It feels like a fanfic. I loved flambards - it was a craze in my teens when the TV show aired, and I had horsey friends who were drawn in by that element. And I expected to love this more. Linda Newbury is superb, flambards is iconic: this was going to be great.

However.

This is an authorised fanfic in that Newbury is working off Peyton's notes for what happened after the books. The modern day thread of the story, about Grace Russell in 2018, was both too much and too little - the 2018 story was not gripping. It involved disability dislocation ptsd and swags of genealogy research, but I didn't buy that a 14 year old was that obsessed by her great grandparents On the other hand, like Grace, I felt more interested in Christina than any of the other characters. Christina, by the way, seen through other people's eyes and written by a fan, has become a flawless fearless ravishing MarySue. I did want maximum Christina and I got it. Now I wonder what this book would be like if Newbery had a free-er hand to make stuff up. ( )