Very adorable, great for middle grade children, I can not recommend it enough! I wish I read it when I was 10 ;) I would have loved the whole series.

Thank you so much to Hachette Children’s / Orchard Books and Netgalley for the ebook to read and review

Young Amara loves horses and has a huge connection to them, so she asks at the stables near by to work there, whilst there she forms a connection with a unique horse called Ember, but the girl that rides him doesn’t like her or want her near the horse at all.

I really loved the connection she had with Ember and the magic that they built up together, it was really sweet and reading about the other kids and their horses magical connections were also really great. Each magical horse had a unique way of deeply connecting to one human and I loved that it was really special and sweet.

I didn’t like that bullying was a heavily used topic within this story, it would have been okay with just a little bit but it was over used and was harsh and very mean. It went from just one girl bullying her, to a group of them and then a meaner girl and her horse. It was just all a bit much and definitely ruined a lot of the magic and beauty of the story for me.

This was really not what I expected it to be, it still had some of its beautiful magic things, it had a beautiful connection between a cute little girl and her best friend horse. However it also had a massive let down in story too with the heavily done bullying. I love magical horse stories but I cannot say I was the biggest fan of this one as a whole, in parts I loved it, in parts I didn’t.

As someone who used to obsessively read horse books as a child, I loved returning back to the style and worlds that Linda Chapman creates. The idea of the elemental horses, mixed with them finding their true riders was an interesting mix of ideas.
You could feel the connection between Amara and Ember, through the writing and storytelling. However, something which would throw me off whilst reading was when Ember would talk. To me, Ember sounded too humanly rather than having the voice of the horse.
As someone who this isn't necessarily the target audience I still found myself rooting for Amara.
But aside from that, the adventure we follow was fun and intriguing. Perfect for all ages.