. You know what this means? It's time for wilderness sex! On a picnic table. Who knows where that table came from. Anyway, they are interrupted by Neely and Joe's oldest kid, Eli, who are smoking pot in the woods and drinking beer. The world ends. Then Joe's dad manages to get completely belligerently drunk and makes a scene. The world ends again. Joe yells at Eli to take Neely home while he and Alex take his dad back to his house. Drama ensues some more as his dad keeps yelling and basically wrestles with the sheriff as they try to force him into the car.

Meanwhile, the predator is just having the best time of his life. He's at the farm house in Alex's room, setting up cameras everywhere. Only then Neely and Eli have to interrupt him. He's not so thrilled anymore.

As Eli and Neely are dealing with the crazy guy, Joe and Alex have determined that they are in love. More sex happens while Joe's dad sleeps it off in the other room. The predator takes Eli and Neely down to the basement of the farm house, where he has apparently set up shop with no one noticing, and shoots Eli. Yeah, don't worry too much. Eli just bleeds a lot, but fails to die. Neely puts up a fight, and inspired by a disembodied voice that sounds like her father, she takes off one of her socks and ties it around the neck of their cat, who I guess followed them down into the basement.

So, taking a break from the craziness for a minute, I had to wonder exactly what she expected the cat to do. Realistically. Fictionally, the cat ran back up to the main floor and alerted Alex to the insanity happening in the basement. Would a cat do this in the real world? Well, I've got a cat, and I decided to test the theory on her. This was the result:

So, this is Phoebe with a blue sock tied loosely around her neck. Notice her uncomfortable sitting position. This is what I call Phase One.

Phoebe protests the sock. This is Phase Two. Phase Two lasts a matter of seconds.

This is Phase Three. Phoebe plops onto the ground, looks uncomfortable, and glares at me. She's moved all of one square foot, mainly during her brief attempt to struggle, before deciding to put up with it and humor me. Don't worry, I took the sock off right after this photo and she's now busy grooming herself on the sofa. Perhaps she'll get some tuna later as a reward.

Having completed my experiment, I have determined that a cat would never allow someone to tie a sock around its neck with expectations that it would walk up a flight of stairs. Supernatural forces must have been at work. As it turns out, they are.

Alex find the sock, but can't do much because the predator emerges from a closet or something and attacks her. He hauls her into the basement and taunts her for a while before telling her his grand plan, which I guess was to lock her up in the basement and have deviant sex with her until he got sick of it and eventually burned her alive. Only then Joe shows up. Sensing that his plan has gone awry, the predator (who is the owner of the Dixie Inn, but we really don't care enough to take note of this) sets everything on fire and goes back to the inn. Only everyone escapes and lives and because the killer was stupid the police find him without having to do much work. It also turns out that the killer guy had killed dozens of people and was keeping their bodies stored in a passageway leading from the basement. You would think the whole house would smell considering there were twenty-four bodies in there, but nope. Then Joe and Alex get married and this horse that Joe's dad is all crazy for wins an important race at Gulfstream.

Also, Alex's father is now at peace and he can go float away to heaven now. Apparently he was the person she saw on the balcony that night. So he waves at her and Neely and then drifts off. Seriously.

Possibly interesting, but more probably confusing points:

• Sucking on someone's tongue. Is this possible, and, more importantly, would you be turned on or disturbed if it happened to you?

• Sucking on body parts through cashmere. Again, is this a turn on or weird?

• Describing someone's weight as "a body bag full of wet cement" when they're on top of you...a turn on or disturbing? You know, just forget it. Please.
  

• "Daddy Studmuffin. You did him. I can tell." Wow. I just don't have words.

• The way to a man's heart was through his dick, and anyone who didn't know that didn't know crap about men. Really. I enjoy it when romance novels are as blatantly stereotypical as humanly possible. Karen is really good at this.

• She actually used the phrase "rocked her world." And here is where I should stop reading. Of course, I'm not going to. However, for the record, I am skimming at this point.

• Mouths in this book are always "hot and wet and demanding" or "hot and wet and devastating."

• He was hot, sweaty, and his breath was stertorous in her ear. Okay, let's pick out the word that is most awkward in this sentence. Did you pick "stertorous?" Good! Now, pick up a dictionary. Stertor means "a heavy snoring sound accompanying respiration in certain diseases." I really don't think that's what Karen was going for. Even outside of pathology, it basically means the guy is snoring. Yet...he is awake? Joe is a mysterious man who may or may not have lung disease, I guess.

• Everyone wears flannel at some point in this book, and Joe especially likes it because he wears it all the time. I haven't been more annoyed at the repetition of the word "flannel" before now.

So...it's actually better than Hunter's Moon. But, you know, that doesn't say anything at all.

This book killed my ability to think of an interesting title. TB #34: On the Track

On The Track
Thoroughbred #34
by Lois Szymanski
Published: 1999



Well, clearly this is probably the most boring cover to come along since Shining's Orphan. Here Melanie shows us how not to lead a horse as she goes unsupervised. I guess she's just really thrilled by the prospect of possibly being trampled, but I've never seen anyone walk a horse around like that. On top of this irritating lack of fundamental horse sense, this cover is just ugly. Everything about it is horrible. From the yellow and black Whitebrook Farm sweatshirt to the background. The horse is the only thing that escapes being truly horrifying, only to fall into the category of boring.

Another tough choice...

Ever since Melanie Graham came to live with her cousin Christina Reese, she's had her eye on the track. She wants to be an exercise rider, and maybe one day, a winning jockey. With her aunt Ashleigh's Thoroughbreds. And she loves it. Finally, she's discovered her calling.
But Christina is jealous. She's been acting weird ever since Melanie began working with Ashleigh. Melanie desperately wants to continue her training, but is it worth losing her cousin's friendship?

