Recently I did a review of HORSE SHOW for The Historical Novel Society. You can find my blog post containing the review, the author’s bio, and purchase links here.
Jess was kind enough to do a Q&A with me as well, and you can find it below.
Bonnie: Hi Jess and thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions.
Bonnie: Horse Show is a collection of short stories that include horses in some way. What inspired you to put this collection together?
Jess: Well, the title, Horse Show, is a bit of a pun—each story in the book includes an equine and a “show” or spectacle of some kind, whether that’s a movie, a 19th century stage show, or a woman having her horse tell fortunes in her backyard. That was really my inspiration—the many ways we put this species on display throughout American history.
Bonnie: One of my favorites, Two on a Horse, is set on the Steeplechase Ride at Coney Island. This was a highly dangerous and popular ride in the late 19th and early 20th Century. I became interested in this ride after reading about it in another novel. What inspired you to place the story here?
Jess: I first saw the Steeplechase in action while watching Ric Burns’ excellent American Experience documentary about Coney Island. Once I learned that there weren’t any seatbelts or brakes on the mechanical horses, and that a lot of early amusement park attractions were designed to create compromising situations between women and men, I thought about all the different kinds of women who would have ridden the Steeplechase, and all the ways that the ride could become a nexus for danger as well as empowerment.
Bonnie: Do you have a favorite story in the collection and why?
Jess: I’m fond of “Based on a True Story” because it really captures my sense of humor, in addition to pushing the boundaries of what a story featuring a horse can be, while questioning why there’s a horse in the story at all. Saying much more would spoil the surprise of reading it, though…!
Bonnie: Many of the stories highlight the abuse of horses in some way. I know I learned a lot more about this topic when reading your book. Has this always been a topic you wanted to share with the world? And have there been improvements in the treatment of horses in the present day?
Jess: As a lifelong equestrian and animal enthusiast, the anthropocentric way humans approach and exploit other beings, defining what it is to be “human” in opposition to other creatures, or claiming dominion over them and their habitats, has always bothered me deeply. Just as an anti-war book must contain war, Horse Show includes animal abuse to call attention to its inhumanity. While I do think strides have been made in terms of better understanding horses, institutionalized equine abuse continues, from Thoroughbred racing’s questionable breeding and training practices to less publicized situations such as the ongoing abuse of Tennessee Walking Horses for “big lick” competitions, where horses are cruelly mistreated to achieve a specific high-stepping walk, all in the name of “tradition.” Sadly, many humans still see horses as tools or machines or toys, rather than sentient beings who suffer and experience trauma just as we do.
Bonnie: Horse Show is your first book, although some or all of the stories were published individually. For the new writers who read this blog, how would you describe your journey to get published and what advice do you have for them?
Jess: I knew that the stories were good, and if I could place them individually in reputable, well-respected literary magazines, it would strengthen the collection’s case once I was ready to approach presses. Lots of writers I admire constructed their debut story collections this way. Publishing is kind of like rolling a snowball downhill. Each story you place, each contest you’re a runner-up for packs more snow onto the ball you’ve got rolling, and eventually you create an avalanche. Be careful about where you send your work. Aim for the most prestigious publications you can—those are the bylines that make publishers and agents e-mail you asking to see more work. And enter contests! That’s how Santa Fe Writers Project acquired Horse Show, after it made the longlist for their annual contest. Lots of great small presses find books that way.
Bonnie: I have become a fan of your work after reading Horse Show. Are you working on another book?
Jess: I am! While researching Horse Show, I developed a folder of “strange animal happenings” that had nothing to do with horses but tickled my brain. So, my next book is throwing the barn doors open to welcome in all kinds of obscure creatures from history. So far, there’s a wombat, a snake, some dogs, and Nikola Tesla’s favorite pigeon.
Bonnie: Let’s go beyond the bio. Tell us something about yourself that we wouldn’t know just from reading your bio.
