And then the horse with fangs ate him. The end.

The Heavenly Horse from the Outermost West
By Mary Stanton

The Dark Horse and his minions search for the last true Appaloosa for their own nefarious purposes, while, from the Courts of the Outermost West, the Dancer enters the world to save his breed from extinction.

I don't know what came over me, but I just had to hunt down this book. As it turns out, Heavenly Horse is a bit elusive and I was forced to use my magical librarian powers for what turned out to be a huge waste of time and effort.

The reason for this is pretty simple. I loathe fantasy novels. I'm trying to think of one right now that I even marginally tolerated, and not one title is popping up in my abused little brain. It's not that I can't sit down and make myself read them, because many years ago I forced myself through The Lord of the Rings and I'm still not sure how that even happened. It's like a blur of supreme boredom highlighted with intermittent screams of horror. I know, I know. Why, then, did I even bother? How could I, a hater of fantasy, be expected to push all of that aside for a book that has a rainbow Appaloosa fighting a fanged horse with claws on the cover? How can I rise above my biases to read and review this novel of talking horses who smell like wild thyme? How?

Yet again, the answer is pretty simple. I don't.

I tried, you guys. Really, I did, but ultimately I put the book down and promptly lost it in my apartment somewhere. I really hope I can find it, because I'm pretty sure magical librarian powers aren't going to get me out of that one.

Anyway, let me present some points of interest:

1. The Dancer. I guess he's super important because he is the leader of the mystical Appaloosa breed, which seems important to horses everywhere because of a very select list of breeds in the super horse breed army it happens to be alphabetically superior. The Dancer, when off in special la la horse world, is all the colors of the rainbow. He smells like wild thyme. He uses poetry to introduce himself. He also tries to rape someone. The Dancer is kind of a dick.

2. Duchess. She is a grade mare who is probably an Appaloosa in disguise. I didn't get to that part. Anyway, she's all emotionally scarred, believing that she could get beaten at any point despite the fact that she's never been beaten. Whatever. Then The Dancer tries to rape her. And she tries to tell all the other mares about it and they're all, "OMG you have to let him rape you! That's how babies are made!" And the barn cat is all, "LET HIM RAPE YOU." And the collie is all, "OMG, you so suck." But by then The Dancer realizes he's probably come across a little too strong in trying to rape her, so he sweet talks her into getting in foal. And by that point I was out of there.

3. The Mares. Are annoying. And they have lots of rules.

4. The People. They are probably English, but they keep making soothing sounds that make me think they are maybe German. I cannot even begin to explain this rationally.

5. The Collie. Everyone who talks to him uses his name so frequently it started to amuse me. OMG, Corey. You didn't just do that, Corey. I am so sick of your know-it-all attitude, Corey.

Truthfully, I did give up on this book after the failed rape attempt/love scene. It was weirdly reminiscent of those romance novels that involve the guy accidentally raping the girl, her being somewhat traumatized, but eventually she gets over it because it's true love, rape happens, let's make babies and forget that "control issue" thing ever happened, okay? Only with horses. Regardless, I tend to put books down after these instances.

Also, I loathe fantasy. (Oh, the only one I liked was Birth of the Firebringer by Meredith Ann Pierce. I knew there was at least one.)

Totally Horse Mad, and possibly certifiably crazy.

Totally Horse Mad
#1: Totally Horse Mad
by Kathy Helidoniotis
Published: 2003 (AUS), 2008 (USA)

I had a great idea. Maybe I could buy Princess. Then she'd really be mine, not just a horse I rode once a week ... I made up my mind. If it was the last thing I did, I was going to get my very own horse.

The only things that stand between Ashleigh Miller and the horse of her dreams are a whole lot of dollars that she doesn't have, parents who don't know one end of a horse from another and a city backyard the size of a shoebox.

Ashleigh can't believe it when her parents announce that she will really have a horse of her own, but at a price she could never have imagined. She will have to say goodbye to her best friend, Jenna, South Beach Stables and her favourite horse, Princess. Ashleigh and her family are leaving the city and heading for Shady Creek, a small country town. And that's where the adventures in this Horse Mad series really begin.

I have to say this first and foremost: if I hadn't seriously started skimming (like, picked up one sentence every ten pages) at page 165 in this 229 page book, Totally Horse Mad would have broken me. If I had gone on reading past the point of no return, right now I'd be huddled in a corner, sobbing and swearing off horse books for the rest of my life.

