I recently read Blind Beauty by K.M. Peyton. The story is about a young girl who dreams to be a jockey, and though she goes through some hard times along her journey, she succeeds in the end. I really enjoyed this book because the main character has so many different problems at once, but she always seemed to get through them.

    During the book, the main character, a girl named Tessa, has to always deal with some type of problem in her life. She is always dealing with her family, Myra and Maurice, and also her barn co-workers. Maurice, her evil stepfather, is very mean to her and doesn't want her around at all. He was a racehorse owner, and he had some of the best horses in the country. He doesn't race them because he loves the sport, he just does it for the money, cheating if he has to. Tessa strongly disagrees with him and it all leads up to a big climax in the end where Tessa is so fed up with him for stealing Buffoon's best friend, a pony named Lucky, and she tries to kill him with a knife. I believe that I would have done the same thing! 

As for her barn co-workers and friends, they are always giving her a hard time about Buffoon and they don't think that she will ever be a real jockey. Even though their comments sometimes get to her, she prevails and becomes a great jockey and comes to race in one of the biggest races of the year. I think that she was very brave of her to do that, and actually succeed! 

   Blind Beauty is a great book with a very mysterious plot line. I would recommend this story to others, but only if they had at least some minimal interest in horses.

Click here to go to FHTMS home page

For comments or questions contact Bill Wight at  billw@sbschools.net