Racing Into Trouble

Racing Into Trouble
Book 2: Timber Ridge Riders
by Maggie Dana
2012

Ever since Kate McGregor arrived at Timber Ridge Stables, Angela Dean has been making trouble for her. Maybe she’s angry because Kate’s a better rider than she is, or maybe she’s jealous because Kate’s the only one who’s allowed to ride Buccaneer, the barn’s willful new horse. To further complicate matters, a new girl — Jennifer West — moves into the neighborhood and Angela sets out to impress her. But when Angela makes a fool of herself in front of Jennifer, things begin to go wrong and Kate gets the blame. Is Angela behind the trouble? Kate and her best friend, Holly Chapman who’s learning to walk and ride again, can’t be sure. But they do know one thing. If Angela’s on the warpath, Kate is heading for trouble, and fast.

Volume two shakes things up pretty dramatically in Timber Ridge Riders, which begins with a couple of new additions: the extra excitable Buccaneer and the newest rider at the barn, Jennifer. The resident antagonist, Angela, has high hopes that she will commandeer both Buccaneer and Jennifer for herself, but it's pretty clear from the get go that both Buccaneer and Jennifer are way out of Angela's league. Angela can only handle well-trained, push-button horses, which Buccaneer is definitely not, and Jennifer appears to be polite and has spiky hair and a nose piercing. Le gasp! Who is this magical girl who seems to have some sort of personal style that is not normally defined as "grubby" and dares to ride horses? And why can't there be more of them in horse books?

So anyway. Liz, Holly's mom and resident adult, determines that only she will ride and train Buccaneer, but when she sprains her ankle Kate steps up to pick up all the extra chores around the barn. Naturally, Kate and Buccaneer hit it off over a roll of minty Life Savers and Liz hesitantly gives her the go ahead to exercise him. Magician, awesome horse from the previous book, is probably wondering why no one loves him anymore. Poor guy. Kate romps around on Buccaneer, only to be seen by Angela and, in an odd turn of events, winds up accidentally allowing Angela to go careening off on the horse. This ends in disaster, and since Angela is not to be shamed for the stupidity she gets herself into, people are going to pay. People being, well, mainly Kate.

And so begins the truly awe inspiring campaign to drive Kate completely insane. Antagonists everywhere could learn at the feet of Angela, because she is something to behold. Granted, some of her actions are based on pure chance, but the girl knows how to capitalize. And because Holly and Kate are too afraid to tell Liz what is going on for fear that Angela's mom will fire her and kick them all out of Timber Ridge for being competent, Angela's campaign is a smashing success. Everyone loses faith in Kate, who is eventually fired and forced to garden for the rest of the summer. (Ha! I'm kidding...or am I? Dun dun dun.)

Seriously. It was like watching a plane crash in slow motion. It just keeps tumbling to the ground and you keep expecting it to pull up and it just...doesn't. It hits the ground. Angela is officially the horsey main character slayer. Long live Angela! (No, not really. I don't like horse book antagonists that much. I just wish Brad Townsend had been this effective. I would have laughed and laughed...but that's besides the point.)

Anyhoo, the other major development is Holly's walking ability. She's been battling through two books to get over her hysterical paralysis, determined to one day ride Magician again. For some reason, no one takes this girl to a therapist, but that's neither here nor there. We're just waiting for her to climb out of her wheelchair and insert herself in the sort of romance that may or may not be budding between Kate and Adam. Love triangle of doom is on, you guys. Prepare yourselves!

We end the book by officially declaring that no one likes Angela. No wonder she acts out all the time.

All said, this is a solid middle grade. The horse crazy tweens will lap it up, and that's okay by me because I'm again charmed by the fact that none of the main characters irritate me. There is crop usage (and visualizing smacking people in the face with the crop, so all is not perfect in main character land). And none of the horses act like special flowers waiting to apply themselves after the appropriate dosage of love and a well-timed, long winded speech. It's appreciated. Thanks Maggie Dana! I'll be on the look out for book three.

To get your own copy of Racing Into Trouble, head on over to Amazon or B&N. It's available in print, as well as being Kindle and Nook friendly!