Jess: I really love swimming, so much so that I’m always the first one to kick my shoes off and jump into random bodies of water. No swimsuit? No problem. Cold? I don’t care! Pools, creeks, fountains, holding ponds…I’m like a badly behaved golden retriever whenever water is involved.
Bonnie: Thanks so much, Jess, for answering my questions today!
Remember to check out HORSE SHOW! It was an amazing read.
Thanks to The Caffeinated Book Reviewer for hosting Sunday Post.
The past week we started on a long list of projects we were waiting to get done after we sold our house in Tennessee. First, being in the mountains means we are surrounded by trees, and some of them have to come down for safety’s sake. 828 Tree Removal came out and started on a big project for us. It was interrupted by weather, but they managed to get half of it done and I expect to see them back tomorrow to finish the rest of it. Below is a video of one of our trees coming down. You can’t see the top of it in this video, but it’s very tall and it was close enough to our house that if it ever fell, it would do a lot of damage. We are having a total of ten trees taken down (plus some smaller ones that were in the way). One of the trees that already came down was five feet across at the base. Tomorrow they tackle the ones by the power lines. Praying!
We also had someone from Blossman Gas come out to discuss putting gas heat in the house. Our power goes out sometimes in the winter, so this would ensure we still have heat. We are still in the “getting estimates” phase of that. We want to put in a garage, so that is another possible project, but most of our land is “uphill,” so it would require some serious grading to create a garage site, so we’re undecided as to whether we’re going to take that on.
Doug is almost finished with the inside. There are some ceiling tiles and trim left to do, and that’s about it. It will be exciting to see it all finished. He has some work to do on the outside this summer.
LAST WEEK ON THE BLOG
I reviewed Camp Babylon by Timothy Beavin and Horse Show by Jess Bowers. I did a Q&A with Jess, which I will post tomorrow.
NEXT WEEK ON THE BLOG
I will review That You Remember by Isabel Reddy and Remnant by Katie Sweeting, and hope to review other books as well. I will post the aforementioned Q&A with Jess Bowers, and I might be able to do Top Ten Tuesday, if I have time.
BOOK HAUL
I was given Netgalley widgets of The Adventures of Mary Darling and The Nazi Housewife of Queens, New York. “Nazi Housewife” has already been published so I’ll try to read that one soon.
Mary Darling is a pretty wife whose boring husband is befuddled by her independent ways. But one fateful night, Mary becomes the distraught mother whose three children have gone missing from their beds. After her well-meaning uncle John Watson contacts the greatest detective of his era (but not that great), Mary is Sherlock Holmes’s prime suspect in her children’s disappearance. (Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes mashup)
Discover the intersection of two lives in 1950s America—an ordinary Queens housewife harboring a dark Nazi past and a survivor seeking justice. In this tense and shocking tale, their paths collide, unraveling a complex quest for truth across time. Based on actual events, this astonishing story follows the path of two women seeking to establish peaceful new lives in America and leave the devastation of WWII behind, but a shocking discovery upends their lives and locks them in a decades-long journey to confront the past.
Indie Weekend is my effort to help promote Indie books. If I can help even a little bit, I’m glad to do it. You can help too by sharing this post with all your social media followers. Below is my review of a middle-grade Christian Indie book, Camp Babylon, the second book in the A1 Mission Agency series. Please see my review below.
BOOK REVIEW
Toby, Scott, Scooter, and Holly go to summer camp, and what a camp it is. All of their electronics are confiscated, and Scooter’s entire suitcase is taken for “further inspection.” The camp director is secretive and suspicious, and soon the A1 Mission Agency is once again on the case.
This is a Christian mystery for middle-grade readers that is filled with humor and adventure. It’s written in a funny, slightly over-the-top style that kids will like. Add secret agents and a motorcycle gang, and you have a clean Christian mystery/thriller for kids. Recommend.
Remember, if you choose to readthis book, please leave reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and other sites that allow book reviews. If you are hesitant to write reviews, remember that they do not have to be long or fancy. Just a couple of lines about how the book made you feel will help the author so much. Thank you in advance.
