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DARK HORSES by Susan Mihalic Kirkus Star

DARK HORSES

by Susan Mihalic

Pub Date: Feb. 16th, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3384-9
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster

A complex portrait of sexual abuse set in the world of pre-Olympic equestrian competition.

Debut novelist Mihalic takes us inside a life of extreme privilege, equestrian “eventing”—a kind of horse-based triathlon—and sexual predation with Roan Montgomery, a feisty 15-year-old Olympian-to-be who confides her story in a cleareyed narration. From the outside, Roan’s life looks too good to be true. She’s the youngest competitor in her high-stakes equestrian world, attends a ritzy prep school, and lives on the sprawling grounds of her family’s Rosemont Farms in the picturesque Shenandoah Valley, complete with an extensive staff, multiple horses, and a father-cum-trainer who’s working to make her the next Olympic gold-medal winner in their family. Look closer, though, and the cracks appear. Her mother’s an addict/alcoholic with no bandwidth to care for Roan, sleeping with the headmaster at her daughter's school. Her father, meanwhile, has been sexually abusing her for years. From the moment Roan gets to know Will Howard, one of her classmates, and feels the first tug of genuine connection, the fireworks start. Her father wants to keep Roan all to himself, and Roan craves her father’s undivided attention and the goals he’s set for her while also wanting to escape his abuse. To the author’s credit, this is no poor-little-rich-girl story. Rather, Mihalic complicates the narrative at every turn, creating a disturbing and flinty picture of what abuse, psychological control, and rage look like. The emotions Roan feels toward her father are multilayered and confusing, speaking to the gnarled nature of their relationship. When he tells her before an interview to “Just be yourself,” she knows that’s code for inhabiting the persona he’s created. Though the narrative occupies taboo terrain, it does so with great heart and thereby honors Roan’s love-hate experience in all its bewildering and inscrutable nature.

A searing examination of love and lust, power and control, as the narrator’s rising sense of self yearns to take the reins.