New Series: Timber Ridge Riders

Keeping Secrets
Timber Ridge Riders Series

by Maggie Dana

A valuable horse is dead, and it's all her fault . . . which is why 14-year-old Kate McGregor has put horses and riding out of her life. Forever!

But her new job as a companion to Holly Chapman, a former riding star who's now confined to a wheelchair, takes her back to the barn where she's forced to confront her guilt. Can Kate keep her terrible secret from Holly, who is fast becoming her best friend? And, more important, can she keep her secret from Angela Dean who lives for only two things--winning ribbons and causing trouble? 

Some of us might find this synopsis familiar, because Timber Ridge Riders was once a book series called Best Friends. It took me a while to put my finger on why it seemed like I'd been here before, until I realized I'd read the fourth book in the series, If Wishes Were Horses, circa 1988. Naturally I hadn't read the previous books, as I was a child and had not yet developed crazy quirks like stridently insisting on chronological order. Therefore my memory is hazy, but bells are definitely ringing and I am intrigued.

Anyway, Kate is a roving teen looking for a job. Her mom is gone, and her dad has basically abandoned her for bugs, leaving her with an aunt who would rather not have this responsibility. Consequently, Kate goes forth and, with the courage and tenacity most of us lack in this economy, lands herself a job as companion for a wheelchair-bound teen named Holly. Kate moves in for the summer and thinks she has it made, right up until she realizes that horse stable they all live on? Yeah, that's going to be a big part of her life, and Kate would rather it not be.

Holly lives and breathes horses, which is not so great for Kate because it turns out Kate is traumatized from having accidentally killed her old barn's favorite horse: Black Magic. In order to get out of being near the horses Holly insists she be around every waking moment, Kate feigns horse phobia (is there a word for that? Equinophobia! Thank you, internets!) and is immediately mocked by the reigning antagonist, Angela, an antagonist name if ever there was one. Angela has problems of her own, of course. Her mother is a show mom on steroids, and it's all she can do to get a couple of nice words out of the woman. Therefore, all will know Angela's wrath, and Kate is right in her path of fury.

When Sue, one of the riders on the stable's equestrian team, is injured out in the woods somewhere, Kate is forced to out herself and leaps aboard Holly's horse, Magician, in order to race for help. Everyone goes ooooh at Kate's sudden and unexpected ability, before going boooo at Kate's lie, and finally landing on awwwww after she tells Holly her tragic tale of woe. But now that Sue can't ride, Kate is the perfect fall back, so looks like everything happens for a reason. Or something.

Only Angela is lurking in the shadows, having overheard everything and plotting mercilessly to make sure Kate can never ride at Timber Ridge! For that would surely mean Angela would not receive the medal for individual accomplishment at the upcoming show, and that means she must do what antagonists do sort of well, but not really. Sweet, sweet blackmail.

Forced to not tell Holly's mother, the manager and trainer of these kids and their horses at the barn, because Angela will then take Kate's horse killer story to her mother, who will then make sure Holly's mom knows the sting of a pink slip, Kate feels trapped and helpless. Thus begins the power struggle.

I will say one thing, I have never seen a more motivated antagonist. You know how lots of middle-grade horse books have "antagonists" who are sort of annoying and might do one or two somewhat ridiculous things that are more merely irksome than they are true sights to behold? Angela falls into the last category. When blackmail doesn't succeed, she moves on to researching the rulebook to get Kate kicked off the team. When that doesn't pan out, she destroys the cross country trails to ensure Kate gets lost. When Kate pops out of the forest despite the bad signage, she wrecks Kate's stall so the team will be docked points for bad stable management. That actually works. But is she done? Hell no! We have stirrups to tamper with, because Angela is thorough.

But I'm not saying Angela makes the book. Kate is rather likeable by herself, and Holly is plucky and enthusiastic. The horse scenes are knowledgeable without going overboard, and while there is a subtle hint of Wonder Pony about Magician, the book certainly tones down the sentiment that seems to run rampant in horse books. (ie, crops are used to effect without anyone crying about it.) By the end, winning is shown not to be all there is in life, which is accentuated by the show results and the battle royale at the end.