*This is another review I did for The Historical Novel Society. It is an outstanding collection of short stories that was selected as an Editor’s Choice.
This amazing collection of short stories looks at the equine from many perspectives, from 19th-century London to New York’s Coney Island in the early 20th century to Hollywood movies and beyond. The majority of the stories are set from the mid-19th through the mid-20th centuries and mostly in various parts of the United States.
“The Mammoth Horse,” set in London, is a sad look at the abuse of animals in the circuses and follies of the 19th century. “Shooting A Mule” tells of the violent execution of a mule with explosives at a military base in Willett’s Point, NY, in 1881. “The Lost Hoof of Fire Horse #12” tells the story of a lone horse’s hoof that now gathers dust in the Smithsonian. “One Trick Pony” describes the abuse of stunt horses during the 1939 movie Jesse James.
I was so impressed by “Two on a Horse,” set on the Steeplechase ride at Coney Island in the early 20th century. Although the horses were made of wood, they were part of a harrowing ride, and Bowers describes the personal stories of the riders in vivid detail. From the first lady to attempt to ride the Steeplechase astride to a sexual assault occurring during the ride itself, the story has a strong impact, and the reader can see and feel the violence of the ride as well as the trauma of the riders.
Equally fine is “Of Course, Of Course,” which on the surface is about a young newlywed couple who discover a horse abandoned on their new property. However, underneath lurks a saga of a wife awakening to her own abandonment, abuse, and neglect in 1960s California.
These perfectly crafted tales create a tragic picture that will have an emotional impact on the reader. Highly recommended.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (FROM HER WEBSITE)
Jess Bowers lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where she works as an Associate Professor of English at Maryville University. But she’s originally from York, Pennsylvania, the first capital of the United States (so they claim) and hometown of the 90s rock band Live (that one’s true).
Her debut collection, HORSE SHOW, was published by Santa Fe Writers Project, and recently named one of “The Most Exciting Debut Short Story Collections of 2024” by Electric Literature.
Her short fiction has also appeared in The Portland Review, cream city review, Redivider, StoryQuarterly, The Indiana Review, Zone 3, Oyez Review, and other journals, been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net Award, and other honors. She won Laurel Review‘s Midwest Short Fiction Prize and the Winter Anthology Prize, which was pretty cool.
She’s also a co-editor at Cartridge Lit, an online journal publishing literature about video games, which she’s loved since she first played Fishing Derby on her Atari 2600.
Bowers holds a B.A. in English and creative writing from Goucher College, an M.A. in the same from Hollins University, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Missouri, where she studied fiction writing, film, and 19th-century literature and visual culture.
In her free time, she thinks about the hungry ghosts of silent Hollywood while riding her little yellow pony through the woods. She also watches far too much T.V.
Thank you to The Caffeinated Book Reviewer for hosting Sunday Post.
Last week was pretty relaxing and I don’t have much to report. I am watching a rain forecast for this coming week: Three days of heavy rain starting Monday night or Tuesday. That’s going to change our plans to have some trees removed this week, as it will probably be too muddy to get it finished. Since we live on a gravel road and there is a branch (creek) on our property, it might get pretty muddy around here soon.
I didn’t end up participating in Top Ten Tuesday, but hope to do so this week, time permitting. The heavy rain might also affect my internet, so we’ll see what I can get done. I am going to try to schedule some posts tomorrow so they will go up anyway.
NEXT WEEK
I will be reviewing HORSE SHOW by Jess Bowers and CRIME BRULEE BAKEOFF by Rebecca Connolly. There may be other reviews as well.
BOOK HAUL
I accepted an audiobook from Macmillan Audio of WILD DARK SHORE. I’m excited to listen to it.
Mattie Taylor arrives back in Tullahoma, Tennessee in 1969 to see her dying mother before it is too late. She left her parents’ horse farm in anger a year ago after her twin brother Mark was killed in Vietnam. Mattie blamed her father for his death, as he had not tried to keep Mark from volunteering to go to war. Her brother’s best friend Nash McCallum is now working at the farm. Nash had joined the military the same day as Mark but lost his arm in battle and was sent home. Maddie’s mother Ava does not have long to live but has requested that Mattie read some old letters Ava has stored away.