I guess somewhere along the way, Melanie decided she wanted to be a jockey. This is proving to be a little difficult for her because, as we all know, Christina doesn't like it when her friends branch out. Being friends with Christina means you must be into jumping/eventing, and if you dare express interest in something else, however minor, forget it. She'll turn on you faster than you can blink. Unfortunately for Melanie, she's also got to deal with the fact that she's Christina's cousin and she's taking up Christina's mother's all time favorite love, horse racing. Because Ashleigh appears to have tried everything short of locking Christina in a jockey's room to get her to like exercise riding, Christina is even more livid about the situation, momentarily forgetting that she LIKES EVENTING. Say it with her: EVENTING. Thus she can be jealous of Melanie and pissed off that she dislikes racing so much when everyone else thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread.

So this is how our merry tale starts. Melanie gets the chance to learn how to exercise ride. She tells Christina about how excited she is. Christina demands to know why Melanie just won't settle for dressage and jumping like all her other friends she forced into line several books ago. Undaunted, Melanie persists in learning how to exercise ride, unwittingly being ostracized by Christina in the meantime. Because when Christina gets pissed off, she not only stops speaking to you, she cuts your group of friends out from under you also. She's such a lovely child, that one.

Because Melanie, like, rides one horse in the morning and appears to be doing nothing else that takes up her time more than it did previously when she was ponying with Pirate, she starts to miss out on things her friends are doing. Mainly because Christina casually "forgets" to tell her about any of these plans. When Melanie does get in the know thanks to Kevin, Christina further attempts to cut Melanie out of the group by changing the topic to shows and things that Melanie clearly has no say in. Lovely! Nicely done, Chris. Way to be a bitch.

Forlorn that Christina is being a heinous witch, Melanie forges on with her plan to super exercise rider princess. But then her dad has to call and send those plans spiraling. Ashleigh, for some inexplicable reason, didn't ask Will's permission to let Melanie ride race horses and Will is naturally a little peeved and forbids Melanie to ride until further notice. He tells Melanie to have Ashleigh call him...the stupidest thing a parent could ever say...and essentially gives Melanie the chance to procrastinate. Procrastinate she does, despite Christina's threats to tell Ashleigh. But then Melanie rides Pride's Perfection (just one of the really stupid names in this book) and Perfection stumbles and falls and scrapes Melanie up and everyone gets minorly injured and Melanie has to have some flashback to Milky Way.

Naturally this gives Melanie a chance to feel sorry for herself and mope. Kevin tries to cheer her up, but Christina isn't having it. She keeps hounding at Melanie and reinforces Melanie's belief that she's a walking accident. Melanie's low self-esteem, which usually cruises at a low altitude anyway, starts to nosedive. Just when Melanie can't continue with keeping this disapproval from Ashleigh, Christina tells Ashleigh anyway and Ashleigh is all pissed and has Will come out to Whitebrook to deal with his daughter. Ashleigh, you suck at being a legal guardian. Honestly.

So Melanie realizes it's all her fault and has a nice little heart to heart with Christina, who confirms all of Melanie's theories that Christina was upset that Melanie was hogging all of her mother's time and making her feel like she'd let Ashleigh down by not liking racing. Melanie admits to liking the attention. Will comes along and, in true Thoroughbred spirit, the kids come up with a plan to get Will to magically understand Melanie's true desires. Naturally, this plan is to saddle up the horse Melanie has worked with most -- Heart of Stone -- and work the horse from the gate, by themselves, totally without any consideration to the horse's training schedule. Because once he sees how fantastic Melanie is, he'll relent and let her do whatever she wants and because this is fiction, it works.

...

Did you think the book was over? Oh, sorry! It's not. We have two more chapters to get through, for some reason. So, everyone gets a chance to bond and eat and be nostalgic over Ashleigh's trophies. Then Ashleigh lets Melanie, Kevin, and Naomi do some mock race because it will be fun? Or something. Then they go to the "Keeneland Acres Yearling Sale" and sell some yearlings. Then they go home. Fun. Why those two chapters were there, I really don't know. The book should have ended at page 137, but I guess some editor somewhere screamed about word limits and reading levels and thus we got another twenty-five pages.

• This book is set a few weeks after Racing Parker, but I am extremely confused as to what season we're in now (which is, finally, autumn, for all of us keeping track) because Melanie keeps checking in on this Perfect Heart mare to monitor her pregnancy. There are some nice indicators of what a mare is doing a week or so before birth, but considering this is, at the very latest, October, we are so far off the mark it's not even funny.

• First Perfect Heart is in foal to Pride's Chance, and then I guess she's in foal to Wonder's Pride?

• Kevin has a "deep voice" now. He is twelve. With all the adam's apples, broad shoulders, and deep voices running amok among twelve-year-old boys in Thoroughbred I'm beginning to wonder about our dear authors.

• Wow, Christina is not letting go of that crazy Central Park ride from practically ten books ago any time soon, is she?

• So what had made Christina suddenly act so cold and distant? I think the answer to this is that Lois Szymanski got really bad luck in writing assignments. Yeah...I think that's pretty much it.

• "I heard Lethal Leopard is going to be running in this race." "Hmmm, where did you hear that?" Oh my God, it's the day of the race. WHERE could you POSSIBLY find ALL the entries listed in ONE CONVENIENT PLACE? Ian tells Ashleigh that he read an article where the owner of the horse mentions they're running her in a September maiden race at Keeneland (which means this is September? What the hell is up with that?) and this is where his knowledgeable opinion is based. Just...let me stick a fork in my eye repeatedly because that would be more enjoyable than reading this.

• "Let Faith save her energy. Keep her on Leopard's tail and then, boom, pass her in the backstretch!" ...this exclamation point seems to indicate that Ian is excited by the possibility of this shitty idea actually working. Who makes a move in the backstretch like that and actually expects to win? Really?

• Apparently horses first enter the paddock upon coming back from the race? What country is this?

• Congratulations, Whitebrook. Perfect Heart gives birth in September or October, officially making them completely incompetent. Good luck hiding that foal until January!

• The horse names in this book are beyond annoying: Perfect Heart, Pride's Perfection, Pride's Chance, Heart of Stone, Pride's Heart...

• Ashleigh makes everyone promise to come see the kiddies ride their race or whatever and Tor bows out because he has to work on Saturday...wow, even Lois, who wrote a grand total of one book for this series, keeps with the Tor's so busy trend. It's a little unsettling. It's like everyone got together, decided he was a cheating asshole, and decided to give him lots of opportunities to mysteriously slip away so he can be busy.

