Silent Harmony by Michelle Scott
Published May 28th, 2013
Amazon Childrens Publishing
Young Adult Contemporary
Premise:
Small town
seventeen-year-old Vivienne Taylor is a talented equestrian with Olympic
dreams and a little something extra going on -she is also an equine
empath, someone who has the ability to read horses, minds and moods.
When she receives a full scholarship to attend Fairmont Riding Academy, a
prep school with a famous riding program, she struggles with
homesickness, hazing by the school's snooty drama queen, intense
competition in the sport of three-day-eventing, and the
not-altogether-unwelcome interest of a hot guy. On top of all of that
the horse given to Vivienne via the scholarship is an animal that she
cannot read or understand. When Vivienne learns that her new horse
Harmony belonged to the school's vet, who recently died in a freak
accident, she senses that the horse's aloof behavior may be the result
of her witnessing this accident. But as a connection begins to unfold
between Vivienne and Harmony, Vivienne begins to believe that the vet's
death was no accident at all, but rather murder and she resolves, at
considerable peril, to track down the killer. Michele Scott lives in
California with her family. With her days spent in the barn or at the
keyboard, Ms. Scott has forged a flourishing career as mystery writer
and is also deeply involved in the world of horses and equestrian
riding.
Get your copy!
Review
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
My thoughts:
I have mixed
feelings about this book. I think I like it... It sounded entertaining, the
premise was good and I was really excited about it, but somehow I fell on a
reading slump while reading it. I had to fight through the pages because I
couldn't keep my mind on task. The story wasn't bad, I mean, it wasn't like I hated
the book, I just couldn't make myself sit and finish the goddamn thing. It has
around 240 pages, so it's not that long and I'm a fast reader, but it took me a
week. Yes! A freaking WEEK to finish it!
After doing
some thinking, I came to the conclusion that there were a couple of things that
prevented me from loving this book, and a few others that still kept me
reading.
The first
problem is the multiple points of view. The book starts off with Vivvie's POV
in first person present and it's great. I loved her, I love her voice, the way
she thinks, she's passionate, she's driven and she's a really good heroine. But
then, when she arrives to this new school, we get two additional POVs,
Tristan's and Riley's. Both of them are written in third person present and I
couldn't handle it. It drove me crazy because I was really liking the story
from Vivianne's POV, but I found myself cringing every time I was starting a
chapter with either of these other two POVs. The writing wasn’t THAT bad, but
it made me confused and it felt a little forced.
There isn't
a lot I can tell you about the plot that isn't already in the premise of the
book and I think that blurb is pretty accurate. Just a little background...
Our main
character is Vivianne, who lived in Oregon and attended to Thomas Jefferson
High before they granted her the scholarship at Fairmont Academy (As a curious
thing, I found out that Thomas Jefferson is the same high school Sam attends to
in Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. Small world, people! Even in
fiction!). This academy is like a private school and a riding school mixed
together: the kids (mostly rich ones) take normal classes and horse-related
curses in the same place. I found this genius! I loved that idea.
Riley is a
boy who attends to Fairmont Academy and one of the first people Vivianne mets
there. I liked him a whole lot at the beginning, he is cute and smart and
overall a good guy.
Tristan is
another member of the popular crowd who doesn't really like being with them,
but has no choice because he made a mistake and now he has to stay with his
annoying girlfriend, who happens to be the most popular kid in Fairmont. He
plays the part of the love interest but I didn't really like him as such. He
was okay, I guess, but I didn't fall for him and wasn't crazy about how he
handled the situations he found himself in.
The second
main problem with the book: there is too much going on in the story. We
have Vivianne, struggling with her new mare which won't communicate with her
and trying to find out what really caused the death of the doctor. And this is
supposed to be the main conflict. But then, when we get the other two POVs, we
have issues all over the place. Riley's family issues, Tristan's family AND
girlfriend issues, Martina's family issues and a couple of other character that
appear in the book and they clearly have some issues too, but come on! The book
is 240 pages! You can't develop every character's issues, find them solutions
and leave everyone happy in so little space... What I'm trying to say is that
the author went a little bit overboard with conflict. I know this is intended
to be the first book on a series and therefore, it shouldn't have to solve
every single conflict because then there would be no point in writing the next
book. But, with the few conflicts we get solved by the end of this book, the
author took what little room was left to solve as much as she could with the
fewer words possible. So, even those conflicts that were solved felt
underdeveloped and the ending was really unsatisfying for me.
Overall, I
think the premise has potential and this could become a great series, but the
author has to make some decisions, put some order to the messy conflicts and
take it one at a time. I think there's still hope for this one.
Rating:
About the author
Michele grew up thirty minutes
east of San Diego in an area called Jamul. It was out there in the
country that her parents bought Michele’s first horse and she learned
how to ride at five. At nine years old she knew she loved to write and
one day wrote a short story that she showed to her dad. She’d written it
on one of his legal pads. After he read it, he looked at her and said,
“You are a writer.” With those words spoken, she’s never stopped writing
stories.
She graduated from The University of Southern
California with a degree in communications, where she studied journalism
and hoped to be a reporter. But deep down inside, she’d never given up
on being a fiction author. Fate intervened and during Michele’s senior
year at college she became pregnant with her first son who was born six
weeks prematurely. She had to stay home with her newborn who needed
constant care and it was at that time she decided to write her first
book.
She contacted Writer’s Digest and ordered their
correspondence course on writing a novel. For ten years Michele kept
writing, submitting, attending conferences and workshops and receiving
rejections but never giving up.
Finally in March 2004, Jessica
Faust at Bookends signed her as a client. One month later Michele
received THE CALL from Jessica telling her that she had a
publisher—Berkley Prime Crime, and that they wanted to sign her for
three books in The Wine Lover’s Mystery Series. “It was surreal,
wonderful and a dream come true when my agent called and told me. That
night my husband and I got a really nice bottle of Champagne and
celebrated." Then in December that second call came in about The Equine
Mystery Series.
Michele has written eight mysteries for Berkley
and is currently working on her first women's fiction novel, which will
of course involve wine and probably a horse or two.
Michele writes full time now and lives in San Diego with her very supportive husband, two sons and daughter.
Love,
