The first book in the Sonrise Stable series, Rosie and Scamper was downloaded for free from the Sonrise Stable website. This series focuses on horses and the Christian faith.  It is aimed at pre-teens.

Rosie and Scamper takes a journey over a couple of years. The reader is first introduced to young Rosie and her adventures with her grandmother who owns and loves horses. Rosie loves her grandmother’s pony Jet and is excited at the prospect of Jet having a foal. When Scamper comes along however, the situation is far from pleasant.

Rosie learns to work with Scamper whilst he is young, improving his ground manners and training. A couple of years later she is even able to get on his back and learn right along with him. During this journey, Rosie becomes acquainted with the neighbours’ foster daughter, Carrie.

Although they have a rocky start, the two become firm friends and Carrie learns to ride and love horses, too. Rosie and Scamper looks at horse ownership and care and the Christian faith. Rosie’s grandmother has many bible verses and stories to help explain things in life. She is a very loving and knowledgeable character.

Carrie learns in time how wonderful Rosie’s parents, cousins and aunts and uncles are, too. As she comes to love Rosie’s family, Carrie is delighted by a request of theirs at the end of the story. Rosie and Scamper is a beautiful tale for young readers with a lot of horse information, plenty of bible verses and much adventure. The book is concluded with an interview with a horse trainer and details about horse hair jewellery that was referenced in the story for readers to learn about.

Author – Vicki Watson
Fiction – children
In my library – On Kindle it is.
Want it? Get it now on Amazon.

This is a non fiction horse book that I recently downloaded for free on Kindle. Finding Your Equine Soul Mate: A Guide to Buying Your First Horse is an easy to read guide for first time horse buyers. It is broken up into the areas of getting started, finding a horse trainer, determining your budget and what you want in a horse. After this, the reader learns about horse shopping, the purchase process, bringing the horse home, horse auctions and some final thoughts.

I believe this book to be of value particularly because it is written by someone who is in the know. Michele has a background with horses – owning, competing, training and instructing others. She is therefore able to guide first time buyers about what to look out for when purchasing their dream horse.

Interspersed through the chapters are stories from other people about purchasing experiences. Some of these are incredible and scary – there are some not nice characters in the horse selling world!

When looking at what the buyer would like in a horse, different disciplines are explained. For those who want to know more, various books and websites are provided as reference points for the reader. This was a nice added bit of value.

The book seemed to me to have a particularly American focus, when I feel the topic is relevant to anyone around the world. It didn’t however detract from the information in the book; there were just some terms or assumptions that indicated buying a horse in the United States. Finding Your Equine Soul Mate by Michele Cook is an easy to understand book with valuable information for those looking to invest in their first horse.

Author – Michele Cook
Non Fiction – adult
In my library – On Kindle it is.
Want it? Get it now on Amazon.