Now that I've blurted that out, let's discuss the book. Totally Horse Mad is an Australian series recently transported to us Americans. It's not Americanized in any way, and to help us understand you cute Australians, we're given a helpful glossary of Australian slang in the back of the book. Because I guess you guys have a lot to say about chooks and mozzies and such things. However, what sort of amuses me is the inclusion of words such as beanie, gymkhana, heaps and nag. It's not like this is a glossary for the stupid (or ignorant, or young, or American). It's definitely termed as a glossary of Australian slang. People, since when are gymkhanas specific to Australia? Granted, okay, American English sort of absorbs everything, but I am damn sure nag and beanie and heaps do not belong on this list.

So we've got another Ashleigh. She lives in a city somewhere, being all busy with her special Australian gymkhanas, apparently. Eventually Ashleigh takes it into her head to raise funds for her own horse, but because she is eleven she cannot legally work anywhere and is left with only one option: irritate the crap out of everyone and pester them to give her a few bucks for jobs she should be forced to do for free. At one point she tries to get a few bucks out of her teacher in exchange for cleaning off his white board. Seriously, if anyone had ever tried that with any of my long suffering teachers, they would have gotten their ass handed to them. Anyway, she and her best friend, Jenna, decide that their best option to raise cash is to hold a garage sale. Being a self-absorbed horse story main character, Ashleigh doesn't bother to sell her things. God no! She's going to sell keepsakes and things like autographed pictures of Mick Jagger...things owned by her parents, of course. When her parents get home, they appropriately have a fit. Ashleigh doesn't get what their problem is. She's just trying to spring clean. They should be thankful! Well, whatever. Things aren't working out very swiftly in her attempts to get a horse, so her parents have decided to step in and shove the plot forward by announcing they're moving to the country, and because of this she can have her damn horse.

Ashleigh is a little upset about this moving thing until she hears about the horse, and then she's so thrilled that when she announces this to Jenna and gets a completely stunned and hurt reaction she is totally confused. She would be, because she is that self-absorbed. But, she's getting a horse! Everything is right with the world! Jenna storms off and Ashleigh moves off to the country, where she immediately comes across this special riding club. She attempts to impress them by saying she's the "Under 12 Champion" back at the city, and in response the kids stick her on a horse they know will throw her. And then they mock her. I was so rooting for them.

Ashleigh slinks home and nurses her bruised mega ego. How best to heal such an ego? Horse shopping! The following is supposed to be comical: three horses are visited, all three are totally wrong. One is a Shetland. One is ancient. One is plain mean. Does Ashleigh want all of them? Yup. Does she get any of them? Nope. Does she whine about this? Oh, man. Great, comedy. I get it, I really do. I also get that she's excited about a horse, but it makes no sense because after this she looks online and is picky about which ads she should take seriously, totally contradicting her insane/eager previous behavior.

But then she randomly decides to buy a horse, sight unseen, off the internet and the horse arrives at their house to the complete surprise of her parents. Ashleigh again plays stupid. But she took care of it! She's responsible! Never mind that she can't pay for the horse in full, or anything. Her parents put their foot down and send the horse packing. What's more, they inform her that they're unable to finance a horse at this moment, what with real life pressures like a mortgage and job shortages and moving expenses, effectively ruining Ashleigh's life. OMG, she hates it here! Her parents suck! Her family sucks! They are liars and meanies and life is not fair. You know what, Ashleigh? Good for you. You've discovered the number one way to get a horse: freak out and blame everyone for everything.

So what happens? A horse! Of course there's a horse. On a trail ride with her local friend, Becky, they stumble across this neglected chestnut mare. Ashleigh falls in love immediately, but the vet has to warn everyone that the mare might not make it. They might -- horrors -- have to put the mare down. Cue crazy shrieking from Ashleigh. No! Absolutely not! What's Ashleigh going to do in order to make sure the mare isn't put down? She offers up the little stable on her property, totally sure her parents will let her have the horse, despite their earlier talk about how they can't afford a horse quite yet. And naturally everyone goes for this idea, the vet because she's apparently an idiot and her parents because they're clearly afraid their daughter might kill herself if they say no.

Who gives an eleven-year-old kid a starved horse? I was totally shocked by this development. What's even better, the horse does worse in Ashleigh's care and Ashleigh, scared that the vet will put the horse down if she says anything to anyone, says nothing. I don't even know what to say about this whole development anymore. I think we can all imagine appropriately enough. It was awful. For the first time in my history of reading horse books, the main character, due to being a total idiot, neglects an already neglected horse. I am not kidding. It was that awful.

