Eleanor Jones

Jane Badger Books

Eleanor Jones

Eleanor Jones is one of the stable of Stabenfeldt authors. Like other British pony book authors working today, she is published by Stabenfeldt, but not, as far as I know, by any British publishers. She’s certainly very well qualified to write pony stories: with her family, she runs the Holmescales Riding Centre in Cumbria, and is a BHSII. Her first riding experiences came with a Shetland her family borrowed: rather like Jill and Black Boy, there wasn’t much doubt about who was in charge when they started off, and Eleanor was taught to ride by the Shetland’s owner, whose methods were “rather forceful”. Two ponies later, Eleanor had a tricky but very talented skewbald, on whom she showjumped with some success as a teenager.

She started the riding centre with her husband, and 25 years later it is going strong, despite a horrible incident with a rogue horse Eleanor had in to re-school, who deliberately came over backwards with her, before coming back to kick her. Eleanor’s spine was crushed, and it was over a year before she could ride properly again.

She wrote her first novel when she was 19, and has written several pony mysteries for Stabenfeldt.

Finding the books: no Stabenfeldt titles were published in the UK, but some copies have been imported and are usually available fairly cheaply here. Alternatively, you can try American sites, or Ebay.com, where bundles of titles tend to come up fairly often.

Links and sources:
Holmescales Riding Centre, owned and run by the Jones family
Stabenfeldt’s article on Eleanor Jones

Circle of Blue

Stabenfeldt, 2006

“For Tina Roberts and her magnificent horse, Phantom, life seemed almost perfect, until the day of the Dixon Green
show, when triumph ended in tragedy and her whole world altered forever. Dream or reality – which was it that had
changed the personalities of everyone around her? Or was it she who had changed? And even if she found a circle of
blue, could it truly work a miracle and take her and Phantom back to the other life she had taken so much for
granted … or was it already too late?”

Bibliography - Pony Books Only

Fears and Phantoms

Stabenfeldt, 2006, 154 pp.

Her friend Vee tells Tilly about a fire, in which a girl and her horse were killed. Tilly is astonished - she saw
that fire yesterday, and it had even singed her own horse’s coat.

Echo of Hooves

Stabenfeldt, 2006 (paperback)

“The neighbours warned Libby - that an evil robber named Black Jack once lived in her house, and that on the
night he died he galloped his poor horse to death in order to hold up a coach on the old North Road. Now his
ghost is said to haunt the place, and Libby thinks he's been riding her beautiful Jack on each night of the full
moon. How can she get rid of a ghost - and can she do it in time to save her beloved horse?”

Dreams or Demons

Stabenfeldt, 2004

Laura has the same nightmare, over and over again. She and her horse Aladdin are being pursued by a creature
she can only sense, not see.