I have been a writer for thirty years and a horse lover my entire life. When I decided to write There Must Be Horses, I set out to learn about natural horsemanship and the way horses and people relate to each other. Of course, I then needed to try out all those exciting ideas myself so I bought myself a horse to help with my research. That was my excuse anyway – in truth I was finally fulfilling my childhood dream of a pony of my own. I still have that horse and would never part with him. He’s an important part of our family.
I wrote...
There Must Be Horses
By
Diana Kimpton
What is my book about?
Sasha’s love of horses has been the only constant during her turbulent life in care, After yet another move, she ends up on a farm where Joe and Beth train troubled horses. Sasha is sure this is the perfect place to live, but she can’t stay. Joe and Beth have only agreed to foster her for a little while, and they only did that reluctantly. Can Sasha persuade them to change their minds and let her stay forever? And can she do it before her social worker finds her another home – one without horses?
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The Books I Picked & Why
Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership
By
Mark Rashid
Why this book?
I discovered Mark Rashid’s books when I was researching horse whispering for my own book, and I was so entranced by what he was saying that I went to one of his workshops to watch him in action. I love both the way he writes and the way he teaches from his own experiences and mistakes. This is not a training manual – it’s a book that will improve your understanding of horse behaviour and emotions so that you can work with them without force.
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The Tao of Equus: A Woman's Journey of Healing and Transformation Through the Way of the Horse
By
Linda Kohanov
Why this book?
This is another book I found while researching my own, and it opened up a whole new way of looking at horses and how they relate to us and to each other. By sharing her own journey of discovery with horses, Linda Kohanov shows the way they can sense emotion and how that can be used to help people. I was so intrigued that I spent a day having equine-assisted learning myself – an amazing experience that left me calmer and happier.
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Muted
By
Leanne Owens
Why this book?
One of the main characters of this novel is a horse whisperer whose traumatic experiences on his eighth birthday have left him unable to speak. When he hears about stallions who are kept entirely indoors in order to produce a new drug, he sets out to ease their suffering. In the process, he meets Karen Lawford, the workaholic heir to the drug company, and tries to reawaken her love for horses so she can see that what is happening to the stallions is wrong, and tries to help her too. I love this well-crafted story of love and healing, but feel I should mention that it includes horses dying and being badly treated.
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War Horse
By
Michael Morpurgo
Why this book?
This novel tells the same story that the film and the brilliant stage play are based on, with one important difference – the book is written from the point of view of the horse. Joey takes us from his foal hood, through his developing relationship with his owner’s son and eventually to the terrifying battles of the First World War. Michael Morpurgo uses the connection between Joey and the humans he meets to show the dreadful price that horses and people alike paid in that conflict and the fact that there were good people on both sides. I’m sure it deserves to be as much a classic as Black Beauty.
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The Horse Whisperer: A Novel
By
Nicholas Evans
Why this book?
I read this book when it was first published, and I couldn’t put it down. The story opens with a dreadful accident where a lorry hits two girls out riding together. One girl and her horse are killed, the other girl has life-changing injuries. and her horse is so traumatised that the vet suggests putting him down. However, her mother refuses to do that. Instead, she loads the horse into a trailer and takes him and her daughter to Montana to meet a horse whisperer who she hopes can heal them all. (NB Although this story features a child, it is not a children’s book.)