But this is all explained away because the horse hasn't been dewormed properly, or something. Yeah, right. Whatever. Finally the vet comes back and drenches the mare, and a few weeks later she's doing swimmingly. Ashleigh names her Honey (Totally original for a chestnut! Just like it's so original to name a palomino Sunshine, or a black horse Midnight.) The vet gives her Honey's owner's contact information and tells her that the mare's real name is Argonaut. The hell? Honey is such a better name! I mean, Argonaut is like being called Sweet Missy Hee Haw or something completely awful. (As you can probably tell, this is where I started to lose it.)

Ashleigh calls the owner, who is awesome because he's all "Screw you, kid. Take the horse and never call me again." Sweet joy! Ashleigh has her horse! Blah blah blah. After this we can all focus on Ashleigh teaming up with Honey and focusing on kicking some major antagonist ass. I think they come in third or something. But rest assured those evil antagonists got theirs. Maybe. I don't know, and I don't care to know.

• When Ashleigh is looking at the horse classifieds online, she types in "horses for sale" in some search engine and gets over a thousand hits. Then she types in "Australian horses for sale" and gets only 27. I just found that humorous. Mainly because I'm a librarian.

I have the second book in this series, but I don't know if I can convince myself to read it. So I guess I'm going to get rid of it. Which brings me to the other part of this post: book giveaway! You can be the lucky recipient of two free horse books: Totally Horse Mad and Horse Mad Summer (in which Jenna comes back and proves she's worth Ashleigh's attention by taking riding lessons). If you want to throw your name into consideration for these, just say so in the comments. I'll give this until the end of the month, and then I'll do some random draw or something. Winner to be announced on March 1!

Well, we were due for another bad romance novel eventually.

Legends Lake
by JoAnne Ross
Published: 2001

I don't even have an opening statement for this.

In the exclusive world of horse racing, Alec MacKenna is known as a hardheaded trainer who cares more for an animal's welfare than the financial bottom line. After a public altercation with a callous owner leaves his career on the brink of ruin, Alec's only chance for redemption is Legends Lake, a thoroughbred with Triple Crown potential and a dangerous problem that could end both of their careers. Alec escorts the colt from the bluegrass hills of Kentucky to the emerald pastures of Ireland to meet the woman who bred him, in hopes that she may have the answers that will save them.

Kate O'Sullivan is happy to see her beloved horse come home, even under such disturbing circumstances. In spite of the irascible Yank who came with him, she has the feeling that something in her life is about to change forever. As Alec and Kate work to unravel the mystery of Legends Lake, they discover their shared concern for the troubled racehorse could turn into something extraordinary for each other.

We start our magical tale in Florida, where it's raining. Alec, our dashing romance male lead, does not like Florida, or rain, or lawyers. So it would come as a surprise that he's training horses exclusively for a lawyer, in Florida, in the rain. Apparently it's somewhere between January and March, given that we are told the name of a race (Orchid Handicap) that exists (really) despite all other real facts pointing to the overall surprise (not so much a surprise, but still) that Alec's filly should not be participating in this race given the fact that it's impossible. Despite this, Alec freaks out to the owner that he's not running the filly because it's raining and the race is going to be moved to the main track and the filly does not like mud because she has a mental block about it and the owner says "Tough. Run her." And Alec quits for no reason and the filly breaks down and dies. You might wonder what the point of all this is. I wondered also. I concluded that there are much better ways for someone to screw up their life. This was pretty lame.

Anyway, then we have Kate, who lives in Ireland (. . .) and she's a druid (. . .) and she sees gods riding glittery horses in the ocean (. . . yeah, I just don't know) and she's all freaking out because other Irish people want to remove this tree that is home to spirits. Spirits! See, I think I'm okay with this because it's so easy to mock. It's one thing to have Irish people talk about wee faeries, and it's another thing entirely for the Irish to genuinely have super powers and see immortals riding on waves and such. So Kate has two kids from her marriage that is going to be dissolved ASAP, which, in Ireland, is five years. Yeah, Ireland can cut its divorce ban out of its constitution, but it doesn't have to make it easy on people trying desperately to get out of relationships turned bad.