• Because this book will not end, despite all conflicts and plot points having been wrapped up a chapter ago, the kids get into Ashleigh's trophies and scrapbooks or whatever. Ashleigh: "Oh, my, that was so long ago." Ashleigh, you are 36. Please start acting like it.

• The 85th Annual Keeneland Acres Yearling Sale? There's a Keeneland September Yearling Sale. Where the hell this "acres" comes from I'm not too sure.

• I guess Samantha stumbled into some serious money between Racing Parker and On the Track because she just went from bowing out of buying Foxglove for $6,000 to buying some unnamed and probably immediately forgotten filly for $15,500.

Anyway, I'm going to have to wait for Dead Heat, and since I don't think the public system has Without Wonder I believe I'm going to be forced to buy it. In the meantime, Bonnie and Julie are next. Then I'm sure I'll find something amusing to blog about while Dead Heat remains in limbo. Cheers.

Love triangles, Thoroughbred style! or TB #33, Racing Parker

Racing Parker
Thoroughbred #33
by Dale Gasque
Published: 1999

I don't know if I can shed much more light on Racing Parker, given that Claire did just a wonderful job the first time around. But I will try to point out a few more things in this book. And yeah, they might be totally Brad Townsend related. I'm not apologetic about this. Obviously.


These covers just don't get better, do they? This is a scene from the book, but it's taken completely out of context and makes Christina look like the wild one as Parker is left looking at her like she's lost it or something. Also, don't they both look remarkably pink?

A Reckless Decision

Christina Reese is confident that her horse, Sterling, is ready for higher jumps. But Christina's trainer, Mona, won't let her move up to training level. Christina feels as if she and Sterling are being held back unfairly.

Then Christina meets Parker Townsend. If he can handle training level, then why can't she? Maybe Christina lacks experience, but Sterling has talent to spare. They're a perfect match! How far will Christina go to prove she's as good as Parker?

I've been reading Brideshead Revisited this week, unaware until I opened up Blogger that Racing Parker is the perfect Thoroughbred companion to Evelyn Waugh. Can't you just imagine Parker graduating from his English private school, going to Oxford, and then eating strawberries and consuming champagne while smoking Turkish cigars with other wealthy Oxfordites (who may, or may not, be obsessed with stuffed animals) before running off and sleeping with those wealthy Oxfordite's dysfunctional sisters? Yes, I think you can. Or maybe it's just me.

Well, anyway. Racing Parker is the Brad/Mike/Ashleigh love triangle that never happened. Usually I absolutely hate love triangles because most of the time the main couple is obvious and the third party is just a seductive smile and a crooked finger that lures one of them into unfaithfulness or something and it goes absolutely nowhere. Jean/Logan/Scott from X-Men, Bella/Jacob/Edward from Twilight, Marian/Guy/Robin from Robin Hood...I mean, honestly. What is so enticing about this besides the fact that I am always...always...rooting for the love triangle to break up the established pair? When does this ever happen? Never, that's when. Lucky me, Thoroughbred is here to answer my cry for mercy on my little shipper heart. Unfortunately it decided to do this about 29 books too late with a different set of characters completely. Damn it.

Racing Parker was big news when it came on the scene back in 1999. Samantha and Tor reappeared, Mona is (apparently?) marginalized (finally), and Parker (previously Ross, which makes more sense in a Townsend way given the fact that almost every person I've ever met who has a trust fund is named after their mother's maiden name...it's like an illness) and Brad and Lavinia and Clay Townsend. It's like a giant family reunion where everyone squabbles at each other before some misfortune lands everyone in a hospital. So given all the returning characters, it's got to be good. Dale Gasque sort of lives up to expectations.

However, the book opens up again with Christina being all petulant about how she knows Sterling. Sterling is talented. No one understands Sterling like she does. Blah blah blah. Mona wants to keep her at novice for a while longer. The world ends. Blah blah blah. Then Parker comes onto the scene, and I've got to say I really liked Parker, which is unfortunate because I never really paid attention to him previously. He is definitely Brad Townsend's son in this book. Or, well, he's the son of Brad Townsend when Brad's busy being awesome.

Because Samantha is back in Kentucky and I guess living at Tor's old stable that now actually has a name, she's busy buying horses while Tor is busy being mysteriously absent. I do not trust that man, and I have a feeling most of the other writers don't either considering how often he's not around. At this auction, we meet Foxglove, Clay and Parker. Clay buys Foxglove for Parker, trying to get him preoccupied with something so he won't get bored and accidentally get himself kicked out of another private school again. Parker is appreciative, but considering he goes and rides a motorcycle through his school later on I don't think he's being very serious about this promise. That said, because he is just about as dashing as a fourteen-year-old boy fresh from England can be, Christina immediately starts blushing and goes tongue tied in his presence. Parker, with his dark hair and gray eyes, is just too much for her to resist.

But resist she does! Christina likes Dylan, despite still maintaining some sort of silly friend policy with him, easily allowing herself to slip away without feeling too remarkably guilty later. Despite her repeated assurances to herself that she likes Dylan, Parker keeps slipping in to whisper in her ear to the point that you have to remind yourself that Christina is twelve. Do that enough and this book starts feeling remarkably weird. Anyway, Parker has a horse now and he rides that horse like he was born to do it, and Christina is further smitten. Then Parker's asshole and devilish riding starts turning her on, so you know it's only a matter of time. Parker is succeeding fantastically in his seducer role without even having to try all that hard. Big bonus points for Parker.

Dylan, meanwhile, is losing to Parker in just about everything. During the hunt picnic, Parker beats him in their race thing. At the hunt ball, Parker gains most of the attention and cuts in on a dance between Dylan and Christina, winning himself a riding partner in Christina at some paired jumping thingamajig because Christina is too busy being flustered at falling into him to really think about what she's saying. Dylan is not thrilled about this development, but he's got to go to Ohio for a wedding and this leaves Christina free to jump with Parker at their event whatever it's called. Because Parker is reckless (which is probably why he's so blatantly winning Christina over), his attitude starts to rub off on Christina. Christina, who tends to let this crap happen to her far too much, takes after his example and starts to push Sterling again. The thing is, however, that Sterling is relishing the challenge. Perhaps Mona has been wrong all this time! (Which, at this point, is not remarkable.) Therefore at the upcoming event, Christina goes back on her form and puts herself into training level instead of novice. Everyone reacts with displeasure, but Christina sticks to her decision, blatantly uses her mother's past with Wonder in efforts to get what she wants, and succeeds.

