The Secret Horses of Briar Hill

August 29, 2016
Shepherd (The Cage) blends the historical with the fantastical in her deeply moving first middle grade novel, set during WWII. Twelve-year-old narrator Emmaline is convalescing in a hospital in the British countryside for children with “stillwaters,” the girl’s term for tuberculosis. Emmaline chafes at the requirement to remain cloistered indoors, and instead sneaks off to the sundial garden on the estate’s grounds. Emmaline believes she sees winged horses in the hospital’s mirrors, and when a horse with a broken wing appears in the sundial garden, having apparently crossed over from the mirror world, Emmaline resolves to protect her from a malevolent black horse. Shepherd’s strong supporting cast includes a benevolent doctor, a one-armed handyman named Thomas, a kind older girl named Anna, and a boisterous group of boys, as well as the nuns who tend to them. Shepherd leaves the story’s fantasy elements tantalizingly open-ended—it’s for readers to decide whether the winged horses Emmaline sees and the “Horse Lord” she corresponds with are products of her rich imagination—yet the magic in the relationships she builds, even the tragic ones, is undeniable. Ages 10–up. Author’s agent: Josh Adams, Adams Literary.

Starred review from July 15, 2016
A young English World War II refugee finds magic tending the winged horses who live in the mirrors of her sanatorium. Emmaline May (her age is never given, though readers can extrapolate that she's older than 8, younger than 13; as well, she's not described as white, but, along with everyone else in the novel, probably is due to its setting) misses her parents, her older sister, and the horses that helped with the deliveries of her family's bakery. The horses were lost in the Blitz, and now Emmaline, afflicted with a disease she calls the "stillwaters," lives without her family in a former manor home-turned-pediatric hospital. Only she can see the horses in the mirrors; only she can see the mare with a damaged wing who comes to live in the walled garden. The Horse Lord leaves a note detailing what Emmaline must do to save the mare's life, and she embarks upon a quest made increasingly difficult by her declining health. Emmaline's narration is unreliable, flawlessly childlike, and deeply honest; her faith in magic brings her solace and, possibly, healing. The magical realism is reminiscent of the Chronicles of Narnia, Elizabeth Goudge, or a child's version of Life of Pi.The right readers will love this to pieces. (Historical fiction. 7-11)

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August 1, 2016

Gr 5-8-Featuring an unreliable narrator, this darkly atmospheric and humorless novel, set in a British countryside hospital for children with tuberculosis during World War II, blurs the line between fantasy and reality. Emmaline sees winged horses in the mirrors, meets a fugitive white-winged horse in the garden, and follows the Horse Lord's written instructions to steal a rainbow of brightly colored objects in order to protect the creature from a terrifying, menacing black-feathered horse. Mature and experienced readers might notice that the driven, earnest narrator stops seeing horses whenever she faces the painful realities of her life, but Shepherd deftly keeps the action going to distract from this fact. Chapters are all very short and well formed around single events, giving the book a choppy unevenness that emphasizes how silly Emmaline's quest really is; if it weren't so deeply psychological and gloomy, filled with vividly bleak imagery of bad weather, overworked nuns poorly supervising sick children mid-war in midwinter, and velvet-coated, warm-eyed horses, the story would border on absurdity. VERDICT Ideal for readers who love to immerse themselves in emotionally wrought period pieces.-Rhona Campbell, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC

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Starred review from August 1, 2016
Grades 3-5 *Starred Review* In the midst of WWII England, Emmaline is sent to the countryside to live at Briar Hill Hospital, where all the childrenEmmaline includedsuffer from stillwaters (TB). Blackout curtains keep out the light; illness and nuns' habits pervade the hospital; and her closest friend, Anna, is so sick that she cannot venture outside. Emmaline constantly seeks escape, both by going into the drab winter gardens and by seeing winged horses in the mirrors inside the hospital. When she discovers an injured winged horse named Foxfire has escaped the mirror world and taken shelter in the sundial garden, Emmaline's life takes on purpose: she must help protect Foxfire from Volkrig, the black-winged horse that threatens Foxfire while she heals. Narrated by Emmaline, whose health grows steadily weaker as the story progresses, this quietly powerful novel draws in the reader with its magic realism. Endearing characters, metaphors for life and death, and a slow revelation of the horrors of war give this slim novel a surprising amount of heft. In her middle-grade debut, Shepherd blurs the line between real and imaginary, leaving room for readers to debate the story's meaning. Classics such as Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden and C. S. Lewis' Narnia books inform this moving, magically tinged slice of historical fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)