Saturday, April 12, 2014

The Scorpio Races

I've had this book in my TBR pile for some time, and it worked its way to the top last weekend. I stayed up waaay too late reading it a couple of nights, and it stuck with me through my days. Maggie Stiefvater takes the Celtic/Irish/Scottish water horse legend, the capaill uisce, and brings the reader into the dream-like setting of Thisby. Puck and her brothers are orphans who struggle to eek out a living, and Sean is a young horseman who has a mystical touch. The story unfolds slowly and magically, and the meat eating, blood thirsty water horses are at once horrifying and majestic. Her scene of the herd of water horses "tearing in from an angry sea" may be one of the most beautiful things I've ever read, and it continues to stick with me. I'll be looking for more to read about the capaill uisce, but I fear nothing will compare to Stiefvater's rendition.