The recollections of a woman who has devoted her life to breeding horses on a Texas farm.

Debut memoirist Lurix has so many fond childhood memories of Crowndale, her grandparents’ estate in rural New Jersey, she eventually names her own horse farm after it—and her book. The author chronicles her transformation from a woman who sold her grandmother’s silver to afford her first horse (an Arabian gelding named Ivanhoe) into a full-time horse breeder in sharp, simple prose. She also spends time exploring the nuances of her deep connection to breeding stallion and show horse Mac’s Blue Erin. Having spent nearly three decades in the business, the author has encountered a strange array of characters, witnessed many births and deaths, and acquired a herd of Angora sheep and a pack of Pyrenees dogs. It is quite obvious the author is a passionate woman, and that her projects—her farm and this history of it—are born from her desires. She states that she is not in the business for the money but for the experience and the joy it brings her. However, readers expecting to learn about horses and life on a farm will be lost; for those who cannot distinguish between Irish Draught and Andalusian horses, the author does little to clarify. This title reads as if copied directly from a diary, whose audience of one needs no orientation. New characters are introduced without ceremony and momentous events are reported without declaring them milestones. But Lurix’s emotional proximity to the subject matter works well when describing events few outside the industry will witness, such as the birth of a filly. This memoir will have difficulty gaining traction among readers who are not familiar with equine matters.