Silver Dreams

Sondra Rice Newman
Robert D. Reed Publishers (2006)
ISBN 1931741565
Reviewed by Susan Pettrone for Reader Views (1/07)

Though I am not a horse lover, nor even a rider of horses, this book grabbed my attention from the first page and proved to be as much of a winner as its main character Silver Dreams was within its pages. Within the first few sentences we meet Leigh, an up and coming city girl, seemingly happy with her city lifestyle with its delicate crystal goblets and artistically arranged floral arrangements within her busy life. Then, as stories like this so often do, Leigh’s life is thrown into a tailspin when her companion of three years returns from a trip to his hometown to announce they are through and he is marrying his high school sweetheart.

Leigh is immediately angry, with confusion and emptiness soon following as well. Selling off or giving away most of her “possessions,” packing her red Miata with bits and pieces, Leigh sets off to find a new life away from the one she found so recently upended. Finding herself in Virginia, loving the quiet atmosphere, and slow lifestyle, Leigh takes a job at a small newspaper office and begins anew her life in a way that belies her past as a high-paced woman of the world.

Leigh soon meets “Bibs,” a crusty, commonsense woman of the town who boards horses and gives lessons in riding and showmanship. And through Bibs, Leigh also meets “Silver Dream,” a horse whom Bib’s is seeking to sell and whom Leigh finds herself the owner of, despite his somewhat daunting injury which has caused him to lose an eye. As Leigh finds herself in the company of Bibs more and more, she grows to love and appreciate this no-nonsense woman and the life she leads. As Leigh becomes more comfortable around the horses, she finds herself a natural horsewoman and to her delight, finds Silver Dreams is a racer at heart as well!

Into Leigh’s life comes Whit, a man with a past which threatened to beat him down, until he met Leigh and Silver Dreams who give him a new lease on life, and love. Throughout this book, the reader sees many parallels from Leigh’s former life and her now, markedly simpler life as well. From the fragile goblets with crystal cupids and fine tablecloth she used only twice a year, to the juice glasses and garage sale finds she now implements in her life, we see that Leigh has changed, from a woman who put great value in material things to a woman who now puts great value in the people and of course, Silver Dreams within her life.

The adventures Leigh, Bibs and Whit are alive within this book and their work with Silver Dreams. It is their own dreams of racing which make this a book that is attractive for both horse lovers and others as well. I must admit, if I had been asked before reading this book through that I’d ever recommend a book about horses, I most likely would have answered in the negative. But after reading this book, I can honestly say that this is a book that will appeal to all ages, and many personalities as well. For it is not just a story about a woman and her horse, it is about life and what Leigh discovers about herself through interacting with Silver Dreams. And there is no better recommendation for any book but to say it teaches a valuable life lesson, and “Silver Dreams” does just that.

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