So Alec is off at his family farm that isn't his family farm because there are no horses there? Or something? I should say that Alec is part of some Scottish family that is obsessed with horses, but eventually his father became a drunk and accidentally killed one of their Secretariatesque horses, causing ruin and downfall for all involved. Until Alec came along and won the Triple Crown. Yes, that happened. With a horse called Go For Broke, possibly the stupidest name for a Triple Crown winner since Karen Bentley came up with Wonder's Champion. Thus the question is how much of a screw up does one have to be to take a Triple Crown victory and not be able to capitalize. Maybe poor Alec is just incompetent. Well, whatever, because he's being shunned now for punching his former boss (the evil Yankee lawyer, whom he shouldn't have entered an exclusivity contract with, obviously. . .dumb ass). But then this cute 90-year-old woman comes along with the most fantastical horse ever that will make everyone forget about Go For Broke and Secretariat! Ohmigosh! It's Legends Lake, a butt ugly horse who will clearly win the Triple Crown in...a matter of a few weeks! Despite being only in a claiming race earlier! And has some psychological trauma that makes him want to randomly jump the inside rail during a race. So cute old lady tells Alec to take the horse back to his breeder, Kate, who's all busy with this damn tree.

I should also mention that Alec has a stepdaughter, Zoe. He takes care of Zoe because her mom fell off a yacht and died. (This book is remarkably detailed, therefore allowing lots of room for mistakes.) He grabs Zoe and they go to Ireland with this horse, who has to win the Triple Crown so Alec can be put in the will for nice old lady's Kentucky farm. He meets Kate while she's busy singlehandedly warding off her soon-to-be ex-cousin-in-law from bulldozing the tree. She's wearing a dress and a cape with Celtic symbols on it. I think that's all we need to know there, except for when she summons lightning to scare the crap out of her legal and in no way significant relation. The tree is saved! Thank goodness. I didn't care.

Then we enter the period where girl/witch and boy/idiot dislike each other. This period always lasts for about a chapter and a half before one of them starts to accidentally fantasize or have erotic dreams about the other, thereby causing overreactions and more angst. In this case, Kate has the erotic dreams. I don't blame her really, as she's coming off an abusive relationship and is just now relearning that men can be worth while sometimes. Alec is unsure about Legends Lake getting any sort of help from Kate, and he's sort of peeved that Zoe is all amazed with Kate because Zoe is difficult and a teenager and has fuchsia hair or something and the last thing he needs is Zoe dabbling in witchcraft. Also, Kate spends a lot of time harping on pointless stuff...like spirits and how horses came to Ireland and how Ireland is SO MUCH BETTER than Kentucky, okay? She's like a textbook of irritating Irish facts. Naturally anyone not from Ireland would be all "SHUT UP ALREADY ABOUT YOUR DAMN IRELAND." I kept wanting Alec to launch into something like "o rly? Here's how horses came to America. And it's MUCH MORE INTERESTING, BITCH."

But this did not happen. In fact, after all of this I was pretty bored out of my mind. By about page 230, I more or less shut it down and skimmed very quickly to the end. So I did pick up the ever so important fact: Kate magics her way to understanding what's wrong with Legends Lake. His problem is that he was involved in a minor barn fire and was whipped before the fire, connecting the two events in his teeny tiny brain. This basically means he's afraid of whips. STUNNING. But blinkers are not enough to cure this animal of his fear. In fact, I don't know what cures him of it. He just sort of gets over it because he's in Ireland, where horses go to be cured of all their ills. Also, Kate and Alec have sex a lot. And Kate's soon-to-be ex-husband comes along and is threatening. Then he's murdered somehow. Then they all take Legends Lake to the Kentucky Derby and he wins. Then he wins the Triple Crown. And Alec and Kate procreate. And everyone is happy and successful and life is wonderful. Blah blah freaking blah.

Points:

• Alec MacKenna was a gambler by nature and by choice. OF COURSE HE IS. All leading men in romance novels having to do with thoroughbred racing are gamblers. Way to not surprise me during your first sentence, JoAnn. I am so thoroughly thrilled now.