Only then Parker has to go be reckless some more and wrecks into a cross country jump, bringing everything back to reality for Christina, who realizes how stupid she was being. Parker goes off to the hospital, Christina discovers how depressed and crazed for attention Parker is, and then confronts the Townsends about it. They react by deciding not to ship Parker off to another private school and Parker is determined to not be an asshat anymore by doing the right thing by Foxy, who is now going to live at Samantha's place while Parker heals up and works around the barn. The book ends with Dylan still in a tentative lead for Christina's twelve-year-old heart because he's been such a good guy, according to Christina. However, considering Christina finds him about as stimulating as an old stuffed animal, I doubt that's going to last long.

Points (which, yes, have mostly to do with Brad):

• Gasque helpfully informs us, through Dylan, that Samantha wouldn't want to be around racehorses as her mother died because of one. Not like this fact EVER STOPPED HER IN PRE-GASQUE HISTORY or anything.

• He seemed too self-assured to be one of the Townsend Acres grooms. ...what? Are all grooms naturally self-conscious or is this something Brad Townsend drills into them upon signing their W-4?

• Brad Townsend was one of those trainers that looked like he'd never gotten his hands dirty. Okay, I have several issues with this statement: 1) if it looks like he's never gotten his hands dirty, it's probably because he's mainly an owner. 2) Just because he's clean we're supposed to dislike him? 3) Since when is Brad clean, anyway? He was always out on horseback before Gasque had to go Handi Wipe him to death.

• He was one of Ashleigh's least liked people in the racing world. Yeah, but only in the racing world. Excuse me while I giggle at this.

• "I don't know why he's always felt so competitive with Ashleigh." Oh, please. I've got a ton of valid theories, along with the ones that involve him secretly lusting after her and hating her for it, so I think Gasque could have gone out on a limb instead of doing the literary equivalent of a helpless shrug.

• Brad had almost messed up Wonder's chances of winning the Kentucky Derby by overracing her in the weeks leading up to it. Uh, she ran three times before the Kentucky Derby. In the course of four months. I don't think it gets more normal than that.

• I have waited so many books for Brad's return and his first line in this book is "That's the way, kid!" as he pumps his fist in the air. I so disagree with this line. Blah.

• Parker is exciting and funny, but Dylan is as comfortable to be with as Rags. Christina's turmoil over the boys reaches a critical point. For all those not in the know, Rags is a stuffed animal. I don't know about anyone else, but I think when you're comparing a potential love interest to a stuffed animal, your mind has pretty much made itself up.

• Dale Gasque is a little too obsessed with adam's apples. I mean, I'm as appreciative of male-specific human anatomy as the next...person who's interested in those things...but come on. Plus, considering adam's apples pretty much only develop during puberty, these are some freakishly fast developing kids.

• One thing I love about this book is Lavinia's character. I always thought Joanna Campbell had it totally wrong when she had Lavinia exercising racehorses. I just didn't see that as even remotely plausible considering who Lavinia was. In fact, I'm dead positive it was just another way to pin unfortunate accidents on the Townsends and Lavinia was the most convenient way for those accidents to happen. Gasque makes it known that Lavinia has no respect for anyone in the lower levels of racing, including exercise riders, which I think is far more realistic in regards to how much of a bitch Lavinia is.

• That said, I don't like how she handled Brad and Mr. Townsend. It's like the two have completely reversed roles. Brad was always the one that led Clay around by the nose, with extremely brief moments of lucidity shown on Clay's part. Brad actually acting like a shamed kid at the age of 38 or something is just not right. Clay Townsend acting like he actually cares about anything besides his work...just not right.

• "What charm school did she flunk out of?" Precisely, Melanie. Lavinia really was perfect this time around.

So yeah, you know, I need to put an end note here or something. On the Track is next and then I think I'll finish up the crazy/insane adventures we have come to know as Bonnie and Julie's canine-ridden journey through horse racing scandal heaven.

In which Thoroughbred returns to racing, and seems to enjoy random violence.

Cassidy's Secret
by Allison Estes
Thoroughbred #32
Published: 1999

Man, this book is something else. Really, I had no idea all those horrible, completely absurd fan fics over at whitebrookfarm.com actually could be considered based on canon. How wrong I was.

God, I was so right. The most we see of snow in Cassidy's Secret is a really mundane conversation about how it might be a mild winter considering they're currently experiencing an Indian summer. Where this snowy cover comes from...anyone's guess. Actually, I don't understand how this cover applies to anything in the book at all. The girl...clearly Cassidy. The guy...who knows? The horses? Who knows. The western saddles? Who knows? It's essentially one big what the hell?

Will Cassidy tell the truth, even if it means losing her horse?

Cassidy Smith is worried. Her filly, Lady T, is running against a champion racehorse, Pizzazz. Cassidy's family needs the prize money desperately. Without it, they can't afford to keep Lady T.

Then Cassidy discovers that Pizzazz has been injured -- and his owner is planning to run him anyway. If Pizzazz runs on his bad leg, he could be ruined forever! Cassidy knows she should tell her dad to stop the race. But then the Smith's won't win the money they need -- and they'll have to sell Lady T for sure. How can Cassidy protect Pizzazz without losing her beloved filly?

Wow, where do I begin? I have so many questions, first of all. Like, the editors are now forcing racing back into the fold, but instead of taking the obvious path with Melanie they decide to shuffle off this task onto Cassidy. What kind of crazy sense does that make? On top of that, who the hell really cares about Cassidy? I certainly don't care. That said, Cassidy's got a lot of issues. Let me show you them.

