I love horses, which is why I wanted to review this book, but sadly this book wasn't for me. I just couldn't get into it.

I found the descriptions of horses and Iceland to be wondrous and beautiful, but the descriptions and - frankly - judgemental comments about the other women to be frustrating and alienating. The writing style is quite good but a little formulaic and randomly choppy. Just not a book for me, I think!

Tory Bilski is known in her area as the woman who goes to Iceland to ride horses. Married with a family she has her heart set on an Icelandic horse. Instead she ends up travelling through Iceland in a van with a group of women. Each year she returns in an attempt to recreate the same pleasure.
For someone who doesn’t seem to make or have many friends the author seems to have a compulsion to befriend certain types of females. Its obvious Tory loves the country and the horses but I don’t think she ever recaptures the bliss experienced on the first trip.
I found this a little thought provoking to read and I could feel the author’s sense of freedom when she was on a horse. For some people horses can help heal those who have been through stressful times and others are probably better off staying at home or trying another activity.
For some reason this quote has stayed in my mind ‘she works hard to keep her soul healthy. A lot of us don’t even try. We pollute it with impunity. We get stuck in our reactive ruts and replay our hurt over and over again’. How true and wise.
There was a sense of loss at the end even though I know life never stays the same. This is perfect for readers who like horses, books with a horsey theme or even to be inspired to travel somewhere different or away from the main tourist attractions.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of the advance uncorrected proof.

Woven throughout this memoir is a story of a people, a place, and a mythology of a time when women rode horses to better understand themselves and their world. More than myth are the stories told of these women, from their initial meeting to their annual trips to Iceland to reconnect with the Icelandic horses and the stark beauty of the country itself.

Wild Horses of the Summer Sun is an enjoyable and easy read as we journey with Tory to Iceland to meet with fellow travellers and horse lovers Viv, Kat, Esther, and others. As they come together to explore the countryside and bond with their horses, the women reflect on their lives and what has led each of them to this wild place, and attempt to seek out the wild wisdom and resilience within themselves.

“When I die this is how I want to enter the other world, on the back of a horse that is swimming in a cold lake,” reflects Tory part-way through the book. Later, she poignantly muses, “Did I leave my imprint on the history of the land the way it has left its imprint on me?”

This is a memoir to savour, to delight in, to laugh with and cry with. It’s a memoir that leaves its own imprint on the reader long after the final pages are turned — and that imprint is borne of the wild winds off the glaciers, the grasses around thundering hooves, the whip of manes and the feel of flying on a horse’s back.

I received an e-ARC from the publisher, Pegasus, through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.