The Secret Horses of Briar Hill

Reviewed by: Sheila Dube - Springvale Public Library, Springvale, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: February 23, 2017

Review

Recommending this title for cream consideration. In a home converted to a children's hospital during World War II, tween-aged Emmaline sees horses with wings in all the mirrors. All the children at Briar Hill are in various stages of Tuberculosis and are isolated from everyone except the few caregiving adults: the sisters, the gardener and the visiting doctor. When Foxfire, one of the winged horses is injured and appears in the abandon garden of the home, Emmaline takes it upon herself to help protect Foxfire from the sinister Black Horse who preys on them and has also escaped the mirrors. Emmaline is the strong-willed, imaginative, narrator of this story who covets Anna's colored pencils, disobeys the sisters, and engages in some kleptomania in the name of protecting Foxfire. The horses in the mirrors are a fantasy world that Emmaline has constructed to survive the tremendous personal pain and heartbreak that she experiences in her life, or are they real? The mystical horses give her purpose and adventure in the isolating setting as she watches children die, knowing that she will most likely face the same fate. Shepherd has entwined the universal pain that war and chronic illnesses create in persons with the fantastical in at times lightly humorous story, in a way that balances the two and may have readers wondering if there are horses in their mirrors.

Publisher Note: Pages 59-90 were repeated in the review copy, but other librarians has confirmed that their copies do not have these extra pages.

Overall Book Score: excellent