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The Hearts of Horses by MOLLY GLOSS
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The Hearts of Horses (original 2007; edition 2009)

by MOLLY GLOSS

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6124738,107 (4.04)1 / 65
In the winter of 1917, a big-boned young woman shows up at George Bliss's doorstep. She's looking for a job breaking horses, and he hires her on. Many of his regular hands are off fighting the war, and he glimpses, beneath her showy rodeo garb, a shy but strong-willed girl with a serious knowledge of horses. So begins the irresistible tale of nineteen-year-old Martha Lessen, a female horse whisperer trying to make a go of it in a man's world. It was thought that the only way to break a horse was to buck the wild out of it, and broken ribs and tough falls just went with the job. But over several long, hard winter months, many of the townsfolk in this remote county of eastern Oregon witness Martha's way of talking in low, sweet tones to horses believed beyond repair--and getting miraculous, almost immediate results--and she thereby earns a place of respect in the community. Along the way, Martha helps a family save their horses when their wagon slides into a ravine. She gentles a horse for a dying man--a last gift to his young son. She clashes with a hired hand who is abusing horses in unspeakable ways. Soon, despite her best efforts to remain aloof and detached, she comes to feel enveloped by a sense of community and family that she's never had before. With the elegant sweetness of Plainsong and a pitch-perfect sense of western life reminiscent of Annie Dillard, The Hearts of Horses is a remarkable story about how people and animals make connections and touch each other's lives in the most unexpected and profound ways.… (more)
Member:duaney_h
Title:The Hearts of Horses
Authors:MOLLY GLOSS
Info:Pan Publishing (2009), Paperback
Collections:Read, Read in 2015, acquired in 2015
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Work Information

The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss (2007)

  1. 10
    The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans (SugarCreekRanch)
  2. 00
    Stormy Weather by Paulette Jiles (amelielyle)
    amelielyle: Both novels concern independent young women who have rapport with horses--there is a secondary romantic theme to both stories.
  3. 00
    Black Beauty and Thirteen Other Horse Stories by Paul J. Horowitz (PaperbackPirate)
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 Name that Book: woman horse breaker in 1800's13 unread / 13CSailin, June 2012

» See also 65 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 47 (next | show all)
This novel is topically so much out of my comfort zone. Nothing about it is what I would normally choose to read. The cover and the title also don't do it justice. This is really not what it seems!
But, I am so glad that I read this book because once again I am proven that sometimes the best things are where we least hope to find them.

The Hearts of Horses is a novel set in the winter of 1917, somewhere in the east of Oregon state. The main character is Martha, a young woman who escaped her abusive family to build herself a name as a "broncobuster". Through her experiences with horses, we get to know several families living in the area, whose horses Martha is training. I am amazed at how touched I was by these people and their struggles, even though this is not a sappy novel by any measure. There is a lot of subtle social commentary here, some big topics such as the effect of WW1 on the people who stayed behind and the myth of the American West.

Molly Gloss is just a master storyteller. The omniscient narrator works so well here and there is a great sense of time and space. Even the parts about horses were not annoying or boring, and I have zero interest in them. ( )
  ZeljanaMaricFerli | Mar 4, 2024 |
Nice story of about a young woman in 1916 in Oregon who breaks horses. The book is well written, the story is nice, but nothing major happens in the book. ( )
  zmagic69 | Mar 31, 2023 |
This was an absolutely beautiful book. I fell into Elwha County like the first page was actually a trap door to another time and place. I felt like I could almost perfectly picture the landscape, the ranches and farms, the people and the era. I am looking forward to reading more books by Molly Gloss. ( )
  Tosta | Mar 20, 2023 |
This was a good book that, in a complete departure for me, took me a long time to read. I read it in fits and starts a little at a time over several months. There were a lot of characters who took quite a while to sort themselves out but that was okay. Eventually, I figured out who everyone was and got them straight in my head. It was a meandering type of book with no real plot or sense of urgency. Since I'm a romantic, I was glad Martha found love. There wasn't much about the hearts of horses though. Of course that's more of a thing you have to live to understand rather than read about. ( )
  Luziadovalongo | Jul 14, 2022 |
I LOVED this book and I'm so happy to discover an author whose books I haven't read! I was impressed with Gloss's ability to weave in so much history with the story. Martha was a woman ahead of her time, pushing ahead for women's rights. ( )
  nyiper | Jun 2, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 47 (next | show all)
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For Ed, this last gift
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In those days, even before the war had swept up all the young men from the ranches, there were girls who came through the country breaking horses.
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In the winter of 1917, a big-boned young woman shows up at George Bliss's doorstep. She's looking for a job breaking horses, and he hires her on. Many of his regular hands are off fighting the war, and he glimpses, beneath her showy rodeo garb, a shy but strong-willed girl with a serious knowledge of horses. So begins the irresistible tale of nineteen-year-old Martha Lessen, a female horse whisperer trying to make a go of it in a man's world. It was thought that the only way to break a horse was to buck the wild out of it, and broken ribs and tough falls just went with the job. But over several long, hard winter months, many of the townsfolk in this remote county of eastern Oregon witness Martha's way of talking in low, sweet tones to horses believed beyond repair--and getting miraculous, almost immediate results--and she thereby earns a place of respect in the community. Along the way, Martha helps a family save their horses when their wagon slides into a ravine. She gentles a horse for a dying man--a last gift to his young son. She clashes with a hired hand who is abusing horses in unspeakable ways. Soon, despite her best efforts to remain aloof and detached, she comes to feel enveloped by a sense of community and family that she's never had before. With the elegant sweetness of Plainsong and a pitch-perfect sense of western life reminiscent of Annie Dillard, The Hearts of Horses is a remarkable story about how people and animals make connections and touch each other's lives in the most unexpected and profound ways.

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