First of all, her dad sucks. We've got to slam some backstory into this book to make all of this even remotely plausible, so Cassidy takes care of that in the first few chapters. Essentially, she moved to Kentucky because her father's owners (her dad used to be a wildly successful thoroughbred trainer, and the Kentucky Derby was name dropped a few times, so we know it's an unrealistic sort of successful) went crazy and killed their own horses. I don't remember why, exactly, but they wanted ultimately to claim the insurance and tried to burn down Cassidy's father's stables. Let me tell you now how stupid this evil plot is: a) it was a localized fire right where the targeted horses were, b) the fire didn't even do any damage and c) the owners poisoned the horses also just in case that fire thing didn't turn out. So, they didn't get their insurance money anyway and Cassidy's dad wound up slapped with a six month suspension because someone has to take blame. And the thing is, this isn't even the stupidest plot in this book. No, it gets better.

So, Cassidy is all with the inner turmoil over having to tell her friends this, especially when she has to add on the fact that her parents are now in a financial crisis. Hey, you know, perhaps they shouldn't have moved from Miami in the first place. You know? But this is further improbable considering they own this Lady T horse and he was a wildly successful trainer, so six months shouldn't matter unless they are the stupidest people on earth. Apparently they are extremely stupid, and they also moved on top of it. So they're stupid.

Anyway, Cassidy tells everyone that Lady T is running in the Ruffian Handicap and she wants to see the race live, so they all go to Whitebrook to watch the race. Lady T wins, but the purse is so teeny tiny it doesn't mean much (like, what?). Ashleigh takes some time out to tell them all this absolutely ridiculous story about when she and Brad went to Gulfstream together. (I am envisioning so many fan fic plots for this already that I will tell you now my mind went a little wild...it was good times.) Apparently he only got stalls for his horses, because he likes to see Ashleigh suffer and cry, and so Ashleigh cried and felt sorry for herself until Cassidy's dad showed up and let her use some of his stalls. Seriously, Ashleigh, grow a backbone already. All she had to do was go throw her weight around with admin...it's not like they would have refused her space, for Christ's sake. So, anyway, thus we are reminded how awesome Brad is and I guess Cassidy's dad is great because he's another one of those types that helps without being asked. God, they are so annoying. Then Ashleigh up and goes to the barn for a second...ooh, mysterious. She comes back after Cassidy tells everyone her sob story about how she's really poor and no one really believes her. That's good because I don't either. She's got two classy eventers, competes in these high class shows, and she's not rich? Then Ashleigh comes back with the sudden information that Lady T is coming to Whitebrook (yeah, no kidding) and so is Pizzazz (some other apparently important horse) and they're going to have a match race at Keeneland!

Sigh.

SO. Lady T and Pizzazz are at Whitebrook and Cassidy is all super obsessed with this. Also, apparently Lady T needs her very own armed PI/security official at all times. And I guess so does Pizzazz. I don't know where Allison gets this, but all of a sudden everyone's walking around with guns, and I appreciate this plot point just because it's so damn funny. Charlie is the guy that's guarding Lady T, and he strikes up some conversation with the kids and I guess this means he's the good guy. Pizzazz's owners are then, of course, bad guys. You know this immediately once the guns are brought into it. As it happens, Cassidy sees Pizzazz stumble in a work and after about an eternity of wondering why he stumbled (Cassidy, horses stumble every day...get over it) she starts sneaking around the barns and hears the horse's owners try to talk a vet into drugging the horse so he can run. The vet refuses. Cassidy is suspicious. Cassidy is suspicious some more. She enlists Christina and Melanie to help her figure out how to prove that Pizzazz is on something, and this results in some hilarity involving Cassidy sneaking into the horse's stall to poke at his legs. I am really not kidding. She discovers that Pizzazz's right knee is more or less dead to the world and decides to ring the alarm bells.

Only no one really cares besides Cassidy. So she eventually remembers the license plate of the vet who refused to treat Pizzazz (DRSFINE...yeah, I thought that was hilarious at first, too) and winds up calling information and actually gets this guy on the phone. He tells her Pizzazz has a bone chip and ohmigod he could die if he runs again. Or be seriously injured. Or something. Shocked and appalled, Cassidy tells her dad and he doesn't care. In fact, he wants to continue with the race because win or lose he'll still win upwards of 100 grand. Actually, he bribes her to keep quiet about it. I loved that part. Essentially: shut up or you'll lose your horses. Ha ha! Nice.

So the day of the race comes along and Cassidy, Melanie and Christina haunt the backside. They visit Pizzazz and see that he's being checked by the vet, who gives them an okay to run. But, like, how? He is totally not okay! (Like they x-ray horses before every race or something. Seriously, Cassidy, you can't tell a horse has a bone chip just by casually looking at it.) So they're wandering around and they see a groom lead Pizzazz into a trailer...and then out of it again. But, like, why? (This is all happening in the middle of the day on the backside during races, I might add.) So they start checking out the trailer and of course the evil groom catches them and pulls a gun on them and forces them inside the trailer. So, the stupidity is coming along at a rapid pace here. I guess the groom decides to lock them in the trailer and leave them there, like that won't come back and bite him on the ass or anything. Christina and Cassidy eventually shove Melanie through the skylight and she runs off for help. Charlie, the good guy with the gun, comes along and I guess he shoots the lock off and they run to take the ringer to the paddock so everyone can see that Pizzazz shouldn't run because like parading a horse that looks just like him will somehow communicate this effectively without having to say anything? Well, whatever. Charlie escorts them to the paddock, but then the evil groom and his evil friend come along and Charlie pulls his gun out and the evil groom guy goes for his gun and ohmigod Christina saves the day by throwing herself at the evil guy with the gun so Cassidy can further save the day by dragging the ringer to the paddock where everyone collectively gasps and seems to realize immediately what has happened.

Then we're treated to this movie moment between Cassidy and her dad. Reporters cluster around them, but neither speak, the situation too pressing and heavy for words, apparently, as two perfect tears drip from Cassidy's perfect eyes. Her dad continues to not speak. The movie music swells and then he says, "There will be no match race. You did the right thing, Cassidy." And then they walk off into the sunset. Cassidy has, I guess, lost everything and her family is screwed, but Pizzazz is safe because she did the Right Thing.

• You know what annoys me? When people have more than one child and then grace them with names starting with the same letter. Cassidy has two brothers: Carter and Campbell. It's like their mother always wanted a set of living dolls when she grew up.

