"He is in touch with his female side" - speaking of which...

Ah, Remy always has to make sure that his feelings are clearly understood, hence Judy’s comment yesterday after our ride “he is in touch with his female side”. We’ll take it as a compliment, as Judy prefers mares!

Speaking of the ‘female side’ – I just finished a wonderful booked called the ‘Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls’ by Anton DiSclafani (despite the name Anton, the writer is female).  The title is a bit misleading, I find. At first glance one might think it is a  children’s or young adult book about summer camp – far from it, though.  Actually some of the scenes are more NC17 than PG13.

The novel is set in the 1930s, right during the depression. The heroine Thea reminds me of Scarlett O’Hara. She is headstrong, passionate, and selfish. Being homeschooled, with very little contact to the world outside her family, Thea spends the majority of her days with Sasi, her horse.

Thea enters into an illicit relationship with her cousin, resulting in dire consequences for the entire family. Subsequently Thea is sent from her home in Florida to a girl’s camp and year-round school in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. An absolutely fearless equestrian, Thea tries to adapt to the lifestyle at the camp, where social skills are deemed vastly more important than academics. And, of course, another man enters the plot – this time the married headmaster.

It’s part historical novel, part romance novel (which I usually don’t like at all), and the author keeps the reader’s attention throughout. The descriptions are very vivid, and the suspense is palpable – all this make for a very good read (in my case in the bathtub).