What’s Rachel Reading? The Horse Dancer

This week’s read is Jojo Moyes’ The Horse Dancer. I’d read her Me Before You for a short-lived book club a few years ago and remember not being able to put it down, so wanted to check out some of her other work. (Speaking of which, I really do need to find a new book club — I miss being in one.)

So, let me start out here by confessing I know nothing at all about horses. (The closest I’ve ever really come to a horse was when I was about 10, and even then it was just one of those sad, sad ponies plodding around in circles at a traveling carnival.) You don’t need to know anything about horses, though, to appreciate the artistry described in The Horse Dancer — or to appreciate the years of training and precision required at this level of elite horsemanship. Nor do you need to know anything about horses to connect with Moyes’ always-compelling characters, flung together by chance but seemingly connected by fate.

The Horse Dancer weaves the story of Henri, a horseman at elite riding academy Le Cadre Noir, together with the story of his teenage granddaughter Sarah some 50 years later — as well as with the story of Natasha, a child advocate lawyer estranged from her charming husband Mac after years of tragedy and miscommunication. Moyes’ well-researched book shines because of her ability to intertwine all of these multiple storylines and disparate viewpoints: Past and present, England and France, teenager and adult, urban and rural.

Sarah’s grandfather focuses all of his attention on training Sarah on the intricacies of the elite horsemanship he learned at Le Cadre Noir so long ago, spending his meager savings on a beautiful horse which they keep tucked away in a quirky pocket of stableyard in the midst of their urban area. After Henri suffers a debilitating stroke, however, Sarah finds herself on her own and facing challenges beyond her years. Her path crosses with Natasha at just the right time — although Natasha, of course, has issues of her own to overcome in both her personal and professional life.

The Horse Dancer proved an engrossing yet poignant read. Sometimes I just wanted to throw the book across the room in frustration at the characters’ inability to communicate with each other, but they all grow in satisfying ways both as people and in relationship to each other. The ending was somewhat predictable, since The Horse Dancer is at its heart a romance: Sarah and her horse providing both a compelling complementary narrative and the mechanism for the main characters to reconnect. It’s a fairly lengthy read, yet a fast one; highly recommended.

What are you reading this week?

What have you been reading lately? Tell us about it! ? And, you can browse all the What’s Rachel Reading? book reviews here.