• Page 5 is where I became convinced I would have to take extensive notes, because this is where JoAnn decided that her horse here, a filly named Lady Justice, is going to run in the Orchid Handicap, the Bourbonette Breeders Cup (there should be an apostrophe there, but she's not including it), the Apple Blossom, and then the Kentucky Oaks. You know what's significant here? IT'S CRAZY is what is so significant. The Orchid is a mile and a half race on turf for mares 4 and up, the Bourbonette is a Kentucky Oaks prep on dirt (at least, it was in 2001) at a mile, the Apple Blossom is a mile and a sixteenth on dirt for mares 4 and up. Besides the fact that this is impossible just by age limits and the fact that the Orchid is a turf race, all of these proposed races leading to the Oaks take place in late March/early April. How they're going to manage this schedule will probably include pumping that poor horse full of pain killers and hoping to God someone invents a time machine.

• Not to mention, if it's somewhere between January and March, why is there a tropical storm hitting Florida?

• Well, someone has seen footage of Go For Wand's breakdown. Lady Justice suffers the exact fate. To the letter.

• She could have been a wee faerie sprite, performing a good-bye dance to the sea. How do people put up with this?

• Kate helpfully informs us that she's not going to use artificial insemination at her stud farm, despite current industry trends. She's just going to keep doing it the traditional way because she's IRISH, damn it! Of course, she'd probably be dismayed to learn that artificial insemination isn't approved for thoroughbreds. YOU AREN'T SPECIAL, KATE. I DON'T CARE IF YOU CAN SUMMON LIGHTNING.

• At one point Kate's ex-husband screams: "Tell me where she be off to, or I'll be killing you!" Oh, the Irish. They're even quaint when they're alcoholics in a homicidal rage.

• Kate is upset that Legends Lake is a long shot for the Derby at 35-1. Knowing the Kentucky Derby, these odds are really really generous.

So that was some random supernatural crap in Ireland plus horse racing plus evil ex-husbands plus typical romance story. Naturally this didn't turn out well. I'm not even all that concerned with JoAnn's blatant disregard for facts, because that's just a given with horsey romance novels. Oh, and also, 'N Sync and Blair Witch Project 2 are mentioned. This didn't help matters. But what can you expect? This is written by a woman who admits in an author's note at the end of the book that she decided it would be way more convenient for the Kentucky Derby to take place during the Preakness Stakes in her book, because the IRISH HAVE FESTIVALS, PEOPLE. AND THEY ARE IMPORTANT. JoAnn, perhaps you should have realized that it was impossible for your damn horse to run in the Kentucky Derby anyway. Then maybe you could have, I don't know, had your characters attend all the Irish festivals they wanted and raced the horse in the Travers instead.

Anyway. I'm going to pretend this book didn't happen.

Showdown by Tilly Bagshawe

Showdown
by Tilly Bagshawe

Look, I feel a little shitty when I have to begin a post here with an outright statement such as: "This book sucks. So hard." It's just that the fact of the matter is fairly simple. This book does suck. Hard. So much so that Monique took the time to inform me that, you know, I don't have to keep reading this drivel. I can put the book down and move on and no one will judge me because this book is bad. So bad. So bad that I'm going to share it with you.

Bobby Cameron is a cowboy through and through. One of America's most skilled horse trainers, he has inherited his father's magnificent ranch in California's Santa Ynez Valley. Now, land rich but cash poor, Bobby travels the world trying to raise money to support his beloved ranch by taking jobs breaking horses for their wealthy owners. Milly Lockwood Groves, daughter of a millionaire breeder in Newmarket, England, is determined to become a world-class jockey--but her family has other plans for her, and are forcing her to take her place in British society. But Milly's life is about to be changed forever by the arrival of the gorgeous, enigmatic cowboy Bobby Cameron. Following him to America to realize her dreams, she risks losing her innocence and her heart in the process.

To start off, I am reminded of an exchange I had about this book, here in its entirety thanks to GMail:

monique: how is the romance going? you still readin it?

mara: i am. i just got done with some weird part in Florida involving a polo party and argentine women with big breasts and no moral compass sticking their hands down the asshole hero's pants.

Glorious. However, let's start at the beginning. Because while I only read a quarter of this book, that was really too much. We open up in France, where our dashing hero, Bobby, is working with this flighty filly for some asshole French trainer who'd really just prefer it if Bobby whipped the hell out of the filly and kicked her into submission. Because that's easier, and this training thing takes too much time. Bobby is appropriately disgusted with the other trainer's behavior, but unfortunately for us he's got other things to do. Like take a shower and mull over how his father sucks. Bobby, you see, is the product of his hippie mom having had inadvisable sex with his magnate dad, resulting in all sorts of wacky behavior. His dad was old when all of this happened and now he's ancient, but the old man has some attitude left and has never once informed Bobby that he loves him. And he probably doesn't. After Bobby's mom drops him off with his dad and never returns...going to live in more communes or whatever the hell she was up to...his dad just informs little Bobby that he will be his heir and that's pretty much it. Their relationship goes only so far as to be written into the will. Bobby, I guess, is scarred by this and proceeds to act out by being a complete jackass.

