Safe by Vanessa Harbour

Pages: 247 

Publisher: Firefly Press

Released: 1st of September 2022 

In the chaotic last days of World War II, Jacob and Kizzy are tricked into a life or death journey.

Heinz, their guardian, thinks they are simply helping to fetch some rare horses, but they are really being used to get over the border. Far from home, they are attacked and only just escape. They hide in a seemingly deserted mansion, but they keep hearing strange noises…

Investigating, they find it shelters not only forty abandoned horses but a small band of lost children, displaced by the war. With danger on every side, can Kizzy and Jakob keep them safe and get them all home?

What I Have to Say 

I didn't realise this was a sequel and had to go and read the first book in the series first and I'm glad I did because there were so many references to different things that happened in Flight. I did however like it a whole lot better than Flight. There was more story to it and therefore it felt less predictable. I also felt like there was more danger in this book, the danger felt more abstract in Flight. It felt more like they were alone, whereas in Safe there was the constant reminder that they were right by the roads the Nazis were travelling along. 

There was also less animal death in this one. There's a bit of hunting and fishing, but that's it, unlike Flight. 

I really enjoyed getting to know the children's and their different stories and background. It was nice to see a physically disabled character and a character with mutism added to the cast, especially as with the background of war and illnesses like polio, both these things would have been fairly common at the time. I thought they were handled fairly well but having neither of these things myself, I can't be sure. I also can't be sure of the handling of the Romani character, who was the POV character for this book though I questioned whether her identity was being stripped away since she no longer rode the horses bareback in this book. 

Overall I really enjoyed this book, which was a surprise since I wasn't into Flight. 

(4 stars) 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Firefly Press for providing me with this copy for review. 

A Whisper of Horse by Zillah Bethell

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 368

Publisher: Piccadilly Press

Released: 11th of August 2016 

Serendipity loves horses. No-one in Lahn Dan has ever seen one, apparently they died out before the Gases - but there are statues of them around the city, paintings and drawings too if you know where to look. And there's the little lost wooden horse Mama gave Serendipity when she was little. 

When Mama dies, Seren is taken under the wing of Professor Nimbus, a storyteller. Nimbus is kind and knowledgable, but Seren has started to question the Minister's rule and life beyond the high, impenetrable Emm Twenty-Five wall. Hidden among Mama's few possessions was a map which suggests there is life outside of Lahn Dahn, and a place where horses live and roam freely - out beyond the wall and the Minister's grip. So, with the help of a trader boy called Tab and his little dog Mouse, Serendipity heads into the unknown, searching for the beautiful creatures she's always dreamed of. But the Minister is behind them, determined to hunt her down. . . 

What I Have to Say 

I kind of wanted to see more of this world than we did. I loved Seren's journey to find the horses and how she had to travel through places with people surviving in different ways, but through it all, I was so interesting in Lahn Dahn. I wanted to know more about how things changed from our world to this so controlled society being told lies about how there's no one left outside and they can't leave the city. 

The society was so interesting, how it was divided into these three castes that were vastly different from a financial standpoint. But again, I wanted to know why they were given the names they did. How exactly did it get to the point where the very rich started hoarding all the technology and hoarding themselves away. 

The language both annoyed me and fascinated me. One of my biggest pet peeves in books is when they change names to things like Lahn Dahn to make it such an obvious future setting. But again, I found myself wondering how they got distorted, what process the names went through to be changed in this way. 

So all in all, this book was rather frustrating. It was a lovely story about a girl's search for horses and trying to escape the people trying to track her down and drag her back to Lahn Dahn, but I just wanted so much more information than there was on offer. 

The Glory by Lauren St. John

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 320

Publisher: Orion's Children Books

Released: 5th of March 2015

A Girl on the Run from the Law

Alexandra Blakewood has everything any teenager could wish for, apart from the horse she'd love, but she won't stop getting into trouble. Sent to a US boot camp, she dreams of escaping. It seems impossible until she's told about a gruelling 1,200 mile horse race across the American West...

A Boy on a Mission to Save a Life

Will Greyton was the star student at his Tennessee high school until his father was laid off. Now Will works at a burger joint. When his dad falls ill, it seems things can't get any worse. An operation will save him, but there's no way to pay for it. Then Will hears about The Glory, a deadly endurance race with a $250,000 purse, open to any rider daring enough to attempt it... 

What I Have to Say 

This book took me right back to my childhood of reading books about girls with their own ponies, or longing for their own ponies or just going every day to their locals stables every day. I am not even going to deny that I read a lot of these books. I wasn't quite one of the girls who helped out at the stable on weekends, but I took riding lessons so I know a bit about horses.

I really liked the movie, Hidalgo when I was younger too, so it brought me back to that. I love the idea of surviving out in the wild, of trekking across country with just a horse and a pack of supplies. Obviously not enough to do it in real life, but I like to read about it.

The characters were really easy to get to know and feel for. I loved their relationship with their horses most of all. At first having Alex taking the horse seemed a bit unrealistic, but it really grew on me and I really found myself loving them together by the end of it.

The best bit was how tense and exciting it was. It really surprised me, especially towards the end.

I definitely need to read more from this author.