Keeping Secrets has reminded me that I really should scour Amazon for more independently published horse books, because where traditional publishing has failed me in so many ways, the indie authors are out there striking out on their own, taking chances publishing houses would probably rather not. Kids with Kindles and a distinct love of horses will devour Keeping Secrets and search for more. Not to mention, I will be reading more so I can compare and contrast with my hazy memory of book #4.

Keeping Secrets is available for Kindles everywhere at Amazon.

I read this book and all I got was this empty feeling.

A Horse of Her Own
by Annie Wedekind
Published: June 2008

Annie Wedekind is a new author, just experiencing the first blush of publication and enjoying the thrill of seeing her words in print. Congratulations, Annie! Your hard work (I presume you worked hard, but whatever) has payed off. What's more, you have a very cute website. I admire all of that.

But it's not going to stop me from recapping this book to the standards I usually reserve for Thoroughbred. (Annie, if you've read Thoroughbred, don't worry. I love it and will be the first to defend it. Think of this as a very positive situation for you.)

Summary:

Fourteen-year-old Jane Ryan has always dreamed of having a horse of her own—but so long as she gets to ride her favorite school horse, Beau, at Sunny Acres farm, she’s content. And this is the summer she means to try out for the advanced riding class.

But just as camp begins, Jane receives heartbreaking news about Beau. She loses, not just her favorite horse, but also her chance to ride in the end-of-summer competition. When her trainer asks for her help with an out-of-control chestnut warmblood, Lancelot, a newcomer to the barn, she has no choice but to say yes.

There’s another new addition to the farm: Ben Reyes, the grandson of the barn's manager. As Jane struggles to go on without Beau, and to make Lancelot the great horse she believes him to be, her feelings for Ben, her relationships with the privileged group of girls she rides with, and her painful, joyous road to self-discovery all lead to a heart-pounding conclusion that is truly a new beginning. Only Jane’s faith in Lancelot, and her own rediscovered skill and strength, can see her through the hard journey toward a horse of her own.

The Kirkus Review calls this "probably the most honest horse book since National Velvet." I have a huge problem with this statement for three reasons. The first among them is that National Velvet was published in 1935. Am I really to expect that the world has been without an "honest" horse book for 73 years? Secondly, this isn't an honest horse book. This is basically Camp Saddlebrook and Melanie's Last Ride combined. That's right. Think on that for a minute. Thirdly, I'm pretty sure the Kirkus Review only mentions National Velvet because this book shamelessly references National Velvet's plot as being similar to its own.

I'm going to focus first on the author for a minute. Annie is originally from Louisville, where she learned how to ride on a farm similar to the farm she depicts in her novel. There's also a note in the back of the book about how the setting of her novel is so very similar to the setting of her youth (as in, it is the same), but don't worry all you people who knew her when she was young. She didn't write you into her novel, or anything. Not to worry! Oh, except for that Beau horse (which is pronounced "Boo," so why they didn't just spell it Boo is beyond me), who I guess existed at one point.

Yeah, so from all of that are we immediately suspicious that our main character is going to be a Mary Sue? Well, let's find out, shall we?

Meet Jane Ryan. She's the daughter of two college professors and lives in downtown Louisville, which therefore makes her unworthy to all the other suburban-raised kids in her riding class. Except for Robin, who is rich and suburban-raised herself, and somehow manages to be accepted by the rich snobs while dutifully playing Jane's best friend. The rich snobs are Alyssa and Jennifer, who have snubbed Jane for about five solid years. Then there's Jessica, Alyssa and Jennifer's third portion of their triumvirate of bitchiness. Jessica drifts back and forth, mostly loyal to Alyssa, but she sometimes throws Jane a brief glimpse of hope that she'll be included in their clique, which mainly just confuses Jane. Jane, you see, so desperately wants to belong.

