I wasn't warming up to the idea of reading a teen fiction novel about a gender bending girl and her horses. But in the Horse's Shadow, Lawrence Scanlan captured the feel and camaraderie between a human and animal. Scanlan has written several horse related books, including, Wild About Horses, Little Horses of Iron, and worked with Monty Roberts on the New York Times Best Seller, Man Who Listens to Horses. He has successfully captured the life of a habitant, on a Quebec farm, the hardships that were endured and the choices that had to be made to survive in Canada during the mid 1800's.
The story unfolds from the eyes of thirteen year old, Claire Vigere, the youngest of four children in the Vigere family. She sees two options. First, she sees her future her mother's life, "with endless tasks". "From cradle to coffin, from dawn to dusk, and then some, the women of the Canadas worked. Sometimes they worked themselves to death." They worked as cleaners, cookers, planters, harvesters, knitters, mothers and fixers of all things.
The other option is to follow her "heart and not her head", and become a groom and horse trainer, a gift that has been bestowed on Claire since birth. This would mean leaving her secure village and her family to pursue something that would take her away from the fate presented to most teenage girls of the area. This idea secretly pleased Claire's mother who dreamed of a better future for her only daughter.
One night, Claire's life changed forever. Claire's most beloved Canadian horses, Beau Albert and Petit Albert, had been sold to a dealer, Tip Weldon, buying mounts for the United States Civil war that raged south of the border. The setting invites you to become a part of the action, and you feel the betrayal that Claire felt.
