SUMMER SECRETS

by Diane Glaser ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 1977

Quasi-titillating title aside, this turns out to be an ultra-tame horse story for non-riders since by the book's end the heroine still has yet to saddle up Rascal, a high-spirited and very untrained stud colt. Summering in Tulip, Alabama, at her great-aunt Ladybelle's, teenage Worthy Meadows spends most of her waking moments at Doyle Raymond's stables where she grooms and feeds Rascal, makes sure the good-natured but drunken stable owner gets a proper vet to geld the colt, helps nurse the horse through a nasty bout of distemper, and finally receives not one but two checks (from her father and eager-to-please new stepmother) to make Rascal truly hers. When she isn't hanging around the horse, Worthy is busy checking out various rumors concerning family and friends; Glaser sees this snooping as proof of the girl's high-spirited nature when actually Worthy seems far more like your average nosy parker. And for all her digging, the only dirt she digs up is that rich Ladybelle Ashby came from the wrong side of town, her friend Cain's mother had a breakdown and died in a mental institution, and so on. And while this sort of ingrown gossip has evidently kept tongues wagging in Tulip for an awfully long time, it holds little or no interest outside the city limits.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1977

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Holiday House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1977

Categories: FICTION