• We've got some changes to report: Cassidy's horse, Wellington, went from gray to chestnut, and Ashleigh's hair suddenly became curly. I'm having flashbacks of the poodle hair Caroline inflicted upon her back during Wonder's Promise. Those weren't good times.

• Brad is mentioned specifically for the first time in ages. I don't even care that his name is brought up in the midst of some completely random and totally incomprehensible story Ashleigh's telling Cassidy about her stupid father...Brad is mentioned! And he's busy being a self-centered jerk in Ashleigh's memories. Oh, sweet, sweet memories.

• Also, you know: That was back in the days when I was still in business with Clay Townsend and his son, Brad. You know, considering Ashleigh (probably? probably definitely) still owns Wonder's Pride, Townsend Princess, Honor Bright, and Mr. Wonderful plus whatever other foals Princess and Honor have produced I think that sorta kinda almost definitely means she's still in business with them. Not to even mention Wonder is still alive at this point and still needs to give us Star in all his ethereal light.

• Cassidy's stupid horse, Lady T, runs in the Ruffian Handicap. Now, I'm not going to waste my time figuring out the purse of this race in 1999, but today it's a Grade I race with a purse of $300,000. What does Allison Estes want us to believe? That it's a $20,000 race, and at most Cassidy's dad, as the horse's owner, will see about $5,000 of that money. Like I said, I don't know what was going on in 1999, but considering the race has been around since 1976 I am DAMN SURE it wasn't being run at $20,000 only nine years ago. Clearly Allison has no clue when it comes down to the money involved in Grade I races, especially considering she just made this big deal over Lady T winning the Filly Triple Crown. No clue at all. Just sayin'.

• You know...it's not the 1930s anymore. The last match race was in 2003 and it was a battle of the sexes between jockeys, so I find this whole reconstructing the Ruffian/Foolish Pleasure disaster of 1975 both in poor taste and remarkably dated.

• What is a guy with a gun doing at Whitebrook? Really.

• Apparently they are driving this Pizzazz horse from California to Whitebrook? Has the trainer of the biggest horse on the West Coast not heard of air travel?

• Exactly how long has Pizzazz been running around with a bone chip? Shouldn't this have been removed months before now?

• Wow, is everyone carrying concealed weapons in Thoroughbred these days?

• "Now what makes you think you can order me around?" Jerry said, one hand behind his back. "This," Charlie said drawing his gun. Okay, this is good, but just wait...
  

• Charlie stepped back just as Jerry lunged for him. But to Cassidy's surprise, Christina jumped forward and tackled Jerry. That's right, guys, Christina just tackled a man armed with a gun to the ground. Didn't see that coming, did you?

Needless to say, this was hilarious. I loved it for it's ridiculousness. Although, I could just be giddy because Brad is back in the next book. I've gone far too long without his awesomeness.

Yes, you too can get everything you want by moping: A Home For Melanie

A Home For Melanie
by Alice Leonhardt
Thoroughbred #31
Published: 1998

Oh my God, after long last I have finally read this book. How long did I await this book at the library, and, more importantly, why on earth was I waiting so long? Really, there's no rational explanation for this, so I'll just move on to the installment.

I hate these covers. Seriously, they're worse than those later covers that look like someone was doodling with a colored pencil set. This cover makes me think someone went to the trouble of actually producing artwork that was then handed off to some novice graphic designer who had no clue how to operate Photoshop properly so they could blur up Trib's body, superimpose someone's face on whoever is riding that horse, and then blacked out Trib's eye for reasons only known to the designer. I fail to see how this is supposed to look good. On top of all of that, let's focus for a moment on Melanie's outfit. Actually, no, scratch that. Let's focus on her jacket, shall we? What is this purple monstrosity? And, you know, it's not just the fact that it's purple. It's purple and fringed. Fringed. And it's probably suede. Purple fringed suede. I just don't think you can recover from that.

Is Melanie leaving the only place that's ever felt like home?

Melanie Graham expected Whitebrook Farm to be the most boring place in America. And she thought her cousin, Christina Reese, would be a snob.

But after an entire summer at Whitebrook, Melanie has changed her mind. Whitebrook isn't dull--it's amazing! There are so many beautiful horses, especially Trib, her favorite pony. Plus, Christina is totally cool--she's the first true friend Melanie has ever had. Now Melanie can't imagine living anywhere else.

There's just one problem: Melanie's dad wants her to return to New York City. How can she convince him to let her stay at Whitebrook--forever?

Oh, you guys, the summer that will not end is finally drawing to a close. Previously, summers used to take about three chapters of time. The early New Generation stretched this one out for eight books. The cover of this book seems to insist that it is actually fall, but we know better. It's still summer. It's the summer that will not freaking end. Although, thankfully, Cassidy's Secret seems to involve snow, so some end must be in sight for this season. Although for all I know it's probably just late September, and the cover artists were getting really sick of drawing summer greenery and began acting out.

Okay, so this book pretty much convinced me that Melanie is a masochist. Allow me to explain. Summer is drawing to a close, meaning that Christina is going to go back to school and Melanie is going to have to go back to New York. You know, where her dad lives. Realizing that she will have to leave Whitebrook Farm, Melanie writes up a list of reasons why she should stay in Kentucky in order to convince her dad that she no longer belongs in New York. Where he, her father, is. There's some talk about how Ashleigh and Mike would have to become Melanie's legal guardians if she stays, and Ashleigh urges Melanie to really think this through before she tries to convince her dad. Not that this helps. Her dad wants her back in New York because he's getting married in a week's time, and he wants to give Melanie the family she hasn't had since her mom died. All perfectly logical.

So Melanie prepares to leave Whitebrook. Everyone throws her a goodbye party, and Ashleigh gives Tribulation to Melanie under the stipulation that she'll return the pony to Whitebrook when she outgrows him. Kevin kisses Melanie, resulting in tween swooning before everyone climbs into the plane and heads off to New York for the wedding. Her dad and Susan get married and Melanie discovers that Aynslee is really annoying and her other friend, Heather, suddenly grew breasts over the summer, treating us to a very brief moment of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret before Melanie remembers she's a Thoroughbred character and proceeds to go about her business of sulking and complaining to herself about how life isn't fair. Christina and her parents go back to Whitebrook, leaving Melanie in New York with Trib, who is not pleased with his new digs at Clarebrook at all. Melanie's none too pleased either because everyone at Clarebrook thinks she's a horse killer and are treating her like the plague. Even her old instructor, Jonathon, wants nothing to do with her. Because even minor adult characters in this series are petty jerks.

