About the author
Sally Fielding wrote two books about Kate and her adventures on her grey half-Arab mare Shasta. The books are fast moving adventure stories: there is a Christian element to them, but it’s reasonably unobtrusive. The author does not bang you over the head with her faith, but does make it a realistic part of the story. There’s quite a difference between evangelistic books of this period and the 1960s: the use of opaque religious terms is dropped, and this use of everyday language makes the expressions of faith seem rather more normal.
Finding the books
Both titles are easy to find.
Series
Kate and the Mystery Ponies
Kate and the Horrible Horse
Bibliography
Kate and the Mystery Ponies
Lion, 1985, pb
Lion, 1990, pb, 126 pp.
(with Kate and the Horrible Horse, Lion, 1997)
“For Kate, it was like a wonderful dream. A horse of her own at last, and a chance to jump in the County Show. Then the suspicions crowded in. What was going on in the stables? Was her dream about to become a nightmare?”
Kate and the Horrible Horse
Lion, 1991, pb. Cover Sheila Ratcliffe.
(with Kate and the Mystery Ponies, Lion, 1997)
“’Harry was beautiful. A tall, restless creature-bright bay. Seventeen hands, ex-racehorse. He looked about as friendly as a rattlesnake. When Harry’s wealthy owner asks Kate to exercise the horse and ‘knock him into shape’ for his daughter, she decides to accept the challenge. But Harry
is a horse with a mind of his own…. before long Kate finds herself in a fix.”
Many thanks to Hannah Fleetwood for the picture and blurb.