In 1942, Ava has received word of her husband Richard’s death at Pearl Harbor. She is living on the Delaney farm with her mother-in-law and is grieving for a man she barely knew, as they were only married for a short time. In need of money and a way to keep busy, Ava applies for and is accepted to a job at a military base, Camp Forrest, which she soon learns is being used to house German immigrants in an “internment camp” situation. As Ava becomes closer to one of the Germans being held against his will, Gunther Schneider, she faces scorn and judgment for their friendship.
This heartwarming but sad novel sheds light on the internment of thousands of innocent people in the United States during World War II, as well as the healing and recovery efforts for wounded Vietnam veterans. The themes of grief, forgiveness, and faith are addressed throughout the book. There is also the question, “Why does God allow good people to suffer?” The revelation of long-held secrets is heart-touching and compelling. The main characters are easy to connect with, and the story is enjoyable. Recommend.
I received a free copy of this book from Tyndale House via The Historical Novel Society. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (FROM HER WEBSITE)
Michelle Shocklee
(In Her Own Words) I have always loved the written word. As far back as I can remember I’ve enjoyed books. My mother, an elementary school teacher, read to my four older siblings and me a lot while we grew up in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains in Santa Fe, New Mexico. After I learned to read on my own, books were part of my daily life. When I walk into a bookstore, I take a deep breath, inhaling that wonderful, unique aroma. Ahhh. (Sorry techies, but ya just can’t do that with a Kindle!)
So it wasn’t a big surprise when I discovered how much I enjoyed writing my own stories. I filled pages of notebooks and eventually computer screens with tales of love, heartbreak, drama and humor. Although I write various genres, historical settings are my favorite.
When I’m not writing, editing, or dreaming up new stories, my husband and I work as Estate Caretakers, which means we live and work on beautiful private properties and help the owners with just about any need that comes up! We also enjoy spending time at the beach with our two grown sons and their beautiful wives.
*This is a book I reviewed for the February issue of Historical Novels Review.
BOOK REVIEW
Ireland, 1765. When young Mary Kearney is sent to work at Goward Hall, she joins her brother and sister in service and lightens the load of her impoverished father, who has too many mouths to feed. She begins to wait on the very married Lady Mitchelstown, who is involved in a scandalous romance with Lord and Lady Goward’s son James. James eventually arranges for Mary to learn to read and write, and as they become much closer, the outrage of both the upper and lower classes descends upon them. They enter into a secret marriage, but in the eyes of the world, Mary is a mistress, and only a few at the time know that she is James’ wife. And nearby, an evil man waits, determined to ruin Mary for good.
Late 18th to early 19th-century Ireland comes alive in this book, as the characters speak to us from the past in a dialect true to the time. There is a great deal of epistolary work, and it is woven in beautifully. Letters, articles, documents, and diary entries highlight the many voices, bringing each character to life with great effect. The novel begins with the dictated words of Mary’s father, who cannot read or write. The letters contain everything from love to gossip to threats, depending upon the writer. The class differences of the time are highlighted well, and the Catholic versus Protestant conflict is explored. The attempted uprising by the United Irishmen is well researched, and its consequences spill across the page. The captivating love story of James and Mary endures many hardships, including plotting and scheming from wicked people. Honest and intriguing, this gripping saga will transport and inspire you, and it just might break your heart. Highly recommended.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via The Historical Novel Society. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Katherine Mezzacappa is Irish but currently lives in Carrara, between the Apuan Alps and the Tyrrhenian Sea. She is the author of The Maiden of Florence (Fairlight, 2024) and The Ballad of Mary Kearney (Histria Books, 2025). As Katie Hutton, she has published four historical novels with Bonnier Zaffre (2020-2023), The Gypsy Bride, The Gypsy’s Daughter, Annie of Ainsworth’s Mill and The Maid of Lindal Hall. Katherine’s short fiction has been published in a variety of journals worldwide.
