A Devil to Ride

"Certainly this is the first book that I remember loving for its setting. I was horse mad, but what I loved most was the idea of a girl my age growing up with all this space – and a wild horse she has rescued. There is a particular image of Jinny and Shantih galloping across a windswept Scottish beach that has never left me. There weren’t many horses in Hong Kong except on the race track! I think that with wide-open space comes freedom: freedom to express yourself and be anything. So when my Scottish heroine, Jinny, saved – and tamed – an exotic Arab horse in such a foreign landscape – as a young reader, I inhaled every word. Yes, A Devil to Ride is the second in that series, which began with For the Love of a Horse . There are twelve books in total although I am not sure how many are still in print. When I look at my old Armada editions each book seems so short. As a publisher now, every book we print seems four times as fat. As gatekeepers, I think we often choose over-layered or too literary stories, forgetting their primary purpose is to entertain. There’s something to be said for really simple, straightforward and, yes, possibly derivative series like this because for the first time reader, there’s magic to be found – in this case and my own, a heady combination of horses, bravery and independence that’s really potent."