Callie Smith Grant

Disclaimer: I received an ARC via a Librarything giveaway.

When I entered the Librarything giveaway for this book, I didn’t know that Revell was part of a Christian publishing house. When I started received the book and realized, I was a bit wary, t’s not that I have not read work from Christian publishing houses before, but some faith based published books are bit . . well . . too much. This is not one of them. It is simply a collection of true stories about horses and their place in show more the lives of the authors.
Most of the stories in this book do not mention God or praying. There is maybe a total of five that do, with only two of those with a power of prayer theme (and those written by the same author). While all the stories are written by women (with some contributing more than one) living in the US, the collection includes work from South American and Middle Eastern born writers as well.
The theme of the book is second chances, be it in the adopting of a horse or mini-Donkey (there are quite few mini donkeys here) or about an horse helping the rider/owner or even a horse recovering from an illness. The stories are heartwarming. And a couple of the essays are connected. There are a couple of essays that deal with horses from well known horse therapy groups such as Gentle Carousel Miniature. There is even a story about a zebra as well as discussions about BLM.
I particularly appreciated the stories that included parts that illustrated that every horse is not right for every rider, and that sometimes the best thing for both woman and steed was to rehome the horse. It was good to see that, and it ensured that the stories, though feel good, weren’t Hollywood feel good. I also really did enjoy reading about Pumpkin who drives the golf cart as well as a woman’s obsession with Secretariat.
While it is true that some of the stories do not fully fit the second chance theme, it is still a warm fuzzy in a not too sweet way read. show less

This was a wonderful lazy-day book read. These are stories from many who shared the way in which they acquired their cat, and how this animal change their lives.

Found in a book shelf of my TBR books, I am glad it caught my eye when I looked for something new to read.

It's no doubt that cats choose who they want to like, even if you first love them! But, speaking from experience, I can proudly say that I soon fell in love with Meow, Meow, named such because she never lets out a single meow. show more She always gives two meows, loudly emitted when she wants attention.

I laughed out loud at some of the stories contained in this book.

I can add that Meow, Meow loves to bask in the front window as she bathes in the sun's rays. She has a number of soft small balls, and when she wants my attention to play, she walks to her basket of toys, picks out the multi- colored, small soft balls, and looks at me telling me it is time to play. When she has my attention, and all the balls lined up, she runs up the stairs to the top levels and hits the ball with her nose. When I throw the ball back, aiming for her nose, she jumps in the air, aiming the ball to land right back at me.

She has asthma, and when she has a nasty attack, I call the vet, get her ready and off we go. But, most recently, she watched as I got ready, and purposely hid for an hour, until it was too late to keep the appointment. The vet told me that he has many instances when cats do this. show less

I've always been a dog person and not drawn to cats. But, having Meow, Meow in the house, changed that. And, I am currently taking care of my neighbors cat while she is away. Meow, Meow is tame and stays inside, except for the one adventure she had while I was at the dentist for three hours and didn't even realize she got out. She calmly greeted me on the step leading to the door. I was relieved that she knew how to find her way home.

Buddy, my neighbor's cat is not feral, but likes to live show more outside. He comes to the back sliding glass door when he wants to come in. When he's had enough, he goes tot he same door, places his paw on the glass as though he is knocking to get out, and stays out for most of the day, and all of the night.

When I saw this book, I wanted to learn more about the stories of others and their experiences. Each individual tale is special, and told by people who inherited a cat, found a cat, or obtained another after a beloved previous cat died.

The stories are heartfelt, and I recommend this book to anyone who likes/loves cats. show less

The stories in this book are pretty short- most just a few pages long, all with the theme of being rescued. Wide variety of situations and types, the common thread being (of course) horses, and that all the authors are women. They're all good stories, that warm your heart. Some are about horses taken from abusive or neglectful situations, and brought back to health. One is about a horse adopted from the BLM program that rounds up mustangs to control the population numbers. There are horses show more with behavior problems that needed careful re-schooling, unhappy or unwell children and women who were helped by working with a horse, old horses that needed a companion in their retirement, younger ones that just hadn't found quite the right owner yet, and so on. It was nice to see that not all the stories had a happy ending for the writer, per se. There was more than one story about a struggle to work with a certain horse, and it just wasn't going well, so finally they sold the horse or found it a new home, all to the better. It's not all strictly horses, either- there are quite a few donkeys featured, and one zebra! The people are all different too- from new riders to experienced ones, competitive professionals and those who simply enjoy trail rides. There are women who were on horseback since a young age, and others who learned it as a new skill well into adulthood. I liked all the stories, I just didn't find them very memorable- when done reading, I couldn't put my finger on any one in particular to summarize in detail. But that's okay, it's staying on my shelf for another read someday. show less