I just finished the ARC of Annie Wedekind’s upcoming middle-grade novel, A HORSE OF HER OWN. It comes out in June from Feiwel and Friends.

What you need to know before I tell you about the book is that as a young girl I was horse-mad. We were poor and there was no money for a horse, or even to ride occasionally. We didn’t live where I would have had friends with horses or friends who rode. But I read horse books obsessively, and my favorites still adorn my bookshelves – the Black Stallion books, the Misty books (and Henry’s others) and the long out of print American Girl Book of Horse Stories.

There aren’t a lot of books around for horse-mad girls these days. There are a couple of series that are okay – I did enjoy the two volumes in the CHESTNUT HILL series that I read, about girls at a horse-centric boarding school – but stand-alone horse books seem to be few and far between. I’m not entirely sure why. It certainly isn’t that girls are less horse-mad these days; there are certainly ninety bazillion nonfiction horse books around. But where oh where are the horsey novels?

Thank goodness for Annie Wedekind. She has written an utterly charming novel (description from the back of the galley below) that should be placed into the hands of horse-loving girls immediately upon publication. This book is…well, it’s a nice book, and the world needs more nice books. It needs more books where girls are good friends and have nice families who help them get through tough times. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be books with hard issues, depressing books, scary books…but sometimes you just need a nice story. That’s what this is. I just loved it. I can’t wait for it to come out.

Fourteen-year-old Jane Ryan has always dreamed of having a horse of her own–but so long as she gets to ride her favorite school horse, Beau, at Sunny Acres farm, she’s content. And this summer she means to try out for the advanced riding class.

But just as camp begins, Jane receives heartbreaking news about Beau. She loses not just her favorite horse, but also her chance to ride in the end-of-summer competition. When her trainer asks for her help with an out-of-control chestnut warmblood, Lancelot, a newcomer to the barn, Jane has no choice but to say yes.

There’s another new addition to the farm: Ben Reyes, the grandson of the barn’s manager. As Jane struggles to go on without Beau, and to make Lancelot the great horse she believes him to be, her feelings for Ben, her rocky relationships with the privileged group of girls she rides with, and her painful, joyous road to self-discovery all lead to a heart-pounding conclusion. Only Jane’s faith in Lancelot, and her own rediscovered skill and strength, can see her through the hard journey toward a horse of her own.