Mare

A tender, profound novel about a horse and a woman, the intricacies of care, and the imaginative new ways we might live and be.
For a long time, a woman lives with her husband and their dog. She teaches writing courses, plods away at a book of her own, and doesn't think much about not having a child. Then the dog dies, and a doctor's visit reveals she can't have children even if she wanted to. Out of these conditions, a sudden, strangely familiar thought prevails: horses.
When she hears about a mare whose owner needs help part-time, it seems like an ideal arrangement-and perhaps something to help with the emptiness, diagnosable and otherwise, that she's begun to feel. She has no problem sharing; she shares a garden with the children next door and chores with her husband. The horse will be something to care for, just two days a week, without getting in too deep.
But as she takes up riding lessons and medical treatments, walks and brushes and dreams of the horse, her affection develops into obsession-forcing her to confront what it means to love a being who does not belong to her. Moving with grace, humor, and probing insight, Emily Haworth-Booth's Mare pulses with life and feeling and introduces an irresistible literary voice.

Emily Haworth-Booth teaches at the Royal Drawing School and is an illustrator, a graphic novelist, and a children's author of three books for children: The King Who Banned the Dark (short-listed for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Illustration, and the Klaus Flugge Prize), The Last Tree, and Protest! Mare is her debut book for adults. She lives in Devon with her husband, dog, and several horses.