The only friend Melanie has is Bettina, a twenty-year-old German student at Columbia who's riding her horse at Clarebrook. Bettina and Melanie become trail riding partners, only on their first ride these two kids Melanie just happen to know shoot fireworks in the direction of the horses and Bettina falls off and sprains her ankle. Pissed at these two kids, Melanie calls their parents and tattles on them, setting the chain of events in motion. The two kids tell Aynslee, who falls into league with them and gets back at Melanie by drawing a mustache on Abraham Lincoln's portrait in the main hall of their school. Melanie gets blamed for this, and instead of coming out with the entire story of how the painting was defaced, Melanie stays silent and takes the blame. Aynslee is thrilled, but Melanie is in deep trouble. Her dad tells her that if she goes back to her crazy ways he'll ground her and basically send Trib back to Whitebrook.

Trib, meanwhile, continues to grow more and more depressed by his surroundings and stops eating. Melanie, as per the usual, doesn't tell anyone about this because that would mean she'd have to fess up about not being happy. Trib then has to suffer some more as Melanie slowly slips into depression with her pony. She's so bored and depressed that she takes Aynslee up on the offer of a slumber party. Which, much to my disappointment, is just a slumber party and not some attempt to rob a store or launder money or be generally annoying in an evil prepubescent way. Only Melanie does want to do something fun because she's all depressed so what do they do? Aynslee takes them to the roof of her apartment building. And they do a moon dance. And this is totally against the rules and the cops come.

...

Yeah...frankly I think that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of, but whatever. Melanie, pissed off at Aynslee for putting her on course for a severe punishment which means Trib will be taken away, storms out of the apartment complex before the cops get her and runs all the way back home. If this was a movie, right about here we'd have a montage of the girl running down the street to music by Coldplay or something all soul searching as she discovers the answer to all her problems but can't do anything because she's a masochist. This is Melanie's life: making sure everyone is happy before thinking about herself, thereby making herself miserable but "happy" because others are happy. Some might call this unselfishness. I, clearly, do not.

So Melanie goes back to Clarebrook and discovers that Trib is totally shutting down. Horrified, she calls Bettina's vet and the vet tells her that Trib is basically depressed. Upset by this, Melanie decides that it's time to do the right thing for Trib and prepares to tell her father that Trib has to go back to Whitebrook. Only her dad comes along and is all shocked by the pony's state and immediately applies it to Melanie before she has to come clean with anything and basically tells her he's going to send her back to Whitebrook because he's been the selfish one. Or something like that. I really find the whole end unbelievable, but this is Alice Leonhardt and it's the Thoroughbred Series. Characters get everything they want at the end of every book with a quick two page conversation that's mainly one-sided, giving everything to the main character with little to no work on their part. It's brilliant and horrible all at once.

Remarkably enough, I don't really have any points of interest collected for this book. I think I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how lame the great turning point was. Climbing up onto the apartment roof at night in New York? Please. People have wedding receptions on rooftops in New York. I've climbed around on an apartment roof in New York while drinking at 2am. I am not at all impressed with this. But then again, these kids also thought tipping over trash cans and spraying people with soda is serious juvenile delinquent business. At least, that was before Melanie became a Thoroughbred character and realized that being somber and humorless was more rewarding than being a typical twelve-year-old.

Oh, here's one point:

• Cindy is mentioned for the first time since Cindy's Honor. Apparently she's been living in New York for some time and while Ashleigh and all are in New York for the wedding there's a mention of going to Belmont to visit her. Weirdly enough people actually want to see her. Why still remains a mystery.
  

So, I'm off to read Cassidy's Secret next. Apparently horse racing appears in this book? I don't really see how this is possible considering Cassidy is like the most perfect of perfect riding princesses everywhere. Naturally I cannot wait to read it.

Out of curiosity...

I've been keeping track of the searches people have done that land them on this blog since May. So now, with a full three months of statistics at my disposal, I have collected a generous helping of search phrases I deem hilarious enough to share with (more) regular readers. Now, without further ado (and I apologize because I totally accidentally deleted this post previously):

• poontang
• ashleigh fart
• balls cut off dog
• boys like to grab each other
• boys wearing tight pants
• cross dress fun
• derby still got it? (got what? huh?)
• everyone is selfish
• fucking allie, fuckingallie, fucking allie husband (seriously?)
  
• fucking father-in-law
• farm whores
• gail fucks horses
• help me save my little pony farm ugly stuff before it's too late (yeah...I don't think we helped her)
• is hunter jumper riding dangerous (were they expecting the internet to give them a yes or no answer to this?)
  
• neurotic racing
  
• rape for love
  
• riding horses rape
• samantha and tor thoroughbred divorce (who else is amused?)
  
• she liked wearing tight pants
• shit her pants and she disqualified race
• stallion bonded horse raped

Anyway, just to point this out: we have no porn here at the Whitebrook Farm Blog. Although I do admit I'm providing this list in the hope that I can always confuse more porn and tight pants enthusiasts in the future. Come on, amuse me more.

The Whitebrook Farm Blog Basics

Greetings!

The goal here is relatively simple: we read the Thoroughbred series and then scurry back to report our findings. As it happens, our focus has broadened to reading just about any book that involves horses and recapping it for our entertainment. From The Saddle Club to those completely obscure stand alone novels you've never heard about. We're also here to review television shows and movies, therefore this blog should be active forever.

Recaps tend to run from nostalgic to forthright. We're tend to post spoilers. The blog's purpose is entertainment, and the absolute last thing anyone needs is to take it 100% seriously. We're only serious a small portion of the time here as it is. Read, laugh, request a recap of your favorite horsey book, and sit back to watch the antics. It's all in good fun.