Now, the thing here is that everyone has their own horse except for Jane. Jane is painfully aware of this fact. Riding school horses, you see, is so very terrible and Jane so wants her own horse and you see the issue, I'm sure. In the early goings of the book she begs her father one last time for her very own horse and he tells her again that they just can't afford it (yet they've been sending her to a private school up through 8th grade...because they are college professors and public school is not good or challenging enough for their socially awkward daughter). Jane responds by bursting into tears.

Jane just takes this melodrama and applies it to her determination to get into the Advanced I class on Beau, her trusty school horse. During their last lesson before their instructor, Susan, decides on their placement for camp, the other evil bitchy girl, Emily, arrives with a brand new horse. It is the fantastical chestnut gelding Lancelot. Only he's crazy. And Emily sort of beats the crap out of him with her crop. And now he hates crops. Of course he does. So Susan sticks Emily in Advanced II and thus Jane gets to be in Advanced I. Camp starts. This is all fairly uneventful until Jane runs into the boy of her dreams, Ben. Only she spends most of this meeting being even more socially awkward than normal and talking to animals. Poor, poor Jane.

In the early goings of the camp, instructor Susan has the Advanced I girls go over this cross country course, having them all go over this crazy big hedge jump without really informing them that this jump is involved in the course. Ben is hidden in the trees to make sure they all go over this jump, and only two actually do -- Jane and Jessica. Alyssa and Jennifer opt out of the jump entirely, getting reprimanded by Susan as they hold firm in their belief that they were being responsible by refusing to jump such an obstacle. I can't really say what the whole point was of this giant hedge jump other than Susan expecting everyone to do as she commands, but whatever. After this reprimand, Susan goes and informs Jane that Beau was sold to one of the younger kids and so Jane has no mount. There's some talk about the owners of the barn deciding to get another horse for the stable, but this never actually materializes. I kept expecting someone to tell Jane not to worry because a new horse is coming along, but no one does.

You want to know why? No one tells Jane about the new horse because Emily has thrown a temper tantrum and left camp, dumping Lancelot in a stall with a bucket of grain. Lancelot colics, and while Jane is all moping around in the middle of the night, she runs into the drama in the barn with Ben and his grandfather, Jose, who are both taking care of the panicked gelding. Only Jose decides to put the horse back in the stall to let him roll because that's supposed to be just fine? Apparently it's okay to let a colicking horse roll all over the place and the only danger to a horse in this condition is that they might smack a leg against the sides of their stall? Is there some reasoning behind why Annie is rewriting EVERYTHING I've ever known about treating colic? Horse people, help me out here.

So, after saving Lancelot's life, Jane becomes the gelding's personal Jesus. She walks out to the horse in his paddock and offers him grass and he's all "grass!" and lets her lead him around. Everyone is shocked. I...am not, I've got to say. So then Susan let's it be known that she bought Lancelot from Emily's parents and she wants Jane to ride him.

Let's just get this out now: Jessica has already told Jane that the other girls don't like her because they're intimidated by her. Also, it's pretty apparent that Jane is the best rider there ever was in the history of this barn. Also, Alyssa calls her Ms. Goody, and she's right. Jane is a perfect goody-goody. She may be a dirty mess who wears high-waisted jeans and Keds from 1986, but just because she has no fashion sense doesn't make her any less of a perfect brat. After this Ms. Goody moment, it becomes screamingly apparent that Jane is just that. And it's highly annoying.

So, right when Jane starts harboring these feeling for Ben, Jessica comes along and swoops him up. She also transforms from a somewhat sympathetic and interesting character into a two-dimensional nut case who shows two emotions: jealousy and pissiness. Therefore the main antagonist switches from Alyssa to Jessica in the bat of an eye.

Meanwhile, Jane continues to ride Lancelot and he continues to accidentally beat the crap out of her. Jose and Susan get into this random yelling match about how Jane shouldn't be riding Lancelot at all because he's not hers and she'll just get all heartbroken when she has to be taken off of him again? Like...suck it up, Jane. And who are these people to really care whether or not she has a horse? And where is this horse the owners were buying and moving to the barn? Huh? HUH?