Now, while he's in France and fresh from his shower up at the owner's mansion, suddenly the owner's wife -- who is all young and eager to please -- magically appears in the bathroom also and starts to pull on Bobby's conveniently placed towel like a petulant six-year-old. A petulant six-year-old that Bobby decides he'd really like to not have sex with because that would be bad before deciding to hell with that and has sex with her anyway.

For some reason we are informed that Bobby really doesn't care about the needs of others, not that this matters to this woman because I guess she was only in it for the seduction. I don't get this, because it appears she put in a lot of effort for little return, especially when her husband shows up also to tell Bobby that his father died. Not wanting to get caught, he shoves the wife into a wardrobe and locks her inside, where I suppose he leaves her to fend for herself while he packs and leaves in the helicopter right outside. He's a winner, that Bobby. They're all winners.

So then we have Milly, who is a seventeen-year-old rich girl in England. Her parents own a horse farm and she's been forbidden to ride anymore after she took a nasty fall some time ago. Milly, of course, has her antagonist close by for always convenient drama. Since I forgot her name I will call her Jessica Rabbit, because that's apparently what she looks like. Jessica Rabbit, despite having breasts that probably weigh more than her head, is a jockey. For some reason. To make matters even more irritatingly stupid, Milly's brother is also a jockey and, of course, Milly wants to be a jockey too! It's like every English elite's dream in this book, which makes absolutely no sense. So Jessica Rabbit decides to have sex repeatedly with Milly's brother in order to annoy Milly. Thus we discover that all the women in this book are whores and all the men in this book are pricks. Once thought of like that it's remarkably easy to desensitize yourself from anything else even mildly offensive.

Enter Bobby into Milly's stunningly screwed up world. Bobby is now fresh from Florida, having wanted, but was forced to avoid, buxom women trying to get into his pants. It's hard for Bobby, but when the buxom women in this book have husbands armed with mallets he's really got to think about keeping his astonishingly empty head on his shoulders, you know? He's working hard, trying to keep his father's farm from falling into bankruptcy so he can turn it into a horse farm (his dad was all cattle focused and thought people who liked horses were pussies, much to poor Bobby's irritation). So his next job is with Jessica Rabbit's father's farm, but for some reason he's staying with Milly.

Milly falls in love in about two seconds flat. Unfortunately she acts like she's her age and in love, which means she's clumsy and makes poor fashion choices. Bobby, being a guest in Milly's father's home, continues on with his I-only-think-with-my-dick ways and starts bringing home as many ditsy women to his guest room as he can. Milly is upset by this...really, any host should be...but says nothing, preferring to pine away as she suffers not being able to ride (Bobby and/or horses). Until Bobby decides to help her out in that category (with the horses, I mean) and discovers that he'd really like her too, only she's seventeen. What is our hero to do? How can he get over his self-admitted urge to commit an act of pedophilia? (His words, not mine.)

Well, apparently he gets over it. Or he gets over it in California, where the legal age is eighteen. Anyway, either she has a birthday, or even Playboy starts breaking some laws because eventually she poses for Playboy, having learned to appreciate her large breasts somewhere between where I stopped reading and the end of this book.

I guess she becomes some wonder jockey in the Quarter Horse racing world and she and Bobby have sex and fall in love, only in the most despicable way possible because she has to go act like Jessica Rabbit for a while before discovering that she's an idiot and that Bobby will probably go off and have sex with some other underage girl that's not her if she doesn't stop posing for Playboy and gets her mind back to making her man happy. Thus we come to the end.

I don't know what's more frightening. That this book exists, or that it's actually the author's second novel.

Hatfields and McCoys...only of Ireland

So here's the deal. My backyard basically consists of a shitload of trees. Tons of them. And lately they've been falling down fairly randomly onto the major road behind the house. Tonight I guess one of them hit a power line, resulting in a lovely explosion and subsequent call to authorities with chainsaws. Therefore it is late, there are people traipsing around the neighborhood with chainsaws, and I'm not sleeping.