Katherine has been the recipient of residencies from the Irish Writers Centre, the Danish Centre for Writers and Translators and (to come) the Latvian Writers House. She also works as a manuscript assessor and as a reader and judge for three fiction competitions. Katherine holds a first degree in History of Art from UEA, an M.Litt. in Eng. Lit. from Durham and a Masters in Creative Writing from Canterbury Christ Church.
Q&A WITH THE AUTHOR
Bonnie: Hi Katherine. Thanks so much for visiting with us! You mentioned to me that you started The Ballad of Mary Kearney in about 2016. Can you tell us the story of your initial inspiration for the book and your journey to get it published?
Katherine: That was my second full-length novel (the first can just stay in the drawer…). The inspiration came on a visit to the Gibside estate in northeast England, which had belonged to the Bowes-Lyon family, the Earls of Strathmore. I had done some research on the Bowes’ presence in County Durham while working for a museum in the area, some years previously. Thackeray had worked for John Bowes as his election agent; Bowes had indiscreetly told the novelist the story of his grandmother’s two marriages, which inspired The Luck of Barry Lyndon. I was interested in this woman’s son’s story, however. On the last day of his life, he was carried on a litter into the fashionable church of St George’s, Hanover Square in London, to marry the servant he had been living with for years and with whom he’d had a son (Thackeray’s erstwhile employer). In that parkland, in the front of the Bowes-Lyon chapel, inspired by Palladio’s Villa Rotonda, I ‘saw’ that story, but transposed to my native Ireland. What if an Ascendancy noble in 18c Ireland married his servant, but in secret? He’d be breaking the law, for a start, as he would be Protestant and she would likely be Catholic. And meanwhile, the stormclouds that broke as the United Irishmen rebellion of 1798 were gathering: a rebellion, it’s often forgotten, led by enlightened Protestants.
The book got quite a lot of interest, but no agent nor publisher. However, as it was doing the rounds I was already writing the next book, as I was terrified that if I paused I wouldn’t get back into writing again. That book, as Merripen (later The Gypsy Bride), was longlisted for the Historical Novel Society’s novel prize and was published in 2020. But, I didn’t lose faith in Mary Kearney. It went through a number of redrafts before I realized that the market I really ought to be aiming for was Irish America, so I started submitting in the US and found Histria Books.
Bonnie: I assume there was a great deal of research required for this book. How did you approach the research?
Katherine: I read everything relevant that I could get my hands on, starting with William Edward Hartpole Lecky’s magisterial, if biased, A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (five volumes; he earned his statue outside Trinity College Dublin). I absorbed a lot of novels of the period, which explains why some of my book is epistolary, in search of the right ‘voice.’ I also read journals such as: The Leadbeter Papers, written by the Quaker Mary Leadbeter in Co Kildare; the sometimes highly-coloured memoirs accounts of the Dublin lawyer Jonah Barrington; court proceedings for the trials of the United Irishmen and so on. The late Dr Brian Traynor, formerly the director of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, was a great help and support.
Bonnie: The book is set in a time when women, especially poor women, had few rights and few choices. Some authors are tempted to insert modern circumstances and outcomes into their stories. Was it difficult to stay true to the period while still portraying a strong woman in Mary Kearney, and how important was it to you to do so?
Katherine: It was of crucial importance that I got the context right. Mary’s agency is indeed limited, whether as servant or fine lady (though she never quite feels that she is the latter), so her choices are indeed circumscribed. A book can’t claim to be a historical novel if all the author has done is put modern characters in historical costumes and make them refer to a reticule every third sentence. Shows like Bridgerton are great fun, but they are not history; I’m not referring to the color-blind casting, but to the fact that people of that class at that time would not for the most part behave as they do on screen, at least not prior to marriage. There was a particular challenge in writing the character of Mary Kearney because accounts of the lives of women like her are pretty thin on the ground. Some of the character of Mary Milner, the mistress of the Earl of Strathmore and my Mary’s prototype, came into play. While she was Strathmore’s mistress, she was reticent about meeting people from his social stratum, so while she lived with him as though she was the countess, she would disappear when his family members called. After his death, she was very dignified and truthful in giving evidence in their son’s failed attempt to be declared legitimate.
