Books with author Cate Bryant

Fred, the most faithful and clever of all ponies had been given to me last summer. Now how lucky can one pony-mad girl get, being given a pony! But it hadn’t been that simple, there had been twists and turns, moments of disaster and heart break - but in the end, like in all good pony books I was given a pony. This summer was promising to be even better than last summer. My friend, Zane and I teamed up with two of the Cutler children, Jake and Lissa, who had arrived with their family to live in the big house up on the moor. We were planning to go pony trekking across Goonhilly Downs. Vanda comes home from Russia and announces that she is buying another horse- the most beautiful liver-chestnut gelding, which means another horse for me to ride, and life should have been unbelievably perfect. But two sinister guests are staying at Treloar and Zane and I are standing on the edge of a shady, criminal world that threatens our new friends.

The big chestnut mare with the dark history arrived at Treloar farm in Cornwall. This sets off a chain of events that reach a climax at the pony club camp at the end of the summer. Jenny is a young girl who lives in the village, obsessed with horses, dreaming of learning to ride, and having her own pony. She teams up with Sofia, an aspiring three-day eventer, ambitious but careless of other people’s feelings. Sofia is staying at Treloar through the summer, with her cousin, Vanda. They will be running the pony club event in August. A kaleidoscope of ponies and horses gallop into the lives of these girls. There is Fred, the old showjumper, abandoned and neglected in the field by himself; Ghost, the strangely-marked Gypsy cob stallion owned by Dane who camps in a caravan on the headland; Pablo, the very naughty little Dartmoor who is impossible to ride; Berry, a sweet, strawberry-roan pony perfect for beginners; Blue, dashing, beautiful, wild and unreliable, in foal to the bay stallion Himself, who is full of spirit and hates to be ridden; and Nat, the huge young warmblood gelding owned by Sofia’s step-mother. The forces of obsession, ambition and possession rule the lives of Jenny and Sofia as they struggle to fulfil their horse dreams.