Anyway, Ben and Jane start taking Lancelot on trail rides and Jessica is not pleased about this. At one point she strolls up to them in Lancelot's stall and informs Ben she's going to go swimming. She proceeds to strip her shirt off to show him how wonderful her breasts look in a red bikini. Jane just blushes again and realizes she'll never have a chest like Jessica's. This is a pretty clunky area, obviously.

So, let me see here. Let's just get to the main point. Jane decides she's going to ride in the end of camp show with Lancelot, only she's going to ride in Advanced I. Because Lancelot is kind of a lunatic, Jane winds up doing more Advanced II work with him because no one wants Lancelot to fly into a cross country jump and kill them both. Only Jane is not satisfied with this. So she has Ben spy on Advanced I classes for her, and he gets her the jumping tests for the show, and Jessica is further pissed off. Ben finally tells Jane that he had told Jessica about the hedge jump from the beginning of camp, with expectations that Jessica would tell everyone else in Advanced I. Well, Jessica didn't tell Jane. Wow, shocking. So Ben and Jessica get into a fight about Jane.

Eventually, Jane falls off of Lancelot again and injures her shoulder. Fighting through the pain, she enters the Advanced I show anyway and wins. Afterward Susan gives Lancelot to Jane (we all saw that coming, right?), but only after they all discover that Lancelot isn't actually the horse they all thought he was. Gasp! Who is this horse? Where did Emily's dad get him?

Well, those questions aren't answered because Annie is working on a sequel. I'm going to predict right now that the sequel is going to be about Lancelot's real background and then there's going to be a plotline that will concern Jane possibly having to give him up, but in the end she gets to keep him. Right? If that's not exactly on the money, I'm sure it's a variation on the same theme.

• There are two things that started to annoy me in their repetition: blushing and calling everything crazy. At one point someone yells something about "that crazy horse! That's crazy!" Like...there are synonyms for crazy. Lots of them. Also, the blushing. Jane may be shy, but I don't think it's possible to blush that often. It happened nearly three times per chapter. There are 21 chapters. That's too much.

• I appreciated Robin the most in the entire book. I expected her to fall into the typical secondary character meant to solely support the main character's brilliance, but she does have an little plotline of her own. The unfortunate thing about her plotline is how lame it is. Her problem is she doesn't want to compete, which pretty much boils down to the repeated insistence that no one is as good as Jane.

• Annie was trying for some humor in this book. You could really tell she wanted readers to laugh at the antics and the characters constantly lapsing into British accents, but it felt really forced and unfunny to me. Actually, Robin and Jane always seemed to act like they were drunk whenever they were together, which was probably not what Annie was going for at all.

• Beau is sold to a ten-year-old girl named Megan, giving Jane the opportunity to become Megan's mentor. There was a lot of sappiness that was not needed at all here. About half of Megan's scenes could have been cut entirely and Jane's character would have been stronger for it.

• Jane never does anything wrong when she's riding. In fact, she always does everything right. What's more, she only falls off during accidents involving twigs or things that happen to slap at Lancelot. Therefore, the only reason Lancelot is dumping Jane is because Emily is such a bitch. Really.

• At the show, Alyssa and Jennifer's older brothers show up. Jane's older sister, Lily, also shows up. Immediately I just knew the brothers were going to take an interest in Jane and Lily. What happened? Oh, they totally stared at them. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to feel smug.

Here's my final verdict on Jane. She's not a Mary Sue. A bit of a self-insert, she may well be, but mostly she just suffers from being a typical main character in a typical young adult horse story. She's the girl that doesn't have everything, doesn't own a horse and desperately wants one, works hard, is a "natural" at riding, is almost too down to earth, gets beaten up severely and rises above her injuries, and wins her show/class/whatever before randomly getting a horse of her own in the end. God, that girl and plot gets annoying eventually.

So, Annie, I'm sorry to say, but "most honest horse book since National Velvet" this story is not, because it's basically every juvenile horse story I've read since January...and that's a lot of them. It's a good first try, and I will most assuredly read the sequel, because I mainly want to see if I'm right about the plot. Otherwise, A Horse of Her Own is about as original as its title. Which, considering I already reviewed Joanna Campbell's A Horse of Her Own, is not very original at all.