Sasha knows what it's like to be unloved for she has been pushed from foster home to foster home too many times to remember. Her one true love is horses but it's too much to hope for that the latest foster home, complete with lots of horses could be the one that becomes permanent. Diana Kimpton is a terrific storyteller and There must be Horses is a real page-turner, but be prepared it is also an emotional rollercoaster that will have you verging on tears and laughing with joy. Can Sasha's talent of handling troubled horses and in particular one horse persuade the foster parents to take her in permanently and give some stability to Sasha's life. This is an absolute must-read for pony mad kids lucky enough to have their own pony as well as those who wish they had one.
Sasha's love of horses has been the only constant during her turbulent life in care. When a failed adoption placement results in yet another move, she ends up at Kingfishers - a farm where Joe and Beth train troubled horses. To Sasha, this seems like the perfect place to live. But she can't stay. Joe and Beth are adamant about that. They have only agreed to take 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?
For me, this has to be one of the best pony novels I have read this year. It has all the ingredients needed for a superb pony story: a great sympathetic character, a bond between girl and horse, emotional depth and an intelligent exploration of deeper issues. Claire Noble of Pony Mad Booklovers Blog
Wow! What a book! There Must Be Horses is a thoroughly modern pony book that is not sentimental but a crisply written piece of teenage fiction with superb characterisation and a pacy plot. It gripped me from the start to the very last page. Catherine Hawley of Juxtabook and CL Hawley Books
I was gripped by this story right from the start. It's so involving, so emotionally intense, that it sweeps you along with it and is almost impossible to put down. Awfully Big Blog Adventure
Author
About Diana Kimpton
Diana Kimpton has written more than forty books for children, including her Pony-Mad Princess series, other novels, picture books and non-fiction. She has always loved horses and finds that writing about them gives her the perfect excuse to spend time at the stables when she should be working. Diana says " I've always made up stories. When I was a child, I did it in my head using characters from my favourite TV programmes or the horses I dreamed of owning. But I never saw writing as a possible career, especially as I didn't like English at secondary school. Perhaps I was already too much a writer at heart to enjoy dissecting other people's books. So I left school and became a maths teacher which I didn't like. Then I left teaching and became a mother which I loved. Finally, in the time left over from parenting, I became a writer which is such fun that I don't ever want to stop."
Here's Diana talking about her writing...
A Q&A with Diana about her new novel, There Must Be Horses
What led you to write There Must Be Horses? I wanted to write a longer book for readers who had grown out of my Pony-Mad Princess books. But I was keen not to write a story about winning red rosettes, so I started investigating horse whispering and horse behaviour. While I was doing that I became fascinated with the similarity in the way both horses and humans lose trust in people if they have bad experiences and that became the trigger for the plot.
Did you do much research for the book? Masses. I even bought a horse of my own to try out all the methods I had read about. That was my excuse anyway. I'd always wanted a pony, and Kubus is far more than just a research project - he's a friend. He's also triggered an idea for another book that's just starting to brew in my head.
How long did it take you to write the book? Ages - I've never spent so long on any book. I wrote the first chapter five years ago, just to see if Sasha worked as a character. Then I stopped writing while I worked on the Amy Wild - Animal Talker books, but I kept on with the research and let the story grow on my head. Once I settled down to work on the book again, I spent about a year finalising the plot and actually writing it down.
