Ames’ review of All The King’s Horses by Lauren Gallagher.
Sometimes your last nerve is the strongest link to forever.
Amy Dover’s dream to become a professional horse trainer hasn’t come without a price. Career pressure, combined with a difficult marriage to an oppressive husband, has sucked away every last bit of joy the horses used to bring her.
At her husband’s untimely death, she packs her truck, heads over the Cascade Mountains, and takes a job as a farmhand. Yet even in the presence of the creatures she loves the most, her emotional wounds are too deep and wide to recapture what she’s lost.
Dustin King senses there’s something off about his new farmhand. She’s undeniably attractive, but for someone who knows her way around a barn, she’s unnervingly indifferent toward horses. Especially the pair of Tennessee Walkers he’s just rescued. Instinct tells him that no matter how hard she tries not to care, the horses and the woman need each other.
As Amy and Dustin bond with the traumatized horses, something unexpected happens. The sparks between them ignite into a night of stormy passion. As Amy’s soul comes back to life, though, she feels the pull to return to her old life. She just hadn’t planned on having someone to leave behind.
Product Warnings:
Contains two people who set the sheets on fire every chance they get… well, except when they don’t get anywhere near a bed. Which is more often than not, because, hey, when you want it, you want it. Book also contains a lot of lost souls, four-legged and two-legged alike, who made the author cry a few times, and seriously, she doesn’t do that. Like, ever. You’ve been warned.
I’ve enjoyed Lauren Gallagher’s writing in the past, so I was looking forward to read All the King’s Horses. I like the way Lauren tells a story and the inclusion of horses doesn’t hurt. AtKH was a good read, but I had an issue with it.
Amy Dover needs to get away. Her controlling husband has passed away in a motorcycle accident and she’s tired of pretending so she leaves while everyone is at the funeral. The last decade has taken its toll on her and so despite being a world-known champion horse trainer, she takes a job across the state as a farmhand on a ranch. She needs to find her passion for horses (and life) again. Because of a grueling schedule, she’s lost sight of what she loved so much about what she’s done.
Dustin King, the owner of King’s Ranch, is leery of his new farmhand. He can see how she has no interest in the horses and working with rescued Tennessee Walkers, he doesn’t trust her around them. But as the weeks go by, he can see that there’s something about Amy that isn’t quite what it seems. That she is in need of some rescuing herself.
I enjoyed All the King’s Horses. I thought the author did a good job with Amy and what she’s going through. Yes, her husband was controlling, but he was also abusive from time to time. When she sees how Dustin does a 180 towards her (he reacts to her indifference to the horses, so he definitely cools his demeanor towards her) she thinks he’s similar to her husband and she keeps him at a distance, only doing her job and nothing more. But as Amy comes in contact with two new rescues to the ranch and Dustin starts to trust her, she starts to break out of that protective shell she’d built up around herself.
Dustin eventually figures out who Amy is, what she’s gone through and he’s afraid to fall for her. His last two relationships were with women who were kind of in need of rescuing and he knows Amy’s time at the ranch isn’t forever. Indeed, her family is worried and her sister has taken over her training schedule. I thought the conflict was believable – Dustin afraid to start something when Amy would be leaving and Amy needing to decide what she’s going to do, stay with Justin or return to the life that almost broke her down in the first place.
My issues were the timing. Yes Amy had been married for ten years but things were not well. But she meets Dustin the day after her husband’s funeral and she’s attracted to him. I don’t know, that seems a bit quick to me. The other thing was Amy’s brother. Why was he so invested in her business? If he was part of the business that would make sense, but it was never explicitly told to the reader that he had a stake in her business. So he just comes across as extremely overbearing and like he didn’t care, kind of like her husband.
Despite those two things, I enjoyed All the King’s Horses. It was a good story about the healing nature of animals and Amy was strong enough that even though she was going through some hard times, she was still a good strong character.
3.5 out of 5
This book is available from Samhain. You can buy it here in e-format.
Nice review. AtKH looks like it has a nice depth to its characters and situations. Thanks for bringing it to my attention:-)