Publishing history
Walker Books, London, 2011, 390 pp.
As Belladonna, Candlewick, 2011, 384 pp.
The Horse Girl is set in 18th century Lincolnshire, and is the story of wheelwright’s son, Thomas,the girl Ling, and the artist Stubbs. Thomas meets Ling, desperate to find a horse she knows Stubbs has bought, and which she thinks he will butcher in order to study its anatomy. They discover that Stubbs is not the brute they had imagined, and Stubbs looks set to become part of Thomas’ future, with Thomas employed as his apprentice. Ling, however, is set on finding her horse, Belladonna.
Mary Finn