Bonnie: I’m a fan of great epistolary work in a novel, and there is a lot of it in this book, such as letters, records, diary entries, etc. It is a wonderful way to show the personalities of many of the characters. I haven’t read your other books yet. Is this the first time you have done this type of writing in a novel, and how would you describe the epistolary writing experience?
Katherine: Yes, it is the first time I have done it, partly because of the guide I had from the sources I was using and also because the epistolary form lent itself to what I was doing. People communicated through letters then; they had to. People kept diaries. I have also used it in other books though not to the same extent. In The Gypsy Bride, the hero is illiterate and starts to read and write only when he is in prison, where his attempts at correspondence have a deeper poignancy. The withholding or destruction of letters also has a greater impact than would be the case now; we know when a WhatsApp message has been read. We can also see if someone has written and then recalled their message. A great deal of our communication is fleeting in the way that pen on paper isn’t. In The Maiden of Florence, there is someone writing his ‘ricordanze’, a kind of daybook, a common practice amongst educated Renaissance Florentines, thanks to which we know a lot more about them than we otherwise would.
Bonnie: Are you working on a new book, and if so, can you tell us about it?
Katherine: I am working on a Renaissance crime novel. Crime is a new departure for me, obliging me to plan more than I usually would. My hero is a physician, the illegitimate son of a Florentine banker. The banker existed (his ancestor was the father of Dante’s Beatrice, and the hospital that ancestor founded in 1285 functions to this day) but the doctor is my invention. He trained at the School of Salerno and so was influenced by Arab medicine. Salerno also trained women, but I decided to make my lead character a male to give him greater agency and to enable him to move around the courts of various city states (I plan five books). So right now I am immersed in Renaissance medical treatises and accounts of the organization of hospitals of the period.
I have another novel out on submission currently. It’s the fictionalized story of the mistress of the novelist Samuel Butler and of his best friend and biographer (an arrangement set up and paid for by Butler; the lady’s reaction to this is not recorded), so it’s a tale from the hidden part of Victorian life.
Bonnie: Both of these books sound amazing! Let’s go beyond the bio. Tell us something about yourself that we might not know from reading your bio.
Katherine: I got married to the same man twice. We married civilly in 1995 and ten years later had a quiet religious ceremony with our two little boys present. I made my dress each time.
Bonnie: That’s awesome to have a later ceremony with your children! Thanks again, Katherine, for agreeing to this interview. I absolutely loved your book.
Katherine: I am so glad you did. The Ballad of Mary Kearney means a lot to me.
This week brought me a new car! We sold our house a couple of weeks ago, and that led to my new ride, which will probably be my last new car ever. It is a Honda HR-V Sport, and I love it. Since I’m retired, I don’t expect I’ll be putting a ton of miles on it, so it should last a long time. Of course, it got muddy almost immediately because we’ve had a lot of rain and live on a gravel road. I’m waiting until things dry out to wash it. Here’s my car, which I’ve named Pearl: That’s Hermann photobombing the first picture 🙂
I just reviewed several books for The Historical Novel Society, and now that the February issue has been published, I’ll be sharing some of those with you.
THIS WEEK ON THE BLOG
I have two or three Indie reviews I’m going to share, and I’ve got a Q&A in process that I might be able to post this week. I’ll participate in Top Ten Tuesday as well.
WRITING
I’m going to start an Alternate Reality short story, so wish me luck!
BOOK HAUL
Just one new Netgalley book right now. I’ve been really selective regarding what I request on Netgalley because I have plenty of books.
Honor seems to have everything: she adores her bright and beautiful daughter, Chloe, and her charming, handsome husband, Tom, even if he works one hundred hours a week. Yet Honor’s longing for another baby threatens to eclipse all of it―until a shocking event changes their lives forever.
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