About Us:

You might wonder what makes us qualified to run this blog besides the fact that we can read, write, and operate a computer. Perhaps not astonishingly, nothing qualifies us. The fact that we can accomplish all of the previously listed things is pretty much it. That and we all have a horrible yearning to read books involving horses. Some of us might, actually, have experience with horses or some sort of knowledge picked up from somewhere, I guess. In any case, here's a breakdown of the partners in crime.


The Editor:

Mara actually remembers when A Horse Called Wonder was the only Thoroughbred book in print, because she was ten at the time, which makes her 28 now. Currently she's a librarian (and author and professional book reviewer...seriously!) residing in Pittsburgh, where children's and young adult books involving horses have absolutely nothing to do with her job. Her love for TB was briefly interrupted when she was thirteen and sold the first (and only, at that point) eleven books in the series at a garage sale. When she was sixteen she realized her tremendous mistake and bought them all back so she could read them over and over again for no reason. Mara rides fairly consistently, and focuses on dressage. Her favorite character of all horse books everywhere is Brad Townsend, and she likes to picture him as Christian Bale playing Bruce Wayne, because she just does.

What else is Mara reading? Take a look at Good Reads for more reviews and whatnot. She also reviews supernatural YA at A Novel Year.

If you've got a concern you feel needs to be addressed, Mara is the administrator of the Whitebrook Farm Blog and you can e-mail her here: wbfblog (at) gmail (dot) com

Contributors/Guest Reviewers:

Claire, who enjoys writing biographies about herself in third person in the interests of sounding official, is 24 years old and studied history at George Mason University. This is because she does not enjoy making money. She began reading the Thoroughbred Series in third grade when she purchased Wonder's Yearling from a Scholastic book order form thingy that they always used to hand out in school. She recalls reading it in the orthodontist's office and being captivated by its characters and the maturity of the writing (hey, for a book aimed at 8 to 12 year-olds, the early TB series was surprisingly mature!). This began a lifelong love affair with these books that culminated in the creation of the whitebrookfarm.com website. She of course also read every horse book she could get her grubby hands on, especially when dragged to the pool against her will every day during the summer (water terrifies her). She took riding lessons for eight years before all the barns around her closed and her instructor fell off the face of the earth. After six years away from horses, she is once again searching for a place to ride. This will surely help her point out every gaping inaccuracy in all the books she reads for this blog. Her greatest fear is that the writers she lampoons will one day find this blog and send her nasty hate mail.

Monique: I am a 25 year-old South African who discovered the Thoroughbred Series at the tender age of 8, when I thought the books were an accurate account of riding. They inspired me to ride, because if Ashleigh could jockey a horse, so could I! Sadly, my dreams were shattered when I fell off again and again…leaving me to wonder about the inherent potential the books had lead me to believe in. I did own a pony…a grumpy mare called Cisco…Wonder she was not. Despite her colouring! Not all chestnuts possess the ability to Bond with their One and Only Girl! Now, I am a full-time student, studying Nature Conservation and doing my small part to save the world from the various evils that plague it… (Yes, I mean you, Stephenie Meyer. You and your stupid vampire books!) Monique has more reviews at A Novel Year.

Elizabeth has been reading horse books since she was little. She credits her parents for starting her on The Saddle Club, because they wouldn't let her read The Baby-Sitters Club, and her grandma for starting her on Thoroughbred. In addition to writing for the Whitebrook Farm blog, Elizabeth works in a library and teaches swimming lessons for children. She has a BA from Goucher College and is currently mired in getting an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh.

Lei remembers buying A Horse Called Wonder not long after it hit the shelves, which means she's probably dating herself here (being which, she's the oldest of the whole crew -- draw your own conclusion here, really, folks) and she's been reading the series ever since. Something of a crazy horse fanatic, Lei has had horses on the brain for longer than she can really remember. She was lucky enough to own a grand old Thoroughbred named Flair, and they were partners for 12 long years until his death at the age of 30 in June of 2007. Now, she's proud to say that she is gasp an adult who rides a pony -- a golden butterbutt of a Haflinger named Mitch, who's birthday is ironically the day before hers. This love affair with ponies has sparked her ire against the animosity towards ponies in any series where pree-teen children whine about wanting a horse and consider ponies to be the Root of All Evil (Lei admits it ... ponies are smart little bastards, but they're really not that bad.) In terms of what she plans to do with her life, she's discovered she rather likes teaching kindergarten and pre-school kids, and thus will probably get a job at a school in a computer lab or as a computer teacher or something.

Heather asked Santa for a horse every year as a kid. Now as a 24 year-old, she has two of her own and takes care of four others to earn her keep. When she's not slave to her equine charges, scooping poop, she's slave to her job at a hospice in Kokomo, IN, keeping supply inventory and maintaining medical records. Sometimes she even has time to ride! Heather's babies are: Feather, an eight year-old, chestnut quarter horse mare, and Pirate, an eighteen year-old, black and white, gaited something or other. Heather's first horsie books were The Saddle Club. She then discovered Thoroughbred and followed the series well into middle school. Going through some boxes last year she found her collection, reread them, and wondered if anyone else remembered these books. Getting online, she randomly decided to Google 'Whitebrook Farm' and the rest was history. Heather's first and foremost goal is to review all the Saddle Club TV series episodes. To her shame, this has led to an unhealthy obsession with Max Regnery. One could say that Max has become Heather's Brad Townsend. Or one could simply say she's crazy, and probably be right.

Aimee is a high school student in Nova Scotia. She wishes she could ride more often, but due to medical circumstances (it's kind of hard to get on a horse when you can hardly breathe, have a nasty headache, and/or dry heaving, isn't it?) and the condition of the roads she can't. So she likes to play horse games to get her riding fix, which isn't exactly the same but good enough. She's planning to go into computers, or to be more specific, A+ Certification. Anyways, her first horse game was Let's Ride: Silver Buckle Stables. She also likes reading the Throughbred series, although it's hard for her to find the books as there's very few in the public library. Her first Throughbred book was #5. And this is the biography of Aimee, although it's not very organized, which is basically how Aimee is until it comes to computers, then you should see her THEN!!!


And that, you know, is us.