Thus, I thought it the perfect opportunity to lull myself to sleep by reading The Lady, by Anne McCaffrey. Only then it was so boring I found myself angry instead and after reading the first 25 pages, I decided to skip to the last chapter (located on page 447, so I imagine I missed quite a bit). This bored me to tears as well. So I decided to stop entirely and just write a review.

Granted, this is a review after I've read the first few chapters and last chapter of this megalithic waste of space that is called The Lady. So, sure, this probably isn't the best review to look toward for serious criticism of a book (but really, is that what we're here for?), and it sure as hell isn't a recap. Anyway.

They are the Caradynes, who for over 200 years have bred and trained horses of the finest caliber on Coernanagh. But all is not idyllic at hearth and home. Catriona, the youngest child, longs to ride her family's big jumpers and show horses. Her father Michael, recognizes her gift, but her mother hates the very idea. All is in a stalemate until Lady Selina Healy enters their lives, and provides for Catriona and her father a stunning example of how the reins of power can be held by a glorious, fearless woman.

Let it be known that I am not -- NOT -- reading any more stories involving the Irish for at least a year. That said, I will move on to what I know about this book.

Catriona, having possibly the most annoying little mary sue name to pop up in recent memory, is -- you guessed it -- perfect. She lives in a big house somewhere in Ireland and her parents, seemingly having forgotten what they really named her, call her Trina. I find this nickname unacceptable, for various reasons but mainly because they're leaving out the O and frankly if they wanted to call her Trina they just should have named her something else entirely. But I guess Katrina isn't sparkly and super Irish enough. Although had it been Katrina it probably would have been spelled Katryna because it just would have.

Anyway, so they live on this stupidly huge and popular horse farm and their main special stallion is called The Tulip and in the pages I read this mare gives birth to The Tulip's son, who is called the Tulip's Son for the rest of the book. I know this because I read the end. And he's still a foal, which means that the entirety of this book takes place over a course of a few months, and again I find this unacceptable.

So The Tulip's Son is super special and big and is basically Wonder's Champion. Whatever.

Then we discover that Catriona (Trina) can draw without realizing it...and I think right about there is where I lost it with this book. If you're talking to your mother and then turn to your paper and gasp because you realize your hand has been drawing a brush jump SOMETHING is WRONG with you. And I don't think it's because you're a super special mary sue, okay? Just to clear that up.

So Catriona's mom is all disturbed that her daughter's first memory is of her flamboyant crazy ass father-in-law and we soon discover that this woman is frigid and hates it when her husband walks around naked. This is, like, totally not what a good Catholic-raised 40-something woman who's gone through nine pregnancies and six children should have to put up with. She goes out of her way to make sure her prancing around naked husband isn't interested in sex with her at any convenient or inconvenient moment of the day, and she succeeds. I have this suspicion he just goes elsewhere, and having read reviews for the book I know I am completely right. Then she dies. Yay, frigid wife is gone and naked husband can go have sex with The Lady, who is Selina, who's all married and pissed off about it. I assume. Whatever.

I then skipped to the end, where Catriona magically suspects their horses are being terrorized simply because they're, like, galloping in a paddock. She can sense that fun galloping and terrorized galloping are different, so she jumps her pony gallantly over an iron fence (oh, such bravery) and runs down to the part of the paddock she didn't see to discover this rival family trying to either steal or seriously injure The Tulip's Son and his precious mother. Catriona basically holds off all of them...somehow, despite really doing absolutely nothing other than running around on her pony and shouting, before the calvary arrives that basically consists of her dad and two other people armed with whips. Thus the mare and foal go back to grazing because, you know, they're horses and don't really care. Then Selina decides to stay at the farm and have sex with Catriona's father despite still being married to her abusive husband because this is Ireland in 1970 and divorce just doesn't happen in Ireland in 1970. Oh, and Catriona draws a special uber perfect sketch of the Tulip because I guess he died somewhere in the four hundred pages I didn't read. I wonder if she drew it without realizing what her hands were doing? Seriously, she should get that problem checked out.

That's it. I'm not reading any more Anne McCaffrey books (well, I will not attempt to read any other Anne McCaffrey books, anyway). This should be easy as I can't get into any story involving dragons or magical lands, and this appears to be the bulk of her work. Which makes me wonder how this crazy Irish horse story fits in. Actually, no, wait. I don't wonder. I don't care. Plus the chainsaws have ceased and I'm going to bed.