Chosen by a Horse: A Memoir

“Proof that love for another animal can alone make one human and humane: wit and crushing sadness chasing each other all across the page; intelligence and bravery and perfect literary pitch... Damn great.”—Melissa Holbrook Pierson, author of Dark Horses and Black Beauties: Animals; Women, a Passion

“A bold and sensitive memoir of what it means to open one’s heart to love... A magnificent read.”—Adele von Rust McCormick, Ph.D and Marlena Deborah McCormick, PhD, authors of Horses and the Mystical Path; Horse Sense and the Human Heart

“A triumph for all spirits.”—Laura Shaine Cunningham, author of A Place in the Country

“Should rank with the great animal stories.”—Ann Arensberg, author of Incubus

"Two kindred spirits find each other in this beautifully written memoir about the human-animal bond."—Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation

When she agrees to take on the care of one of the abused horses just rescued by the local SPCA, a new chapter opens in Susan Richards’s difficult life. She lost her mother at the age of five and was raised by uncaring relatives; married unhappily and divorced; and suffered from alcoholism. While Susan is trying to capture the horse assigned to her, Lay Me Down, a skeletal mare, walks into Susan’s horse trailer of her own volition. Susan already owns one mare and two geldings—the diva-like Georgia, boyish Tempo and hopelessly romantic Hotshot—but it is with Lay Me Down that she forges a special, healing relationship that alters her life.

Poignant and evocative, this is a book for anyone who has ever loved a horse, and for everyone who has ever lost a loved one.