“Samphire Song” by Jill Hucklesby

For once, the cover art is to-the-point on the nature of the book.  This is a novel about a teenage girl and a horse.  Like all books with this theme, it has a girl with some personal issues sinking herself into the world of equines and finding solace there.  The writing is good – lyrical even, if you find the shining of tack and the green grass of a paddock lyrical.  I did like the emotional tone in terms of caring for a difficult, abused animal, having been there myself.  I also liked that the family structure is pretty solid.  Mom and brother are both loving, fun and supportive.  Jodie (our protagonist) is a nice young woman whose only real world is spent with her family or in the stables.  The 16 year-old’s school life barely factors in.  The novel is “okay” without being brilliant.  It’s not a bad book – it pulls at all of your heartstrings as expected -- it’s just hugely predictable and the story structure pretty basic.  The tale doesn’t flow so much as it stops and starts with each chapter.  There were absolutely no surprises, including the pre-requisite horse-race which seemed superfluous to the storyline by the time it finally happened.  I was slightly perplexed by the lack of British-isms, however.  Clearly set in England, the book appears to have been “revised” for American audiences … changing out dollars for pounds, states for districts, etc.  In some ways, this added to the general blandness of this novel by making the setting and character dialogue ambiguous.  In the end, those who love a good horse story will *love* this tale (or is that “tail”?)