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For Love of a Horse
Patricia Leitch

Statistics:
ISBN:
Young Adult
Part of the Jinny series.
Out of Print

Accuracy:

Quantity:

Quality:

Horse connection:
(kid with pony) Jinny longs for horses but falls for a totally unsuitable chestnut mare.

Description:
Jinny Manders lives in a dreary city when her father decides to pack up his life as a probation officer and relocate his family to Finnmory House in the Scottish Highlands, where he will write a novel and make pots to sell. Jinny is thrilled because finally she will be able to have a pony. But Finnmory is in frightful shape, and the Highland Ponies leased for her and her brother to ride to school aren't what she'd hoped, somehow. And she's fallen deeply in love with a wild and beautiful chestnut Arabian mare who has been cruelly mistreated by a circus, and who magically escapes to the moors near Finnmory.

This is a really very fine series, meant for middle schoolers but very readable for adults. The characters are vivid, the setbacks realistically frequent. I loved the way she described Jinny's drawing and painting talents, and even tried to recreate the life of the painting myself, with little success. But I still remember it so many years later.

The next books in this series are: A Devil to Ride -- The Summer Riders -- Night of the Red Horse -- Gallop to the Hills -- Horse in a Million -- The Magic Pony -- Ride Like the Wind -- Chestnut Gold -- Jump for the Moon -- Horse of Fire -- Running Wild. Most of them were published only in the UK and so are somewhat difficult to find.

Accuracy:
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painfully inaccurate   [login to vote]   detailed and exquisitely accurate

4.60 Rating, 5 Votes

Quantity:
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minimal or background   [login to vote]   horsey

4.40 Rating, 5 Votes

Quality:
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waste of time   [login to vote]   worth a worldwide search

5.00 Rating, 5 Votes

Ratings Key

"Behold a giant am I", by Amber26 on November 17, 2004

So much more than your usual pony-book fare of the Pullein-Thompson and now Bonnie Bryant stable. Cannot begin to describe the effect these books had on me when I was Jinny's age. Made me want to be an artist (which I now am) AND ride with love and breath and heart and awareness (which got me in trouble at my kick-and-pull riding lessons when I was being tanked off with yet again). Made me ever want to avoid the plastic people. Now rereading them years later I can appreciate as well the background to some of Jinny's (at the time) more obscure quotations - how many eleven-year-olds have read Betjeman? (though it didn't matter a bit then and just added to the magic). And why is it that Ken, aged eighteen, still seems much older than me?

iconic, by ponydom on June 29, 2004

This is one of those books that most people who were kids in the 70's read at some point - mention Jinny and Shantih and people will know the story you're talking about. Ages later, I still remember Jinny hiding in the bracken to track the wild chestnut Arab, her drawings that included elaborate insects, and I have this grand picture in my mind of Finnmory House.