The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Horseracing with a bizarre and deadly twist. Stiefvater takes the myth of the water horse, a malevolent creature which looks like a normal horse but can swim like a fish, run like the blazes on land, and only ingests meat (human, horse or sheep are just fine), and combines it with an annual race on a rocky island for a large winning purse. Sean has won the Scorpio Races with the water horse Corr four times in the last six years. If he wins this year he can buy Corr from the Malvern Stables, the richest family on the island, and his employer for the past nine years. Kate rashly claims she is entering the races on her horse Dove, a regular horse, not a water horse, so she can save her family home and keep her brother from leaving for the mainland for a few weeks more. Kate is the first woman to ever enter the races and the first participant to ride a normal horse.
I got the sense that the book was set off the coast of Great Britain during the early 1900s but I’m not quite sure. There are British accents and references to America so it is set on a fictional island somewhere in the real world. Mostly an adventure and coming of age story there is a romance as well. Something for everyone!
Since the story is told in alternating chapters from Sean and Kate’s points of view it was great to hear both a male and female voice actor. I loved it on audio until the last disc. The action was so fast paced that it was hard to listen to! If I had the book in hand I would have been furiously skimming to the end. So, I guess it’s good that I listened to it otherwise I may have missed something!
